Total Quality Management (TQM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) have been considered to be the two most important strategic approaches for the organizations like manufacturing, services and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). They have become the prerequisite for success and competitive advantage in the global market. This paper compares and contrasts the issues of TQM and SCM related to their similarities, and identifies the potential benefits by integrating them through an extant review of literature. The paper adopted an extensive literature survey methodology on the concepts and themes of TQM and SCM to explore how definitions, origin, goals, practices, development stages, focus area, tools used and scope could benefit in their integration. Some potential benefits of TQM and SCM are also identified from the extant literature review and are listed. The literature review suggested that TQM and SCM strengthen the organizational competitiveness and improve customer satisfaction. Also, TQM is more focused on continuous quality improvement and participation while SCM emphasizes on supplier relationship and management, and timely delivery of products and services. This paper revealed eight potential benefits of TQM and SCM and are discussed in detail. The literature review further showed that there are many researches taken on TQM and SCM individually, dealing with different aspects and themes but a comparative study of present type are still in its nascent stage that integrates the two concepts. This paper could therefore, bring out some opportunities for managers and practitioners to integrate and implement TQM and SCM in their organizations more effectively to achieve maximum benefits.

As the global market is evolving and increasing worldwide competition with the technological advancements, quality managers and supply chain managers are facing many new challenges, as traditional approaches to managing quality and supply chains prove increasingly inefficient. The adoption of `totality' in Quality Management (QM) principles can improve and manage these new challengesboth internal and external functions and operations of the organization that is involving `all' and thus moving from QM to Total Quality Management (TQM). Supply Chain Management (SCM) is usually seen as a way to improve competitive performance by combining the internal functions of a company and linking them with external operations of suppliers, customers and other chain members (Tutuncu and Kucukusta, 2008). This may lead to change the traditional structure of the organization. Therefore, the integration of TQM principles offers potential for broadening the perspective of SCM from its traditional narrow focus on costs and competitive relationship to focusing on cooperative relationships between members of the supply chain (Flynn and Flynn, 2005). TQM and SCM have a significant role in strengthening the organizational competitiveness (Sila et al., 2006), and share the same ultimate goal of customer satisfaction (Lamey, 1996; Gunasekaran et al., 2001; Gunasekaran and McGaughey, 2003; Mills et al., 2004; and Vanichchinchai and Igel, 2009). But their approaches to achieve this ultimate goal are different. TQM emphasizes on continuous quality improvement and participation while SCM emphasizes on supplier relationship and management, both at reduced costs. Therefore, better quality and timely delivery of products and services will improve customer satisfaction and strengthen the organizational competitiveness. There may be few instances where problems in implementing the integrated TQM and SCM approaches arise because of differences in quality and supplier performance. Overall, the ultimate goal for both TQM and SCM is identical and aims to achieve customer satisfaction and strengthen the organizational competitiveness.

Since both TQM and SCM require participation from all the internal functions and continuous collaboration with all external partners, they offer a unique framework to integrate participation and partnership (Dean and Bowen, 1994; Sohal and Anderson, 1999; and Gimenez, 2004). However, TQM focuses more on internal participation, whereas SCM focuses more on external partnerships. An essential requirement and a fundamental challenge in the application of TQM in SCM is the development of programs and techniques that encourage culturally diverse workforces to continuously improve all areas of organization performance (Gunasekaran and McGaughey, 2003). TQM can enhance communication along with supply chain, partnership development and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) (Madu and Madu, 2003).

Supply Chain Management Journal, Total Quality Management, Small and Medium Enterprises, Global Market, Organizational Competitiveness, Customer Relationship Management, Construction Industry, Hhealthcare Organizations, Quality Function Deployment Technique, Strategic Planning, Supply Chain Goals, Development Stages, Customer Satisfaction.