Alignability® - TQM

Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management (TQM) was developed in the mid 1940s by Dr. W. Edward Deming. TQM makes extensive use of the Shewhart Cycle. This cycle was developed by Dr. Walter A. Shewhart as part of his work on statistical control of industrial processes at Bell Telephone Laboratories. TQM was later adapted for office processes by Deming's friend William E. Conway. Mr. Conway, who was the CEO of Nashua Corporation, also made good use of the Shewhart Cycle for continuous improvement.

 Dr. Walter Andrew Shewhart


The Shewhart Cycle forms the basis for the Alignability® Process Model. This makes continuous improvement intrinsic to the Alignability® Process Model. The way the Alignability® Process Model helps service provider organizations to continuously improve their Alignability is described below.

Continuous Improvement

The first step towards achieving improved Alignability® is to take firm control of the infrastructure by implementing the Configuration Management process. The configuration management database (CMDB) provides an accurate and complete view of the IT infrastructure.

Next, use the information that is registered within the Incident Management process about service disruptions to identify problems. This is done within the Problem Management process where structural solutions are also proposed to eliminate the identified problems.

The proposed structural solutions are, in turn, implemented by Change Management after which the CMDB is updated.

The updated CMDB reflects the new, more stable, environment that ensures a reduced number of service disruptions.

This completes the continuous improvement cycle that is intrinsic to the Alignability® Process Model. The result of continuously stabilizing the infrastructure (i.e. the reduced number of service disruptions) allows specialists to focus more on implementing changes that were requested by customer representatives within the Service Level Management process. These changes should deliver a service offering that is better aligned with the current requirements of the customers.