ABSTRACT

In early 1990 Czechoslovak companies faced a whirlwind of abrupt change in the required quality levels of their products. A new postrevolution competitive manufacturing environment forced companies to transform a prerevolution environment insulated by bureaucratic centralization employing coercive planning that hindered quality management. A quality management situation in Czechoslovakia was greatly influenced by the political changes that occurred after the revolution. Realizing that quality levels were too low to compete internationally, the government established a state office for standardization to look into quality matters. The main goal of the production evaluations was to improve the relative quality of products for both foreign and domestic markets. The use of statistical quality control and total quality management (TQM) within these manuals and systems highlighted the fact that progress was being made. The concept behind TQM is that to achieve high quality and to stay competitive, it is necessary to make an organization-wide commitment to quality.