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Philip Crosby, the renowned Quality Guru, passed away last August at the age of 75. His presence will be greatly missed. It is certain that individuals and businesses, for generations to come, will benefit from his profound thinking and writings. Crosby wrote more than a dozen books and numerous articles on quality management. There have also been several books and articles written about him. Philip Crosby was not only a visionary thinker, but also was a plain‐speaking pragmatist. In his speeches, he effectively combined humor with a profound message. Crosby is well known for his zero defects and his 14 points that are taught in business courses all over the world. Several of Crosby's teachings pertaining to quality management are applicable not only to the individuals' professional lives, but also to their personal lives. As my tribute to this simple person with profound thoughts, I would like to point out a few of the teachings that have helped me over the years.

Philip Crosby, one of the world's leading experts on quality management, believes that leadership is the major issue facing chief executives today. It is his firm opinion that too many of our senior executives are skilled managers and not enough are leaders. In this interview Mr Crosby discusses the skills that tomorrow's managers will need to lead a Quality Revolution.

Philip Crosby has agreed to answer questions from The TQM Magazine readers from time to time. This first article has been prepared using questions he was asked in a recent open forum conducted in Europe. Future articles will respond to questions from The TQM Magazine's readers.

This article discusses the total quality management (TQM) movement and then elaborates about W. Edwards Deming’s experiences and views. Finally, there is a comparison of total quality management and the Deming approach to quality management. The TQM movement was attractive to many organizations during the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. To succeed, total quality management had many long‐term require‐ments. One of these was that top management must have a passion for the subject. Without this sustained passion top management’s attention and energy towards TQM would be diverted to other pressing needs. While Deming insisted that there was no “instant pudding”, many consultants in establishing themselves with a client suggested short‐term gains. Because of this search for short‐term gains, process improvement and reductions in cycle time became very popular and in some cases a final objective. Unfortunately, after they ran their short‐term course, many efforts collapsed and TQM was often declared a failure.

Looks at the success of total quality management (TQM) and the principles of completeness. Considers the quality requirements and the performance standards as essential factors within a total quality plan and states that the adaptation of the theory to the particular industry is key to success. Looks at TQM in the medical and legal profession and suggests that the practice of implementation can be helped or hindered by outside influences such as the state of the business and the culture it possesses.

The early development of the total quality movement was substantially influenced by only a few quality “pioneers”: Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, Crosby and Ishikawa. This article discusses their key contributions about quality. Argues that these US and Japanese quality “gurus” contributed a number of important ideas to today’s understanding of total quality management (TQM). Points out, however, that TQM is not merely a set of statistical tools and methods for improving the company’s product and service quality level and a quality management system like BS 5750 and ISO 9000, as suggested by these quality pioneers. TQM rather comprises a business strategy for harnessing the full capacity of all the company’s resources – not only technical – in order to achieve world‐class quality at minimum costs. Comes to the conclusion that the role of the human resource issue and the importance of the individual employee were hardly recognised by these classical quality “gurus”.

Explores the evolution of the quality issue within the health care industry and also the significance of quality in the health industry along with the historical origins of quality management. Reviews applications of total quality management in the health care industry along with implementation issues. Concludes that a fundamental understanding of the process of total quality management is an absolute requirement.

According to John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends, the United States is moving from an industrial to an information society. This is evident in the rapidly growing service industry. From 1969 to 1976, ninety percent of the newly created jobs were white collar or service oriented positions. In 1981, almost seventy percent of all jobs were in the service industry. This percentage is expected to increase to near ninety percent by 1990. The Coalition of Service Industries, Inc. estimates that service industries generate two‐thirds of the United States Gross National Product, and service industries employ three out of four working Americans. Another reason for the increase in concern for service quality is the rise of the “get my money's worth” consumer, a value‐seeking shopper who thinks in terms of total use cost rather than just initial acquisition cost.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a retrospective overview of total quality management (TQM) in the context of library services.

This paper presents a study of TQM and a comparative analysis of TQM in the library context.

Studies of both theoretical principles and experimental implementations demonstrate that it is worthwhile to introduce TQM to the academic libraries. The process of implementing TQM in libraries involves a conceptual change in library professionals and a cultural transformation in the organizational operations. Without a long‐term thinking and commitment, it is not applicable. Teamwork is important for successful implementation of TQM. Every step of the process depends upon the constant support of the top management. Their role determines how far and how long the implementation can go. Therefore, once a decision is made to apply TQM, a strong leadership is required.

It is still too early to predict that TQM is a perfect model for library management.

TQM provides a model and benchmark as guidelines in making new strategies in libraries facing today's great changes. It is arguable whether it is feasible to apply the principles without reservation, but it is reasonable to adopt the techniques with adaptations suitable to the library environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Philip B. Crosby’s 14 quality principles and analyze the interaction between them. Hitherto no research has been published on the implementation of total quality management (TQM) using Crosby’s 14 principles. To fill this gap, interpretive structural modeling (ISM) and Matrix Impact Cross-Reference Multiplication Applied to a Classification (MICMAC) analysis have been designed to prioritize, sequence and categorize variables to find both the dependence and driving power of these variables.

At the initial stage experts from industry as well as from academia were contacted to provide an input for ISM methodology and examine interactions between identified variables. In this approach, interpretations of the interrelationships among variables have been discussed, whereas MICMAC analysis is used to discover dependence and driving power.

The results of the investigation revealed that “Management Commitment,” “Quality Improvement Team,” “Quality Awareness,” “Supervisor Training,” “Goal Setting” and “Cost of Quality Evaluation” are strategic requirements; “Corrective Action,” “Zero Defects Day” and “Error Cause Removal” are tactical requirements. “Recognition,” “Quality Measurement,” “Quality Councils” and “Do It Over Again” are operational requirements for TQM applications.

ISM is used as a part of this research to provide valuable insights into interrelationships among Crosby’s quality principles through a systematic framework. The research opens up a new focus area on the implementation of TQM for services as well as for the manufacturing industry.