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.