Total Quality (TQ) Model and Methodologies Document There are various models or methodologies to choose from, but the decision was made to discuss lean manufacturing which will help reduce costs by narrowing processes and eliminating waste. Within the Pearson organization, there are several departments that can incorporate lean manufacturing to eliminate waste and improve processes or procedures across departments. Managers and employees should have a common understanding about lean manufacturing for it to work. In the more in-depth description, Pearson will be able to understand the importance of adding this process to strategic planning. Since there are various departments at Pearson, a good description of lean manufacturing that may need assistance would be Quality Assurance. The Quality Assurance department will be the target of this strategic planning initiative. Pearson Quality Assurance is a department that focuses on customer needs by checking all data (reports and files) that are delivered to the Department of Education, including each individual district. Quality assurance managers take every measure to ensure that quality controls are valid and identify potential risks that could hinder the timely delivery of results. There are some issues that can prevent an employee from functioning well, especially if the desk is cluttered with a lot of paper, perhaps old documents from years ago. The first step to solving this problem is to identify why employees keep all this information on their desks. Lean manufacturing will help quality assurance reduce waste that can be eliminated. Employees would be able to operate better than ever, especially by reducing customer complaints. According to Alukal.G, “Lean is a manufacturing philosophy that reduces the lead time between a customer's order and the shipment of products or parts through the elimination of all forms of waste.” (2003, paragraph 2) QA will be able to eliminate all excess documents and remove items from the desk to ensure there is enough space to work on the reports in Pearson will also help reduce cycle times and unnecessary situations that might occur. Continuous improvement is always a good strategy to implement because employees will never know what can happen in the near future. The goal of this lean strategy process is to have to get buy-in from the upper management team to carry forward the improvement initiative across various departments.