The Quality Journey

The Evolution of Strategy for Quality

According to Subburaj Ramasamy, Author of Total Quality Management, McGraw Hill International Edition 2009, the strategy for quality evolved with time – from mere inspection in Pre-World War II to Quality Control, Quality Assurance in Post-World War II to Quality Management to Total Quality Management. The evolution was a result of the development of concepts, ideas, theories and teachings of the Quality Management Gurus. Notably, it was in the early 1950’s - the Americans took the message of quality in Japan. In turn, in the late 1950’s – Japanese who developed new concepts in response to the Americans. And in the 1970’s to 1980’s – Western Gurus who followed the Japanese industrial success.[1] The journey of quality continues with new and/or variety of concepts, ideas and theories emerge as businesses and organizations seek continual improvement and to satisfy or exceed the changing customer expectations or requirements.

What is a Quality Guru?

“A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others (teacher).” - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [2]

“A guru, by definition, is a good person, a wise person and a teacher. A quality guru should be all of these, plus have a concept and approach to quality within business that has made a major and lasting impact.” [3]

The Quality Gurus and their Contribution (Life, Works and Writings)

Some selected Quality Gurus mentioned below have made a significant impact on the world through their contributions to improving not only businesses, but all types of organizations including government, military, educational institutions, among others.

William Edwards Deming

William Edwards Deming was born in Sioux City, Iowa on 14 October 1900 to William Albert Deming and Pluma Irene Edwards.

As an adult, he used the name W. Edwards Deming.

His brother, Robert Edwards was born on 11 May 1902; his sister, Elizabeth Marie, later Elizabeth Deming Hood was born on 21 January 1909. The family lived at 121 Bluff Street in Sioux City.

In 1904, they moved to the Edwards farm located in Polk City,between Ames and Des Moines. The farm was owned by Pluma’s father, Henry Coffin Edwards (Pluma’s mother, Elizabeth Grant, died when Pluma was young).

In an effort to encourage settlement in the West, the United States government granted parcels of land (usually 40 or 80 acres) to citizens who agreed to settle, farm or develop the land. William Albert Deming filed on 40 acres in Camp Coulter, later named Powell, Wyoming. The family moved to Wyoming in 1907. They rented a house in Cody until they could build on their own land. William Albert learned that his parcel was poor, useless for farming.

Their first dwelling was a shelter, rectangular in shape (like a railroad box car), covered with tar paper, often referred to as a tar paper shack. Water was pumped from a well. There was little protection from the harsh weather. The family was often cold, hungry and in debt.

Eighty years later, on a visit to Powell, Dr. Deming learned that the 40 acres was still referred to as the Deming Addition.

Pluma Irene and William Albert Deming were well-educated and emphasized the importance of education to their children. Pluma had studied in San Francisco and was a musician. William Albert had studied mathematics and law. Young Ed Deming attended school in Powell and held odd jobs to help support the family.

In 1917, he enrolled in the University of Wyoming at Laramie. In 1921 he graduated with a B.S. in electrical engineering. In 1925, he received an M.S. from the University of Colorado and in 1928, a Ph.D. from Yale University. Both graduate degrees were in mathematics and mathematical physics.

Dr. Deming studied music theory, played several instruments and composed two masses, several canticles and an easily sung version of the Star Spangled Banner.

Dr. Deming married Agnes Bell in 1922 in Wyoming. Agnes and Ed had a daughter, Dorothy. Agnes died in 1930. Dr. Deming married Lola Elizabeth Shupe in 1932. They had two daughters, Diana and Linda. Dorothy died in 1984.

Dr. and Mrs. Deming lived in Washington, D. C. for the remainder of their lives in the house that they bought in 1936. With her family at her side, Mrs. Deming died on 25 June 1986. Dr. Deming, surrounded by his family, died at his home on 20 December 1993.

International Activities

Statistician, Allied Mission to Observe the Greek Elections, January-April 1946; July-October 1946 Consultant in sampling to the Government of India, January and February 1947; December 1951; March 1971

Delegate from the A.A.A.S. to the Indian Science Congress, New Delhi, January 1947

Adviser in sampling techniques to the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers, Tokyo, 1947 and 1950

Teacher and consultant to Japanese industry, through the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers 1950, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1960, 1965

Member of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Statistical Sampling, 1947-52

Consultant to the Census of Mexico, to the Bank of Mexico, and to the Ministry of Economy, 1954, 1955

Consultant., Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden, 1953

Consultant to the Central Statistical Office of Turkey, 1959-1962

Lecturer, London School of Economics, March 1964

Lecturer, Institut de Statistique de l'Universite de Paris, March 1964

Consultant to the China Productivity Center, Taiwan, 1970, 1971

Lecturer in Santiago, Córdoba (Argentina), and Buenos Aires, under the auspices of the Inter American Statistical Institute, 1971.

Honors

Taylor Key award, American Management Association, 1983

The Deming prize was instituted by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers and is awarded each year in Japan to a statistician for contributions to statistical theory. The Deming prize for application is awarded to a company for improved use of statistical theory in organization, consumer research, design of product and production.

Recipient of the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure, from the Emperor of Japan, 1960, for improvement of quality and of Japanese economy, through the statistical control of quality.

Recipient of the Shewhart Medal for 1955, from the American Society for Quality Control.

Elected in 1972 most distinguished graduate from the University of Wyoming.

Elected in 1983 to the National Academy of Engineering.

Inducted into the Science and Technology Hall of Fame, Dayton, 1986.

In 1980, the Metropolitan section of the American Society for Quality Control established the annual Deming Medal for the improvement of quality and productivity.

Recipient of the Samuel S. Wilks Award from the American Statistical Association in 1983.

Recipient of the Distinguished Career in Science award from the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.

Recipient of the National Medal of Technology from President Reagan in 1987.

Societies

American Statistical Association (Fellow)

Royal Statistical Society (Honorary Fellow)

Institute of Mathematical Statistics (Fellow)

American Society for Quality Control (Honorary Life Member)

International Statistical Institute

Philosophical Society of Washington

World Association for Public Opinion Research

Market Research Council

Biometric Society (Honorary Life Member)

American Society for Testing and Materials (Honorary Member)

Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (Honorary Life Member)

Japanese Statistical Association (Honorary Life Member)

Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft (Honorary Life Member)

Operations Research Society of America

American Institute of Industrial Engineers (Honorary Life Member)

National Academy of Engineering

Automotive Hall of Fame

Committees

Various committees, national and international, on (a) statistical techniques in standards of safety and for research and industrial use, and on (b) standards of professional statistical practice.

Record of Education, Honors and Experience

Instructor in engineering, University of Wyoming 1921-22

Assistant professor of physics, Colorado School of Mines 1922-24

Assistant professor of physics, University of Colorado 1924-25

Instructor in physics, Yale University 1925-27

Mathematical physicist, U.S. Department of Agriculture 1927-39

Adviser in sampling, U.S. Bureau of the Census 1939-45

Professor of Statistics, Graduate School of Business Administration, New York University 1946-93

Consultant in research and in industry 1946-93

Distinguished Professor, Columbia University 1985-93

Seminars, four days, for improvement of quality and productivity, based largely on statistically stable and unstable systems, sponsored by the George Washington University and by the Quality Enhancement Seminars, Los Angeles, about 8000 people in attendance annually. 1981-93

Degrees

B.S. University of Wyoming 1921

M.S. University of Colorado 1924

Ph.D. Yale University 1928

LL.D. (honoris causa) University of Wyoming 1958

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Rivier College 1981

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Ohio State University 1982

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Maryland University 1983

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Clarkson College 1983

Dr. Engineering (honoris causa) University of Miami 1985

Dr. Public Service (honoris causa) George Washington University 1986

Sc.D. (honoris causa) University of Colorado 1987

Sc.D. (honoris causa) University of Alabama 1988

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Fordham University 1988

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Oregon State University 1989

Sc.D. (honoris causa) University of South Carolina 1991

Sc.D. (honoris causa) American University 1991

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Yale University 1991

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Boston University 1993

LL.D. (honoris causa) Harvard University 1993

Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal Yale University

Madeleine of Jesus Award Rivier College

Posthumous Degrees and Awards

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Cleary College 1994

Sc.D. (honoris causa) Shenandoah University 1994

Golden Gear Award, WashingtonAutomotive Press Association 1994

Business Hall of Fame, Junior Achievement 1994

Japanese Maple tree planted, The Primary Day School 1994

Plaza Dedication, Northwest College 1995

American Quality Pioneer, ASQC 1996

Hall of Fame, University of Wyoming, College of Engineering 1998

Work in Japan [6]

In 1947, Deming was involved in early planning for the 1951 Japanese Census. The Allied powers were occupying Japan, and he was asked by the United States Department of the Army to assist with the census. While in Japan, Deming's expertise in quality control techniques, combined with his involvement in Japanese society, led to his receiving an invitation from the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). JUSE members had studied Shewhart's techniques, and as part of Japan's reconstruction efforts, they sought an expert to teach statistical control. During June–August 1950, Deming trained hundreds of engineers, managers, and scholars in statistical process control (SPC) and concepts of quality. He also conducted at least one session for top management.

Deming's message to Japan's chief executives: improving quality will reduce expenses while increasing productivity and market share. Perhaps the best known of these management lectures was delivered at the Mt. Hakone Conference Center in August 1950. A number of Japanese manufacturers applied his techniques widely and experienced theretofore unheard-of levels of quality and productivity. The improved quality combined with the lowered cost created new international demand for Japanese products.

Deming declined to receive royalties from the transcripts of his 1950 lectures, so JUSE's board of directors established the Deming Prize (December 1950) to repay him for his friendship and kindness. Within Japan, the Deming Prize continues to exert considerable influence on the disciplines of quality control and quality management.

Deming became (and still is) a national hero in Japan - the annual Deming Prize remains Japan’s highest business honor. American Companies ignored Deming’s teachings for years. It wasn’t until the early 1980’s that American companies such as Ford, Hewlett-Packard Proctor & Gamble and many others re-discovered Dr. Deming and began applying his proven quality methods, heralding a rebirth in American quality, productivity, and profitability.[7]

Deming’s Ideas

Deming advocated the use of mathematical concepts and tools (Statistical Process Control) to reduce variation and prevent defects. However, one of his greatest contributions might have been in recognizing the importance of organizational culture and employee attitudes in creating a successful organization.

Dr. Deming modified the Plan, Do, Check and Act (PDCA) cycle of Shewart to Plan, Do, Study and Act (PDSA) cycle. The steps in the Deming PDCA or PDSA Cycle are as follows:

1. Plan a change or test (P).

2. Do it (D). Carry out the change or test, preferably on a small scale.

3. Check it (C). Observe the effects of the change or test. Study it (S).

4. Act on what was learned (A).

5. Repeat Step 1, with new knowledge.

6. Repeat Step 2, and onward. Continuously evaluate and improve.

Deming’s Seven Deadly Diseases

Deming believed that traditional management practices, such as the Seven Deadly Diseases listed below, significantly contributed to the American quality crisis.

1. Lack of constancy of purpose to plan and deliver products and services that will help a company survive in the long term.

2. Emphasis on short-term profits caused by short-term thinking (which is just the opposite of constancy of purpose), fear of takeovers, worry about quarterly dividends, and other types of reactive management.

3. Performance appraisals (i.e., annual reviews, merit ratings) that promote fear and stimulate unnecessary competition among employees.

4. Mobility of management (i.e., job hopping), which promotes short-term thinking.

5. Management by use of visible figures without concern about other data, such as the effect of happy and unhappy customers on sales, and the increase in overall quality and productivity that comes from quality improvement upstream.

6. Excessive medical costs, which now have been acknowledged as excessive by federal and state governments, as well as industries themselves.

7. Excessive costs of liability further increased by lawyers working on contingency fees.

Dr. Deming's 14 Points

Dr. Deming's famous 14 Points, originally presented in Out of the Crisis, serve as management guidelines. The points cultivate a fertile soil in which a more efficient workplace, higher profits, and increased productivity may grow.

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and stay in business, and to provide jobs.

2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.

3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

6. Institute training on the job.

7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.

8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.

11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.

      b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership.

12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.

        b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means "abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objective.

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

Theory of Profound Knowledge

In order to promote cooperation, Deming espouses his Theory of Profound Knowledge. Profound knowledge involves expanded views and an understanding of the seemingly individual yet truly interdependent elements that compose the larger system, the company. Deming believed that every worker has nearly unlimited potential if placed in an environment that adequately supports, educates, and nurtures senses of pride and responsibility; he stated that the majority--85 percent--of a worker's effectiveness is determined by his environment and only minimally by his own skill.

A manager seeking to establish such an environment must:

• Employ an understanding of psychology--of groups and individuals.
• Eliminate tools such as production quotas and sloganeering which only alienate workers from their supervisors and breed divisive competition between the workers themselves.
• Form the company into a large team divided into sub-teams all working on different aspects of the same goal; barriers between departments often give rise conflicting objectives and create unnecessary competition.
• Spread profit to workers as teams, not individuals.
• Eliminate fear, envy, anger, and revenge from the workplace.
• Employ sensible methods such as rigorous on-the-job training programs.

In the resulting company, workers better understand their jobs--the specific tasks and techniques as well as their higher value; thus stimulated and empowered, they perform better. The expense pays for itself.

The ideas of W. Edwards Deming may seem common or obvious now; however, they've become embedded in our culture of work. Dr. Deming's ideas (and personal example) of hard work, sincerity, decency, and personal responsibility, forever changed the world of management.

Books

Out of the Crisis
by W. Edwards Deming

"Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment."

According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1986, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Published by MIT Press

The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education - 2nd Edition
by W. Edwards Deming

". . . competition, we see now, is destructive. It would be better if everyone would work together as a system, with the aim for everybody to win. What we need is cooperation and transformation to a new style of management."

In this book W. Edwards Deming details the system of transformation that underlies the 14 Points for Management presented in Out of the Crisis. The system of profound knowledge, as it is called, consists of four parts: appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge, and psychology. Describing prevailing management style as a prison, Deming shows how a style based on cooperation rather than competition can help people develop joy in work and learning at the same time that it brings about long-term success in the market. Indicative of Deming's philosophy is his advice to abolish performance reviews on the job and grades in school.

Published by MIT Press

Other books by W. Edwards Deming:

Least Squares, The Graduate School, Department of Agriculture, Washington 1938.

Statistical Adjustment of Data, John Wiley and Sons, 1943, Dover 1964.

Some Theory of Sampling, John Wiley and Sons, 1950.

Elementary Principles of the Statistical Control of Quality, Nippon Kagaku Gijutsu Renmei, Tokyo, 1950, 1952; in English.

Sample Design in Business Research, John Wiley and Sons, 1960.

Joseph M. Juran

Joseph Moses Juran was born to a Jewish family in December 24, 1904 in Braila, Romania. In 1912, he immigrated to America with his family, settling in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was naturalized, U.S. Citizen in 1917. Juran excelled in school, especially in mathematics. He was a chess champion at an early age, and dominated chess at Western Electric. Juran graduated from Minneapolis South High School in 1920.

In 1924, with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota, Juran joined Western Electric's Hawthorne Works. His first job was troubleshooting in the Complaint Department. In 1925, Bell Labs proposed that Hawthorne Works personnel be trained in its newly-developed statistical sampling and control chart techniques. Juran was chosen to join the Inspection Statistical Department, a small group of engineers charged with applying and disseminating Bell Labs' statistical quality control innovations. This highly-visible position fueled Juran's rapid ascent in the organization and the course of his later career.

In 1926, he married Sadie Shapiro, and they had four children: Charles, Donald, Robert, Sylvia. They had been married for over 81 years when he died in 2008.

Juran was promoted to department chief in 1928, and the following year became a division chief. He published his first quality related article in Mechanical Engineering in 1935. In 1937, he moved to Western Electric/AT&T's headquarters in New York City.

As a hedge against the uncertainties of the Great Depression, he enrolled in Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1931. He graduated in 1935 and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1936, though he never practiced law.

During the Second World War, through an arrangement with his employer, Juran served in the Lend-Lease Administration and Foreign Economic Administration. Just before war's end, he resigned from Western Electric, and his government post, intending to become a freelance consultant. He joined the faculty of New York University as an adjunct Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering, where he taught courses in quality control and ran round table seminars for executives. He also worked through a small management consulting firm on projects for Gilette, Hamilton Watch Company and Borg-Warner. After the firm's owner's sudden death, Juran began his own independent practice, from which he made a comfortable living until his retirement in the late 1990s. His early clients included the now defunct Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company, the Koppers Company, the International Latex Company, Bausch & Lomb and General Foods.

Japan

The end of World War II compelled Japan to change its focus from becoming a military power to becoming an economic one. Despite Japan's ability to compete on price, its consumer goods manufacturers suffered from a long-established reputation of poor quality. The first edition of Juran's Quality Control Handbook in 1951 attracted the attention of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) which invited him to Japan in 1952. When he finally arrived in Japan in 1954 Juran met with ten manufacturing companies, notably Showa Denko, Nippon Kōgaku, Noritake, and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.[8] He also lectured at Hakone, Waseda University, Ōsaka, and Kōyasan. During his life he made ten visits to Japan, the last in 1990.

Working independently of W. Edwards Deming (who focused on the use of statistical process control), Juran—who focused on managing for quality—went to Japan and started courses (1954) in Quality Management. The training started with top and middle management. The idea that top and middle management needed training had found resistance in the United States. For Japan, it would take some 20 years for the training to pay off. In the 1970s, Japanese products began to be seen as the leaders in quality. This sparked a crisis in the United States due to quality issues in the 1980s.

Contributions

Pareto principle

In 1941 Juran stumbled across the work of Vilfredo Pareto and began to apply the Pareto principle to quality issues (for example, 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes). This is also known as "the vital few and the trivial many". In later years Juran preferred "the vital few and the useful many" to signal that the remaining 80% of the causes should not be totally ignored.

Management theory

When he began his career in the 1920s the principal focus in quality management was on the quality of the end, or finished, product. The tools used were from the Bell system of acceptance sampling, inspection plans, and control charts. The ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor dominated.

Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension to quality management. He pushed for the education and training of managers. For Juran, human relations problems were the ones to isolate. Resistance to change—or, in his terms, cultural resistance—was the root cause of quality issues. Juran credits Margaret Mead's book Cultural Patterns and Technical Change for illuminating the core problem in reforming business quality. He wrote Managerial Breakthrough, which was published in 1964, outlining the issue.

Juran's vision of quality management extended well outside the walls of the factory to encompass non-manufacturing processes, especially those that might be thought of as service related. For example, in an interview published in 1997 he observed: The key issues facing managers in sales are no different than those faced by managers in other disciplines. Sales managers say they face problems such as "It takes us too long...we need to reduce the error rate." They want to know, "How do customers perceive us?" These issues are no different than those facing managers trying to improve in other fields. The systematic approaches to improvement are identical. ... There should be no reason our familiar principles of quality and process engineering would not work in the sales process.

Juran's Trilogy

He also developed the "Juran's trilogy," an approach to cross-functional management that is composed of three managerial processes: quality planning, quality control and quality improvement. These functions all play a vital role when evaluating quality.

The Quality Trilogy emphasizes the roles of quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement. Quality planning's purpose is to provide operators with the ability to produce goods and services that can meet customers' needs. In the quality planning stage, an organization must determine who the customers are and what they need, develop the product or service features that meet customers' needs, develop processes which are able to deliver those products and services, and transfer the plans to the operating forces. If quality planning is deficient, then chronic waste occurs. Quality control is used to prevent things from getting worse.

Quality control is the inspection part of the Quality Trilogy where operators compare actual performance with plans and resolve the differences. Chronic waste should be considered an opportunity for quality improvement, the third element of the Trilogy. Quality improvement encompasses improvement of fitness-for-use and error reduction, seeks a new level of performance that is superior to any previous level, and is attained by applying breakthrough thinking.

While up-front quality planning is what organizations should be doing, it is normal for organizations to focus their first quality efforts on quality control. In this aspect of the Quality Trilogy, activities include inspection to determine percent defective (or first pass yield) and deviations from quality standards. Activities can then focus on another part of the trilogy, quality improvement, and make it an integral part of daily work for individuals and teams.

Quality planning must be integrated into every aspect of the organization's work, such as strategic plans; product, service and process designs; operations; and delivery to the customer.

Transferring quality knowledge between East and West

During his 1966 visit to Japan, Juran learned about the Japanese concept of Quality Circles which he enthusiastically evangelized in the West. Juran also acted as a matchmaker between U.S. and Japanese companies looking for introductions to each other.

Later life and death

Juran was active well into his 90s and only gave up international travel at age 86. His accomplishments during the second half of his life include:

• Consulting for U.S. companies such as Armour and Company, Dennison Manufacturing Company, Merck, Sharp & Dohme, Otis Elevator Company, Xerox, and the United States Navy Fleet Ballistic Missile System.

• Consulting for Western European and Japanese companies such as Rolls-Royce Motors, Philips, Volkswagen, Royal Dutch Shell and Toyota Motor Company

• Pro-bono consulting for Soviet-Bloc countries (Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Russia, Poland, Yugoslavia)

• Founding the Juran Institute and the Juran Foundation

In 2004 he turned 100 years old, he became honorary doctor at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden.

Juran died of a stroke on February 28, 2008 in Rye, New York. He left his wife Sadie, his four children, nine grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

Books

• Quality Control Handbook, New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951, OCLC 1220529

Eventually published in six editions: 2nd edition, 1962, 3rd edition, 1974, 4th edition, 1988, 5th edition, 1999, 6th edition, 2010

• Managerial Breakthrough, New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964

• Management of Quality Control, New York, New York: Joseph M. Juran, 1967, OCLC 66818686

• Quality Planning and Analysis, New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970

• Upper Management and Quality, New York, New York: Joseph M. Juran, 1980, OCLC 8103276

• Juran on Planning for Quality, New York, New York: The Free Press, 1988, OCLC 16468905

Published papers

• "Directions for ASQC", Industrial Quality Control (Buffalo, New York: Society of Quality Control

Engineers), November, 1951

• "Universals in Management Planning and Control", Management Review (New York, New York: American Management Association): 748–761, November, 1954

• "Improving the Relationship between Staff and Line", Personnel (New York, New York: American Management Association), May, 1956

• "Industrial Diagnostics", Management Review (New York, New York: American Management Association), June, 1957

• "Operator Errors—Time for a New Look", ASQC Journal (New York, New York: American Society for Quality Control), February, 1968

• "The QC Circle Phenomenon", Industrial Quality Control (Buffalo, New York: Society of Quality Control Engineers), January, 1967

• "Mobilizing for the 1970s", Quality Progress (New York, New York: American Society for Quality Control), August, 1969

• "Consumerism and Product Quality", Quality Progress (New York, New York: American Society for Quality Control), July, 1970

• "And One Makes Fifty", Quality Progress (New York, New York: American Society for Quality Control), March, 1975

• "The Non-Pareto Principle: Mea Culpa", Quality Progress (New York, New York: American Society for Quality Control), May, 1975

• "Khrushchev's Venture into Quality Improvement", Quality Progress (New York, New York: American Society for Quality Control), January, 1976

• "Japanese and Western Quality—a Contrast", Quality Progress (New York, New York: American Society for Quality Control), December, 1978

In Japanese

• Planning and Practices in Quality Control, Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers, 1956 a collection of Juran's 1954 lectures

• Lectures in Quality Control, 1956

• Lectures in General Management, 1960

Philip B. Crosby

The distinguished career of Mr. Philip Bayard Crosby (June 18, 1926 – August 18, 2001) is eminent throughout the global quality community. For over 35 years, Mr. Crosby was both an illustrious philosopher and pragmatic practitioner of quality management. His writings have helped to stimulate international interest in the quality field that was a catalyst for a global awakening and driver for a worldwide movement that matured over the past two decades. His innovative thinking and creative outlook on quality management have been the inspiration for thousands of companies around the world.

Mr. Crosby made many significant contributions to the core quality body of quality knowledge and served as an international ambassador extending the influence of quality thinking to the furthest parts of the globe. One area emphasized throughout Mr. Crosby’s career was his focus on clear communication of the message of quality. Mr. Crosby considered himself a writer and communicator who plainly spoke his message and reached a broad audience because of his clear and pragmatic writing style.

Mr. Crosby’s contributions and service are known throughout the global quality community and his influence has spanned the world at the level of international business leaders.

• Philip B. Crosby worked to significantly advance the cause of the worldwide quality movement through his many personal contributions over the past four decades. He developed pragmatic concepts that are considered foundational elements of the body of quality knowledge, including his Four Absolutes of Quality Management:

·         Quality means conformance to requirements, not goodness.

·         Quality is achieved by prevention, not appraisal.

·         Quality has a performance standard of Zero Defects, not acceptable quality levels.

·         Quality is measured by the Price of Nonconformance, not indexes.

To support his Four Absolutes of Quality Management, Crosby developed the Quality Management Maturity Grid and Fourteen Steps of Quality Improvement. Crosby sees the Quality Management Maturity Grid as a first step in moving an organization towards quality management. After a company has located its position on the grid, it implements a quality improvement system based on Crosby's Fourteen Steps of Quality Improvement. Crosby's Absolutes of Quality Management are further delineated in his Fourteen Steps of Quality Improvement as shown below:

Step 1. Management Commitment

Step 2. Quality Improvement Teams

Step 3. Quality Measurement

Step 4. Cost of Quality Evaluation

Step 5. Quality Awareness

Step 6. Corrective Action

Step 7. Zero-Defects Planning

Step 8. Supervisory Training

Step 9. Zero Defects

Step 10. Goal Setting

Step 11. Error Cause Removal

• Mr. Crosby was born in Wheeling, West Virginia on June 18, 1926.

• Mr. Crosby’s working life began after tours of duty during World War II and the Korean Conflict with education at medical school in between.

v  He worked for Crosley from 1952–1955; for Bendix Mishawaka from 1955 – 1957; and Martin-Marietta from 1957–1965. In 1964, he received the Distinguished Civilian Service Medal from the Department of the Army in 1964 to recognize his development of the concept of Zero Defects. He served under ITT CEO Harold Geneen as Corporate Vice President of Quality from 1965-1979, when he established his own consulting firm.

• His book Quality is Free was one of the initial signals of the decade of quality in the 1980’s when quality emerged as a viable career and work movement. It sold over 2 million copies.

• In 1979 he founded Philip Crosby Associates, Inc. (PCA), and over the next ten years grew it into a publicly traded organization with 300 employees around the world and $100 million dollars in revenue. Through PCA’s Quality College™, management learned how to establish a preventive culture to get things done right the first time. GM, Chrysler, Motorola, Xerox, many hospitals, and hundreds of corporations worldwide came to PCA to understand quality management. His philosophies have been ingrained into the fiber of these corporations both large and small.

• In 1991 he retired from PCA and founded Career IV, Inc., a company that provided lectures and seminars aimed at helping current and prospective executives grow.

• In 1997 he purchased the assets of PCA and established Philip Crosby Associates II, Inc. (PCA II). The Quality College™ continues to operate in over 20 countries around the world.

• Mr. Crosby authored 13 books on quality that have been translated into 17 languages and have sold millions of copies in both hard and soft cover. Some of his most important books include:

·         Cutting the Cost of Quality, 1967

·         Quality Is Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain, 1979

·         Quality Without Tears: The Art of Hassle-Free Management, 1984

·         Running Things: The Art of Making Things Happen, 1986

·         The Eternally Successful Organization, 1988

·         Let’s Talk Quality, 1989

·         Leading: The Art of Becoming an Executive, 1990

·         Completeness: Quality for the 21st Century, 1992

·         Reflections on Quality, 1995

·         Quality Is Still Free, 1996

·         The Absolutes of Leadership, 1997

·         Quality and Me: Lessons of an Evolving Life, 1999

Mr. Crosby held an undergraduate degree from the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine, honorary law degrees from Wheeling College and Rollins College, and an honorary Doctor of Corporate Management from the University of Findlay.

Philip B. Crosby was a business philosopher with more than 40 years of hands-on management experience. He taught management how to cause their organizations, their employees, their suppliers, and themselves to be successful.

Armand V. Feigenbaum

Armand Vallin Feigenbaum (born 1922) is an American quality control expert and businessman. He devised the concept of Total Quality Control, later known as Total Quality Management (TQM).

Feigenbaum received a bachelor's degree from Union College, and his master's degree and Ph.D. from MIT. He was Director of Manufacturing Operations at General Electric (1958–1968), and is now President and CEO of General Systems Company of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an engineering firm that designs and installs operational systems.

Feigenbaum wrote several books and served as President of the American Society for Quality (1961–1963). His contributions to the quality body of knowledge include:

• "Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow full customer satisfaction."

• The concept of a "hidden" plant—the idea that so much extra work is performed in correcting mistakes that there is effectively a hidden plant within any factory.

• Accountability for quality: Because quality is everybody's job, it may become nobody's job—the idea that quality must be actively managed and have visibility at the highest levels of management.

• The concept of quality costs

Awards and honors

• First recipient of ASQ's Lancaster Award

• ASQ 1965 Edwards Medal in recognition of "his origination and implementation of basic foundations for modern quality control"

• National Security Industrial Association Award of Merit

• Member of the Advisory Group of the U.S. Army

• Chairman of a system-wide evaluation of quality assurance activities of the Army Materiel Command

• Consultant with the Industrial College of the Armed Forces

• Union College Founders Medal

• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

• Life member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

• Life member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers

• Life member of Plymouth Society of Marine Biology

Kaoru Ishikawa

Kaoru Ishikawa (July 13, 1915 - April 16, 1989) was a Japanese university professor and influential quality management innovator best known in North America for the Ishikawa or cause and effect diagram (also known as fishbone diagram) that is used in the analysis of industrial process.

Born in Tokyo, the oldest of the eight sons of Ichiro Ishikawa. In 1939 he graduated University of Tokyo with an engineering degree in applied chemistry. His first job was as a naval technical officer (1939-1941) then moved on to work at the Nissan Liquid Fuel Company until 1947. Ishikawa would now start his career as an associate professor at the University of Tokyo. He then undertook the presidency of the Musashi Institute of Technology in 1978.

In 1949, Ishikawa joined the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) quality control research group. After World War II Japan looked to transform its industrial sector, which in North America was then still perceived as a producer of cheap wind-up toys and poor quality cameras. It was his skill at mobilizing large groups of people towards a specific common goal that was largely responsible for Japan's quality-improvement initiatives. He translated, integrated and expanded the management concepts of W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran into the Japanese system.

After becoming a full professor in the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Tokyo (1960) Ishikawa introduced the concept of quality circles (1962) in conjunction with JUSE. This concept began as an experiment to see what effect the "leading hand" (Gemba-cho) could have on quality. It was a natural extension of these forms of training to all levels of an organization (the top and middle managers having already been trained). Although many companies were invited to participate, only one company at the time, Nippon Telephone & Telegraph, accepted.

Quality circles would soon become very popular and form an important link in a company's Total Quality Management system. Ishikawa would write two books on quality circles (QC Circle Koryo and How to Operate QC Circle Activities).

Among his efforts to promote quality were the Annual Quality Control Conference for Top Management (1963) and several books on quality control (the Guide to Quality Control was translated into English). He was the chairman of the editorial board of the monthly Statistical Quality Control. Ishikawa was involved in international standardization activities.

1982 saw the development of the Ishikawa diagram which is used to determine root causes.

Ishikawa believed that quality improvement initiatives must be organization-wide in order to be successful and sustainable over the long term. He promoted the use of Quality Circles to: (1) Support improvement; (2) Respect human relations in the workplace; (3) Increase job satisfaction; and (4) More fully recognize employee capabilities and utilize their ideas. Quality Circles are effective when management understands statistical techniques and act on recommendations from members of the Quality Circles.

At Ishikawa's 1989 death, Juran delivered this eulogy:

“There is so much to be learned by studying how Dr. Ishikawa managed to accomplish so much during a single lifetime. In my observation, he did so by applying his natural gifts in an exemplary way. He was dedicated to serving society rather than serving himself. His manner was modest, and this elicited the cooperation of others. He followed his own teachings by securing facts and subjecting them to rigorous analysis. He was completely sincere, and as a result was trusted completely. “

Contributions to quality

• User Friendly Quality Control

• Fishbone Cause and Effect Diagram - Ishikawa diagram

• Implementation of Quality Circles

• Emphasised the Internal customer

• Shared Vision

Awards and recognition

• 1972 American Society for Quality's Eugene L. Grant Award

• 1977 Blue Ribbon Medal by the Japanese Government for achievements in industrial standardization

• 1988 Walter A. Shewhart Medal

• 1988 Awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasures, Second Class, by the Japanese government.

 

Books

• Ishikawa, Kaoru (1980) [original Japanese ed. 1970]. QC Circle Koryo : General Principles of the QC Circle. Tokyo: QC Circle Headquarters, Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers.

• Ishikawa, Kaoru (1985). How to Operate QC Circle Activities. Tokyo: QC Circle Headquarters, Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers.

• Ishikawa, Kaoru (1985) [First published in Japanese 1981]. What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way [Originally titled: TQC towa Nanika—Nipponteki Hinshitsu Kanri]. D. J. Lu (trans.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0139524339.

• Ishikawa, Kaoru (1990). Introduction to Quality Control. J. H. Loftus (trans.). Tokyo: 3A Corporation. ISBN 4-906224-61-X. OCLC 61341428.

Genichi Taguchi

Genichi Taguchi (born January 1, 1924, in Tokamachi) is an engineer and statistician. From the 1950s onwards, Taguchi developed a methodology for applying statistics to improve the quality of manufactured goods. Taguchi methods have been controversial among some conventional Western statisticians, but others have accepted many of the concepts introduced by him as valid extensions to the body of knowledge.

Taguchi was raised in the textile town of Tokamachi, in the Niigata prefecture of Japan. He initially studied textile engineering at Kiryu Technical College with the intention of entering the family kimono business. However, with the escalation of World War II in 1942, he was drafted into the Astronomical Department of the Navigation Institute of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

After the war, in 1948 he joined the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, where he came under the influence of eminent statistician Matosaburo Masuyama, who kindled his interest in the design of experiments. He also worked at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics during this time, and supported experimental work on the production of penicillin at Morinaga Pharmaceuticals, a Morinaga Seika company.

In 1950, he joined the Electrical Communications Laboratory (ECL) of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation just as statistical quality control was beginning to become popular in Japan, under the influence of W. Edwards Deming and the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers. ECL was engaged in a rivalry with Bell Labs to develop cross bar and telephone switching systems, and Taguchi spent his twelve years there in developing methods for enhancing quality and reliability. Even at this point, he was beginning to consult widely in Japanese industry, with Toyota being an early adopter of his ideas.

During the 1950s, he collaborated widely and in 1954-1955 was visiting professor at the Indian Statistical Institute, where he worked with C. R. Rao, Ronald Fisher and Walter A. Shewhart. While working at the SQC Unit of ISI, he was introduced to the orthogonal arrays invented by C. R. Rao - a topic which was to be instrumental in enabling him to develop the foundation blocks of what is now known as Taguchi methods.

On completing his doctorate at Kyushu University in 1962, he left ECL, though he maintained a consulting relationship. In the same year he visited Princeton University under the sponsorship of John Tukey, who arranged a spell at Bell Labs, his old ECL rivals. In 1964 he became professor of engineering at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo.  In 1966 he began a collaboration with Yuin Wu, who later emigrated to the U.S. and, in 1980, invited Taguchi to lecture. During his visit there, Taguchi himself financed a return to Bell Labs, where his initial teaching had made little enduring impact. This second visit began a collaboration with Madhav Phadke and a growing enthusiasm for his methodology in Bell Labs and elsewhere, including Ford Motor Company, Boeing, Xerox and ITT.

Since 1982, Genichi Taguchi has been an advisor to the Japanese Standards Institute and executive director of the American Supplier Institute, an international consulting organisation.[6] His concepts pertaining to experimental design, the loss function, robust design, and the reduction of variation have influenced fields beyond product design and manufacturing, such as sales process engineering.

Contributions

Taguchi has made a very influential contribution to industrial statistics. Key elements of his quality philosophy include the following:

1. Taguchi loss function, used to measure financial loss to society resulting from poor quality;

2. The philosophy of off-line quality control, designing products and processes so that they are insensitive ("robust") to parameters outside the design engineer's control; and

3. Innovations in the statistical design of experiments, notably the use of an outer array for factors that are uncontrollable in real life, but are systematically varied in the experiment.

Honours

• Indigo Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan

• Willard F. Rockwell Medal of the International Technology Institute

• Honorary member of the Japanese Society of Quality Control and of the American Society for Quality[3]

• Shewhart Medal of the American Society for Quality (1995)

• Honoured as a Quality Guru by the British Department of Trade and Industry (1990)

References:

1. Subburaj Ramasamy, Total Quality Management, McGraw Hill International Edition 2009

2. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Guru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru)

3. Department of Trade and Industry, United Kingdom ( www.dti.gov.uk/quality/gurus ) (http://www.businessballs.com/dtiresources/quality_management_gurus_theories.pdf)

4. The W. Edwards Deming Institute, W. Edwards Deming Biography (http://deming.org/index.cfm?content=61)

5. The W. Edwards Deming Institute, Article: The 50: People Who Most Influenced Business This Century, October 25, 1999, The Los Angeles Times (http://deming.org/index.cfm?content=651)

6. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, W. Edwards Deming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming)

7. Leadership Alliance, Business Success, History’s Hidden Turning Points, Source: US News & World Report cover story, April 22, 1991 (http://www.leadershipalliance.com/demingnews.htm)

8. eNotes.com, Business, Encyclopedia of Management, Quality Gurus (http://www.enotes.com/management-encyclopedia/quality-gurus)

9. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Joseph M. Juran (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Juran)

10. Jmjuran.com, Dr. Joseph M. Juran Biography (http://www.jmjuran.com/biography.htm)

11. Philip Crosby and Associates, PhilipCrosby.com, Philip B. Crosby Biography (http://www.philipcrosby.com/25years/crosby.html)

12. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Armand V. Feigenbaum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Feigenbaum)

13. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Kaoru Ishikawa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaoru_Ishikawa)

 14. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Genichi Taguchi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genichi_Taguchi)