Quality Integration

Quality Integration (QI) implies professional quality practices that are integrated seamlessly with normal management activities in any kinds of organizations. Quality integration includes Quality Management (QM) and Quality Assurance (QA) that become practical and effective organizational management procedures through sound guiding ideas and principles, effective methods and tools, and innovative infrastructure solutions.

Quality management equals quality of management. Quality assurance implies all those managerial activities that aim at creating and strenghtening confidence among an organization's customers and other stakeholders. Quality management is a necessary basis for a convincing quality assurance.

Quality integration covers the subject areas considered within the recognized ISO 9000 standards and performance excellence models (quality awards criteria). Also the topics of many other specialized management areas, e.g. environmental management, safety management, risk management, and information security management, are typical sub-domains of the quality integration.

One can also find significant ideas for quality integration from teachings of recognized gurus of quality profession and through benchmarking from the practices of world class organizations although they are not necessarily explicitly called as quality integration aspects. Even large national and international quality movements emphasize the approach of business-integrated quality.