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The authors are grateful to the anonymous referees for theirextremely useful and helpful comments on the earlier version of thismanuscript which helped considerbly to improve the presentation of thearticle.
A global perspective view of total quality management
Ever since the industrial world began to experience tough globalcompetition, the generic term "total quality management"(TQM) has become the centre of discussions. Though globally TQM isapproved as a ladder for achieving excellence in quality to reach asuperior level in the highly competitive market, there still existdiffering views on the approaches involved in achieving it. Even as theindustrial world witnesses strident campaigning by quality engineeringexperts and academicians over implementing successful TQM, manysceptical observations are made by the manufacturers who attempted toimplement TQM in their firms at the expense of money and time. A briefbut careful study made by the authors reveals that even thoughconsiderable efforts are made in modern manufacturing firms tofacilitate employees' participation in quality improvement projectsthrough quality circle programmes, only subtle attempts are made toreview the existing statistical quality and process control practiceswhich basically embrace the principle of compromising quality byjustifying the deviations from the target parameters. This is a grossviolation of the principles, objectives and philosophy of TQM. As amatter of fact, as long as these conventional statistical practicesdominate manufacturing firms, there is little chance of effecting TQM,the philosophy of which lies on two main pillars, namely, continuousimprovement of quality, and achieving quality through the backing of allin the concern. Already plenty of successful case studies from theindustrial world have been reported with regard to making people supportquality through quality circle programmes[1 ]. However, success stories leading to the achievement ofcontinuous quality improvement, which is not only a means but also theultimate goal of TQM, is reported in literature to a very slight extentfor it is misinterpreted as an ideal goal not normally possible toachieve.
Essence of research
Since statistical techniques do not aid continuous qualityimprovement, the need has arisen to find new techniques and tools toreplace the present-day quality systems infected with statisticaltechniques. In this context, major portions of the methods proclaimed byJapanese-born quality engineering expert Dr Genuchi Taguchi, called"on-line quality control methods", are found to offermeaningful solutions in the process of ensuring continuous qualityimprovement in manufacturing firms. Though a large number of casestudies have...