The method known as Total Quality Management (TQM) is a systematic approach to creating and collectively forming the elements of people, processes, products, and services used to meet customer needs, with the aim of ensuring their quality. In this management approach, all employees are included in quality improvement by utilizing their ideas and goals in all processes. The goal is the continuous improvement of processes, products, and services by identifying them and improving their relationships within the process. Through the continuous improvement of these elements, the targeted outcomes include customer satisfaction, teamwork, employee responsibility, motivation, and sustainability. The Food Chain, known as the entire process from raw material preparation, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, distribution, to market supply in the production of food items such as milk and its products, essentially encompasses all processing stages from field to fork. The purpose of food quality and safety management systems is to identify and prevent problems and issues before they occur. Nowadays, food quality and safety management systems, which are applied in all sectors of the food industry, whether in product or service production, are considered an important subject that master's students need to learn due to their potential for application and use in their working sectors.

The goal of TQM is to produce quality at a low cost. In this context, the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle, also known as the PUKO cycle, is taken into consideration. Principles such as customer focus, teamwork, employee training, full participation, a preventive approach, continuous improvement, and other TQM principles will be covered, along with theoretical and practical information on tools and techniques used in TQM, such as quality circles, benchmarking, control charts, relationship diagrams, brainstorming, nominal group technique, flowcharts, etc. In the Total Quality concept, management, human, work, process, product, and service qualities necessary to meet customer requirements in all activities conducted in a business are addressed within a system approach, emphasizing the importance of the participation of all employees, consensus on goals and ideas, and their development. The fundamental idea of this approach is to 'not make errors' rather than 'eliminate errors.' The course will also cover quality management systems such as ISO 9000 or practical applications of quality/safety management systems like HACCP or ISO 22000, specifically identifying physical, chemical, and biological hazards that may occur in milk and its products. This includes conducting hazard analyses, identifying critical control points, and determining preventive/corrective actions at these points. These systems provide systematic approaches to controlling the quality of products and processes. Therefore, prior to the implementation of these systems, some programs like GAP, GHP, GMP should be known, and the course will include information on these programs.