Will reengineering replace TQM?

Abstract

If total quality management (TQM) was the key management concept of the decade of the 1980s, then surely reengineering has become the concept for the 1990s. Popular views on reengineering include: reengineering has supplanted TQM, reengineering alternates with TQM allowing for continuous improvement between periods of radical change, and reengineering has peaked and is on its way out. In this article, the authors examine these concepts and views, explores the relation of reengineering to TQM, and demonstrates that these views are incorrect or, at best, incomplete.