Definition of Quality Management
Quality Management is based on 7 principles, and is described in ISO 9001 and other standards.
The seven quality management principles (QMPs) are:
1. Customer Focus - the primary focus of Quality Management (QM) is to meet customer requirements and to strive to exceed customer expectations
2. Leadership - leaders at all levels establish unity of purpose and direction and create conditions in which people are engaged in achieving the organisation's quality objectives.
3. Engagement of people - competent, empowered and engaged people at all levels are essential to enhance the organisation's capability to create and deliver value.
4. Process approach - consistent and predictable results are achieved more effectively when activities are understood and managed as interrelated processes that function as a coherent system. Processes like NonConformance Management.
5. Improvement - successful organisations have an ongoing focus on improvement.
6. Evidence-based decision making - decisions based on the analysis and evaluation of data and information are more likely to produce desired results.
7. Relationship management - for sustained success, an organisation manages its relationships with interested parties, such as suppliers.
Of the four main components of quality management, Non-Conformance management focusses more on the Assurance and Control aspects.