51�Թ�

Then in the late 80’s Total Quality Management was a business philosophy for all the company’s activities.

The franchisor could offer marketing support or provide the franchisee with total quality management tools and services.

“We’re not a complex company with lots of departments. There are incredibly high-quality engineers, and business people with the raw street smarts needed to make money, with not a lot of buffering between the two. We operate under a regime of total product development, an innovation equivalent of ‘total quality management’ in manufacturing; everyone is expected to take part in the effort to build better products.”

Production concepts, such as lean manufacturing, six sigma and total quality management, have been around for decades, but now new ideas, such as distributed manufacturing, are being tried.

They combine a cautious and long-term-oriented approach to business with management practices, such as lean manufacturing and total quality management.