The concept of quality management is operationalized in an organization through a Quality Management System (QMS) - a complex, coordinated set of activities and behaviors aimed at improving the quality of an organization's processes, goods, and services. Like all systems, a QMS must be planned, monitored, improved, and maintained over time to function at its best. For this, measurement is key.

The standard of quality management performance developed by Triantis, et. al. (1991b) is the quality management system definition used in this thesis. The thesis subsequently makes three contributions. First, it provides a methodology for defining generic measures of QMS performance and evolution, and implements this methodology in creating more than 200 prototype measures for 10 out off the 37 component "modules" of a QMS. Second, a methodology is presented for developing a tool to collect the very data called for by the measures. This methodology is implemented and a prototype questionnaire developed to collect measurement data for the Vendor/Contractor Relations (VCR)module of a QMS. Third, given the vast amount of data collected with the various questionnaires that needs to be manipulated in order to manage the QMS, it is important to be able to use automation. Therefore, it becomes necessary to logically organize the data. The entity-relationship (E/R) modeling technique is one approach that can be used to achieve this objective. This E/R approach is used to logically organize data that is generated by the questionnaire for the VCR module. In so doing, one can assess the potential viability of this data modeling approach and begin laying the foundation for a database that will support the measurement requirements of a QMS.