Improving the competitiveness of manufacturing companies by continuous incremental change

Total quality management (TQM) is an approach to change that can respond to the needs of the organisation and customers and has become the raison d’être of any organisation wishing to be competitive in an era of globalization. Since the introduction of a quality approach into manufacturing it has left its mark across the landscape of manufacturing industry. In some ways it is axiomatic that reacting to or initiating such a change has not led to improvement in business processes. Management has become disillusioned with TQM and has sought an alternative approach to change in an attempt to become more competitive, flexible and responsive to customer demands. Business process re‐engineering (BPR) has been advocated as an alternative to TQM. While BPR seeks radical performance improvements as an objective, the path that is taken is much more incremental. Therefore, change should be viewed as a continuous process. Argues that TQM is the foundation for BPR, but that only by implementing change progressively will BPR be potentially successful in the long term.