Management science–total quality management interfaces: An integrative framework

Management science (MS) and total quality management (TQM) are powerful approaches to improving the operations of organizations. While MS uses quantitative techniques to yield information-based strategies for decision problems, TQM aims at improving the quality of processes to produce superior products at lower cost. Hence, MS and TQM should, in principle, be intertwined to attain efficient and cost-effective operations. However, neither researchers nor practitioners in these two fields have recognized the vital linkage. By viewing TQM from process-improvement and implementation perspectives, I establish links of prominent MS techniques, such as decision analysis, forecasting, mathematical programming, and simulation, to various facets of TQM. Applications of two important tools (linear programmng and simulation) to the service operations of high customer-contact organizations illustrate these linkages. I strongly encourage organizations to systematically integrate MS techniques into TQM programs. Such efforts will result in better planning and implementation of TQM efforts.