Preliminary system design and plan for the initial implementation of total quality management in an engineering services firm

Abstract

Recent changes in the world have deeply affected the defense environment in the United States. A significant reduction in threat, a change in existing threat, and a downsizing/reconfiguration of the defense program is inevitable. This decrease in the defense budget will result in an increase in competition for contracts from the federal government. Engineering Services Firms must be able to provide higher quality, innovative products at a lower cost to their customer faster than ever before.

With the trend toward a global economy and increasing global competitiveness, there exists a need for a firm to change its current operating and management systems to continuously increase the quality of the outputs and the processes that produce these outputs, to remain top in their industry. One method of achieving this is to manage the processes of the firm through the implementation Total Quality Management.

This project demonstrates the use of the systems engineering approach to develop a preliminary system design and plan for the initial implementation of Total Quality Management in an Engineering Services Firm.