6. Total Quality Management of the Product Life Cycle in an IoT Environment

Feigenbaum [218] developed the theory of total quality management in 1961. He held that total quality management (TQM) aims at fully satisfying customer requirements through market research, design, production, and services. He integrated the enterprise activities of designing quality, maintaining quality, and improving quality into an effective system. Shewhart [247] promoted the understanding of quality and quality management and accelerated the development of quality management. Johnson and Jack [224] indicated that TQM is “doing the right thing at the right time.” Deming [227] noted that the role of quality management in business is to create the constancy of purpose for the improvement of products and to create a system that can produce quality outcomes. Benson et al. [248] pointed out that quality is to “satisfy or delight the customer.” All quality improvement initiatives must start from an understanding of customer requirements. Samson and Terziovski [215] indicated that TQM must utilize techniques that improve product quality and processes to help a firm improve its competitive performance. Jeong et al. [240] thought total quality management means making sure everything and everyone in the organization realize continuous quality improvement. Hoanga et al. [244] summarized 11 measurements of the TQM model, including leadership and top management commitment, employee involvement, education and training, teamwork, employee empowerment, customer focus, process management, strategic planning, open organization, information and analysis system, and service. Many researchers systematically summarized the methods for quality management and tried to improve the concepts of quality management using the specific requirements of certain enterprises.