Quality Management: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

The advent of information technology and science has affected almost every sphere of human life and also businesses. While traditional quality management practices were relying upon data collection-based approach, the upcoming generation demands a predictive maintenance system for quality control to cater to the need for real-time digitally generated data. Unlike the traditional quality management approach, the focus of such predictive maintenance system will be more on defect prevention instead of defect reduction. Understanding the changing scenario of quality management practices is, therefore, relevant to examine in order to reflect upon the contemporary need of the market. Hence, this research paper is aimed to propose a continuous thread of discussion regarding the quality management environment from the initiation of quality management practices to the futuristic digital economy. Various dimensions of quality management practices over different generations are reviewed and discussed in this paper. In addition to this, the paper also proposes a possible future scenario of quality management practices with reference to different dimensions like changing customer need, economic conditions, business environment, technology, etc.