TQM Implementation at NASA

GAO reviewed the implementation of total quality management (TQM) at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). GAO found that: (1) all 8 NASA facilities responding to a GAO survey have implemented TQM; (2) 6 of the 8 facilities began TQM implementation within the last 3 years; (3) the NASA facilities reported that their involvement in common TQM activities increased as their TQM maturity increased; (4) six facilities believed that TQM had positive benefits and one believed that it was too soon to judge TQM benefits; and (5) NASA facilities identified employees' beliefs that they were not empowered to make changes, resistance to measuring processes, insufficient managerial support for TQM, difficulty in measuring external customers' satisfaction, and management's unfamiliarity or discomfort with statistics and measurement techniques as the most significant barriers to TQM.