Focus on Quality and Prevention of Problems

Many definitions of quality exist. I define quality as consistently producing what the customer wants while reducing errors before and after delivery to the customer. More importantly, however, quality is not so much an outcome as a never ending process of continually improving the quality of what your company, organization or family produces.
TQM emphasizes detecting potential problems before they occur. A defect for this definition can be an imperfect product or one that just doesn't live up to customer expectation. Failure to prevent defects has several consequences:

1. The need to inspect other people finished work, rather than relying on the worker's own motivation and skill. This inspection requires extra people and resources.
2. If another employee (a supervisor or perhaps a "checker") finds errors, someone must fix the error, causing extra time and workload, or scrap it with all the accompanying waste;
3. If customers find the errors, this can cause dissatisfaction, loss of customer confidence, and perhaps loss of customers themselves.