(a) The key aspects of Total Quality Management are:
(1) continuous improvement in operations and systems, to improve quality
(2) a policy of trying to achieve zero defects in production (getting things right the first time)
(3) the use of statistical quality control to prevent defective items reaching customers
(4) employee involvement in efforts to improve quality, for example by using quality circles
(5) measures to improve production systems, such as minimising inventory levels, minimising the movement of materials, minimising setup times: all these take time and money but do not add any value.

(b) Quality-related costs can be grouped into four categories:
(1) Prevention costs: these are costs incurred in preventing quality problems. Important elements of prevention costs are costs of ensuring good product design and costs of training employees.
(2) Appraisal costs: these are the costs of testing for quality, such as inspection costs and quality control costs.
(3) Internal failure costs: these are the costs of faults and errors in processing, such as costs of waste, scrap and re-working rejected items.
(4) External failure costs: these are the costs of quality problems after the product (or service) has been delivered to the customer such as the cost of handling customer complaints, and the loss of future business/sales.
In the traditional approach, the aim should be to minimise the total of quality-related costs. At this cost-minimising level of quality, some errors will occur. The TQM approach is that all errors should be avoided and sub-standard work is unacceptable. External failure costs are under-estimated, and it is worth spending money on prevention and appraisal costs to avoid internal and external failure costs, which will be higher.

(c) Key aspects of JIT management are:
(1) Hold no inventory. This requires just-in-time purchasing (to avoid raw materials inventory) and just-in-time production (to avoid finished goods inventory). Holding inventory is wasteful, and does not add value.
(2) Just-in-time purchasing calls for close collaboration with key suppliers.
(3) Just-in-time production involves trying to produce items exactly in time to meet customer needs for delivery: this calls for fast production times and avoiding breakdowns and any hold-ups or bottleneck in production.
(4) Production systems need to be flexible, to react to changes in demand from customers.
(5) Avoid over-production (which results in finished goods inventory).
(6) Eliminate inefficiency and poor quality in production – eliminate waste, minimise the movement of materials (which adds no value), minimise waiting times, improve the layout of the factory floor (to minimise movement of materials), reduce setup times (which do not add value) and improve visibility in the work place (by using cards or other signalling systems).

(d) Activity based management uses activity based costing to analyse the cost of activities within an organisation. It focuses on the cost of activities and the causes of these costs occurring (cost drivers). The aim of ABM should be to improve the value obtained from the activities, eliminate activities that do not add value or reduce the costs of activities.