Summary

GAO reviewed the Department of the Treasury's implementation of total quality management (TQM). GAO found that: (1) about 93 percent of Treasury facilities have implemented or plan to implement TQM; (2) as TQM maturity increased, Treasury became more involved in common TQM activities, benefits increased, and internal operating conditions improved; (3) almost three-quarters of the Treasury facilities reported positive benefits from TQM, while about 22 percent believed it was too soon to judge TQM benefits; (4) Treasury facilities believed that the most important barriers to TQM implementation were employees' empowerment to make changes, funding constraints, and management unfamiliarity with statistics and measurement techniques; and (5) barriers to TQM implementation became less troublesome as TQM maturity increased.