The term TQM which stands for Total Quality Management has been defined and explained variously. To some it is a business strategy treating the awareness of quality in all the processes of an organization as the core, while others look upon it a philosophy integrating all the vital functions of an organization to meet the ends of quality. The introduction of TQM in the Indian scenario was unavoidable and inevitable with the globalization coming in a big way since the early nineties. The Indian industry operated in the protected space without any threat of international competition and largely served a captive market with substandard quality of products. With emergence of international companies setting up their shops to tap vast Indian market Let us examine the real-life case of a component supplier which used to supply auto glass to a large automobile manufacture with just one plant and a limited number of customers in the pre-TQM period and the scenario after the introduction of TQM.

The Indian automobile industry has witnessed an explosive growth over the last one an a half decades with entry of some of the big names of the world, and the company which was enjoying a relatively safe position in a scenario where the competition form other auto glass manufactures was non-existent and orders from the limited numbers of customers were fairly assured, suddenly woke up to this new reality of presence of quality demanding customers as well as strong peer competition. Within the company the focus was still on production and operations: a classic case of 'get the product to the customer'. And it lost no time in initiating the TQM steps by formulating the following objectives:

• Maintain cost competitiveness without depending on low cost labour;

• Maintain its leadership position as the 'preferred choice' of the vendors;

• Optimize the benefits of stakeholders.

In order to commence TQM activities, the organization also needed to be re-structered. Responsibilities were defined and delegated and the review processes were strengthened. A Performance Management and Development (PMD) System was developed to align the interests of the people towards the vision and long term goals and channel their abilities towards a common goal. Daily work management practices such as the SDCA and PDCA cycles were instituted. Quality improvement initiatives were undertaken using FMEA for process risk management, implementing process control and management activities using SPC, '5-Why' analysis, widespread usage of QC tools and DOE for problem solving and creating detailed quality assurance (QA) diagrams for systematic QA activities. Quality Circle (QC) activities were initiated .

The results were on obvious and expected lines. As a result of the above, accurate and timely information began to follow, authorities were delegated and cascaded across the organization which helped to significantly improve quality and remained the preferred supplier of a number leading automakers.