While the Total Quality Management (TQM) movement in the United States has led to significant advances in the internal processes and products of hundreds of major corporations and Government agencies, very little evident change has been realized from the application of TQM to the products and processes which transcend organizational interaction, and especially those processes and products which exist at the most painful, potentially most wasteful and often the most confrontationally negative interface anywhere - the interactions of Government and industry within the Acquisition and Logistic Support Processes.

Given, (1) the severe budgetary and projected manpower cuts facing the military today, (2) the rapidly declining interest of corporate leaders in pursuing a business arena that has resisted sufficient profit margins without the presence of major program, big ticket hardware items, and (3) the continuing evidence of increases in the worldwide threat capability (requiring continuing investment in new technologies and combat capabilities) despite a lessening of geopolitical military pressures, TQM is the only current, proven and available intermediary with the capability of turning each of these constraints into a positive environment for all of the training industry's players. It is time for senior management leaders in both the Government and industry to turn their collective attentions from the relatively immediate, internal benefits of TQM and look to applying these proven principles to the very survival of all agencies required to exist and profit within the Acquisition and Logistics processes.