Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on total quality management (TQM) in the federal government.

GAO found that: (1) a significant number of federal organizations are implementing TQM; (2) 68 percent of federal entities that GAO surveyed reported that they were working on various phases of TQM, and most reported that they were in the early stages of TQM programs; (3) those agencies that had implemented TQM reported that only about 13 percent of their employees were involved in TQM activities; (4) some respondents believed that barriers to TQM implementation included employee issues and funding issues; (5) those agencies that reported that their programs were more mature also reported higher involvement in TQM activities; and (6) those agencies with more mature programs were less likely to report barriers to TQM implementation.

• View Report (PDF)