There are three approaches to this theory: quality control, quality assurance and total quality management (TQM). Quality control seeks to manage and reduce errors at every stage of production, and quality assurance focuses on how workers can reduce defects while improving their performance. Total Quality Management incorporates both of these concepts, as well as seeking continuous improvement or small incremental changes to processes to improve quality and efficiency. It is similar to systems management in that customer feedback is critical to working to improve processes. Another aspect of TQM is the use of benchmarking. Benchmarking compares the company to the best practices of competitors and seeks to improve to meet and exceed the highest standards. The specific focus on quality and error reduction is what makes quality management different from the other two