Walter A.

Shewhart (1891 � 1967)

Born in Illinois, USA, Shewhart graduated University

of Illinois and then he obtained the doctorate in
physics at University of California in 1917. Working
at Western Electric Company as an engineer, he was
able to make a serious contribution to a major
problem: reliability of the equipment buried
underground. Control charts created by him were use to differentiate
between assignable sources of variation and pure chances of
variation. Shewhart studied randomness and recognized variability
which exists in all manufacturing processes. In his opinion, reducing
variability is equivalent to quality improvement. Later Shewhart
worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories until his retirement in 1956.
He wrote several articles and books, most representative being
Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product in 1931,
Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control in 1939. On
more thing about Shewhart: he is considered to be the grandfather of
quality control.
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W. Edwards Deming (1900 � 1993)

Known as the father of quality, Deming was a

statistics professor at New York University during
the 40s. He studied for several years with Walter
Shewhart; this was the base of his contribution to
quality. After World War II, Deming was involved in
assisting Japanese companies to reborn from their own ashes. His
contribution was in improving quality, by setting a 14 points
principles which should be the foundation for achieving quality
improvements. Japanese companies applied extensively these
principles; today's power of Japan and quality of their products has a
strong root in this matter. Deming emphasized on the role of
management in achieving quality. He noted that around 15% of poor
quality was because of workers, and the rest of 85% was due to bad
 management, improper systems and processes. In
managers should involve employees in solving the pr
simply to blame them for poor quality. Deming's 14 princ
o create constancy of purpose (short term reactions has to be replaced by lon
o adopt the new philosophy (management should adopt his philosophy, rathe
employees to do that),
o cease dependence on inspection (it concerns to variation � in other words,
variation, no inspection is needed because all products shows no defects),
o move towards a single supplier for any one item (working with several sup
involves variation in raw materials),
o improve constantly and forever (it refers to decreasing variation, as a key t
o institute training on the job (another source of variation is the lack of traini
them properly to do a certain job, and they will do it with far less variation
o institute leadership (distinction between leadership and supervising),
o drive out fear (eliminate fear at worker's level to get their support for impro
counter productive),
o break down barriers between departments (here comes the concept of "inte
is found in TQM; a department is a supplier for next one. The second one i
first one),
o eliminate slogans (usually, it's not the employee who did it wrong, but it's t
allowed that. No need to create tension on worker, as long as the system fa
problems),
o eliminate management by objectives (as long as workers had to achieve an
production level, quality will be a secondary target),
o remove barriers to pride of workmanship (bringing problems all the time to
create a discomfort for them. Lower satisfaction of workers equals a lower
good items),
o institute education and self � improvement (education is an asset. Everyon
themselves),
o transformation is everyone's job (improvements exists at every level).

The most important book he wrote among other is Out of

1987. What is relevant to this book along these 14 princ
he initiated the movement toward Total Quality Manag
he didn't used this expression. Nowadays, there exists D
introduced by JUSE (Japanese Union of scientists Eng
prize is awarded annually for best proponent of TQM.
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Joseph M. Juran (born in 1904)

Architect of Quality: The Autobiography of Joseph M. Juran (McGraw-
Hill, 2003)... "Juran, now 99 years old, begins his tale with his
humble beginnings as a Romanian peasant and his family�s
immigration to the United States. He recounts how he overcame
poverty, anti-Semitism, bitterness and despair... This is a tale of how
education wins over ignorance, persistence prevails over
complacence and, more than anything else, how faith (in God, in
family, in humanity and in the American dream) is rewarded."

The pattern for Juran�s life of hard work and dedication was set at
an early age. "We grew up with no fear of long hours or hard work,"
he writes. "We learned to seek out opportunities and to use ingenuity
to gain from them. We accepted the responsibility for building our
own safety nets. By enduring the heat of the fiery furnace, we
acquired a work ethic that served us the rest of our lives."

As a child, Juran endured the loss of his beloved mother, an

indifferent father, bitter winters, the terror of anti-Semitism. Many
residents of his native village in Romania perished in Nazi death
camps - and grinding poverty. Consequently, he entered the working
world bitter and socially inept, yet he was driven to succeed.

Juran�s story parallels many of the great events of the 20th century.
He landed his first job at Western Electric, which was the hot growth
company of the 1920s. He weathered the Great Depression, he
served his adopted country during World War II by working in the
Lend-Lease Administration, he helped Japan rebuild its devastated
economy and he showed U.S. manufacturers how to compete
successfully in the world market...

Also remarkable is the success of Juran�s siblings. They, too,

overcame their humble beginnings and led successful lives. For
example, his brother, Rudy, became a successful bond trader; his
brother, Nat, had a successful career in Hollywood, earning an
Academy Award; his sister, Minerva, earned a doctorate degree and
became a college professor - no small feat for a female Romanian
 immigrant."

Quality Digest issued an article which can be found at here. "No o

hundred years has had more influence on the worldwid
quality in business than Dr. Joseph Juran... In Architec
Juran recounts his fascinating life story, revealing how
dire poverty and childhood tragedy to make a profoun
business and society. Juran retraces his inspiring life jo
an impoverished, tragic childhood in a tar-papered
career as the revered man who helped invent and cham
management systems, quality tools, and teams long
became standard practice. Architect of Quality delv
Juran�s motivations, sharing for the first time ho
hardships he faced and his relentless, aggressive spir
character and fueled his determination to succeed."

Juran is considered to be after Deming the mo

contributor to quality management. He became well k
book publishing Quality Control Handbook in 1951. In
worked with manufacturers and taught classes on qua
philosophy is very similar to Deming's philosophy, there
differences: while Deming emphasized the need for o
transformation, Juran believed that implementation
initiatives does not need dramatic changes. Juran is t
definition for quality: fitness for use, rather
conformance to specifications. This way, Juran took
the client, in terms of his needs. Quality trilogy "qual
quality control and quality improvement" represents
contribution to quality. First part of trilogy is con
identification of customers, product requirements and
business goals. The second part of trilogy implies
statistical control methods. As for the third part, Jur
that improvement should be continual, as well as breakt
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Dr. Genichi Taguchi (born in 1924)

 Raised in textile town of Takamachi, Japan, Taguchi studied textile
engineering. WW II found him in Astronomical Department of
navigation Institute. After several years in Ministry of Public health
and Welfare of Japan, where he met Matosaburo Masuyama, a
statistician who supported him, he was hired at electrical
Communication Laboratory, a rival of Bell Laboratories (see the story
of Deming). Here, Taguchi worked to find ways of improving quality
and reliability. Taguchi collaborated with Shewhart and Fisher.

Taguchi's contribution to quality consists in what is called Taguchi

Loss Functions, also design of experiment to product design. His
estimation was that 80% of all defective items are caused by poor
design. Therefore, emphasis should be on design stage. Design of
experiment is an engineering approach which is based on developing
robust design; this is a design which results in a product which can
perform over a wide range of conditions. In other words, it's easier to
design a product which would operate under a large range of
conditions, than to control these conditions so that the product to
work as intended.

Loss function has implication to quality costs. Traditionally, if a

product characteristic falls outside specification limits, it will
increase the cost of poor quality. However, if that characteristic is
closer to specifications and not to intended target, the quality of
that product is poorer, even if it stills satisfy the requirements. This
may lead to lower customer satisfaction. Taguchi proposed that as
conformance values moves away from the target, loss increases as a
quadratic function. This means that smaller differences from the
target result in smaller costs.
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Armand V. Feigenbaum

Initiator of the concept of Total Quality Control,

Feigenbaum published in 1961 one of his referencing book,
named Total Quality Control. An interesting aspect
regarding this book is that it was wrote when he was a doctoral
student at MIT. The power of his ideas were discovered by Japanese
in 1950s, about the same time Juran visited Japan. Quality principles
set by Feigenbaum lay down on 40 keys. He promoted the concept of
a working environment where quality developments cover entire
organization; every single person in organization must have a truly
commitment to improve the quality. Learning from other's success
story is essential.

In his book Quality Control: Principles, Practices and Administration,

Feigenbaum strove to move away from the then primary concern with
technical methods of quality control, to quality control as a business
method. Thus he emphasized the administrative viewpoint and
considered human relations as a basic issue in quality control
activities. Individual methods, such as statistics or preventive
maintenance, are seen as only segments of a comprehensive quality
control program.

Quality control itself is defined as: "An effective system for

coordinating the quality maintenance and quality improvement
efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable
production at the most economical levels which allow for full
customer satisfaction". He stresses that quality does not mean "best"
but "best for the customer use and selling price". The word "control"
in quality control represents a management tool with 4 steps: Setting
quality standards, Appraising conformance to these standards, Acting
when standards are exceeded and Planning for improvements in the
standards.

Quality control is seen as entering into all phases of the industrial

production process, from customer specification and sale through
design, engineering and assembly, and ending with shipment of
product to a customer who is happy with it. Effective control over
the factors affecting product quality is regarded as requiring controls
at all important stages of the production process. These controls or
jobs of quality control can be classified as:
 o New-design control,
o Incoming material control,
o Product control,
o Special process studies.

Feigenbaum argues that statistical methods are used in an overall

quality control program whenever and wherever they may be useful.
However such methods are only part of the overall administrative
quality control system, they are not the system itself. The statistical
point of view, however, is seen as having a profound effect upon
Modern Quality Control at the concept level. Particularly, there is
the recognition that variation in product quality must be constantly
studied within batches of product, on processing equipment and
between different lots of the same article by monitoring and critical
quality characteristics.

Modern Quality Control is seen by Feigenbaum as stimulating and

building up operator responsibility and interest in quality. The need
for quality-mindedness throughout all levels is emphasized, as is the
need to "sell" the program to the entire plant organization and the
need for the complete support of top management. Management
must recognize that it is not a temporary quality cost-reduction
activity. From the human relations point of view, the quality control
organization is seen as both:
o A channel for communication for product-quality information,
o A means of participation in the overall plant quality program.

Finally, Feigenbaum argues that the program should be allowed to

develop gradually within a given plant or company. Feigenbaum�s
preface to the third edition of Total Quality Control in 1983
emphasizes the increased importance of buyers� perceptions of
variation in quality between companies and also the variation in
effectiveness between the quality programs of companies. Quality is
seen as having become the single most important force leading to
organizational success and company growth in national and
international markets. Further, it is argued that: "Quality is in its
essence a way of managing the organization" and that, like finance
and marketing, quality has now become an essential element of
modern management.

Against this background, Total Quality Control is seen as providing

the structure and tools for managing quality so that there is a
continuous emphasis throughout the organization on quality
leadership:
o genuine investment in, and implementation of, modern technology for quality throughout sales,
o engineering and production: and top-to-bottom human commitment to quality and productivity.

As Feigenbaum says: "In effect, quality and its costs are managed and
engineered and motivated throughout the organization with the same
thoroughness and depth with which successful products and services
are themselves managed and engineered and produced and sold and
serviced". Such Total Quality Control programs are highly cost-
effective because of their results in improved levels of customer
satisfaction, reduced operating costs, reduced operating losses and
field service costs, and improved utilization of resources. By-products
such as sounder setting of time standards for labor may also be most
valuable. Thus a Total Quality System is defined as: "The agreed
company-wide and plantwide operating work structure, documented
in effective, integrated technical and managerial procedures, for
guiding the coordinated actions of the people, the machines and the
information of the company and plant in the best and most practical
ways to assure customer quality satisfaction and economical costs of
quality." Operating quality costs are divided into:
o Prevention costs including quality planning
o Appraisal costs including inspection
o Internal failure costs including scrap and rework
o External failure costs including warranty costs, complaints, etc.

Reductions in operating quality costs result from setting up a total

quality system for two reasons:
o Lack of existing effective customer-orientated customer standards may mean current quality of
products is not optimal given use,
o Expenditure on prevention costs can lead to a several fold reduction in internal and external
failure costs.
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Kaoru Ishikawa (1915 � 1989)

Ishikawa was a Japanese consultant, father of the

scientific analysis of causes of problems in industrial
processes. One of his greatest contributions to
quality was the diagram which has his name
"Ishikawa diagram" or Fishbone Diagram.

Professor Ishikawa was born in 1915 and graduated in 1939 from the
Engineering Department of Tokyo University having majored in
applied chemistry. In 1947 he was made an Assistant Professor at the
University. He obtained his Doctorate of Engineering and was
promoted to Professor in 1960. He has been awarded the Deming
Prize and the Nihon Keizai Press Prize, the Industrial Standardization
Prize for his writings on Quality Control, and the Grant Award in 1971
from the American Society for Quality Control for his education
program on Quality Control.

While, perhaps ironically, the early origins of the now famous Quality
Circles can be traced to the United States in the 1950s, Professor
Ishikawa is best known as a pioneer of the Quality Circle movement
in Japan in the early 1960s, which has now been re-exported to the
West. In a speech to mark the 1000th quality circle convention in
Japan in 1981, he described how his work took him in this direction.
"I first considered how best to get grassroots workers to understand
and practice Quality Control. The idea was to educate all people
working at factories throughout the country but this was asking too
much. Therefore I thought of educating factory foremen or on-the-
spot leaders in the first place." In 1968, in his role as Chairman of the
Editorial Committee of Genba-To-QC (Quality Control for the
Foreman) magazine, Dr Ishikawa built upon quality control articles
and exercises written by the editorial committee for the magazine,
to produce a "non-sophisticated" quality analysis textbook for quality
circle members. The book Guide to Quality Control was subsequently
translated into English in 1971, the most recent (2nd) edition being
published by the Asian Productivity Organization in 1986. Amongst
other books, he subsequently published What is Total Quality
Control? The Japanese Way which was again translated into English
(Prentice Hall, 1985).

As with the other Japanese quality gurus, such as Genichi Taguchi,

Kaoru Ishikawa has paid particular attention to making technical
statistical techniques used in quality attainment accessible to those
in industry. At the simplest technical level, his work has emphasized
good data collection and presentation, the use of Pareto Diagrams to
prioritize quality improvements and Cause-and-Effect (or Ishikawa or
Fishbone) Diagrams. Ishikawa sees the cause-and-effect diagram, like
other tools, as a device to assist groups or quality circles in quality
improvement. As such, he emphasizes open group communication as
critical to the construction of the diagrams. Ishikawa diagrams are
useful as systematic tools for finding, sorting out and documenting
the causes of variation of quality in production and organizing mutual
relationships between them. Other techniques Ishikawa has
emphasized include control charts, scatter diagrams, Binomial
probability paper and sampling inspection.

Turning to organizational, rather than technical contributions to

quality, Ishikawa is associated with the Company-wide Quality
Control movement that started in Japan in the years 1955-1960
following the visits of Deming and Juran. Under this, quality control
in Japan is characterized by company-wide participation from top
management to the lower-ranking employees. Further, all study
statistical methods. As well as participation by the engineering,
design, research and manufacturing departments, also sales,
materials and clerical or management departments (such as planning,
accounting, business and personnel) are involved. Quality control
concepts and methods are used for problem solving in the production
process, for incoming material control and new product design
control, and also for analysis to help top management decide policy,
to verify policy is being carried out and for solving problems in sales,
personnel, labor management and in clerical departments. Quality
Control Audits, internal as well as external, form part of this activity.

To quote Ishikawa: "The results of these company-wide Quality

Control activities are remarkable, not only in ensuring the quality of
industrial products but also in their great contribution to the
company�s overall business." Thus Ishikawa sees the Company-wide
Quality Control movement as implying that quality does not only
mean the quality of product, but also of after sales service, quality
of management, the company itself and the human being. This has
the effect that:
o Product quality is improved and becomes uniform. Defects are reduced.
o Reliability of goods is improved.
o Cost is reduced.
o Quantity of production is increased, and it becomes possible to make rational production
schedules.
o Wasteful work and rework are reduced.
o Technique is established and improved.
o Expenses for inspection and testing are reduced.
o Contracts between vendor and vendee are rationalized.
o The sales market is enlarged.
o Better relationships are established between departments.
o False data and reports are reduced.
o Discussions are carried out more freely and democratically.
o Meetings are operated more smoothly.
o Repairs and installation of equipment and facilities are done more rationally.
o Human relations are improved.

One major characteristic of Japanese Company-Wide Quality Control

is the Quality Control Circle Movement started in 1962, with the first
circle being registered with the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
Public Corporation. Starting in industry in Japan, these have now
spread to banks and retailing, and been exported world-wide.
Success in the West has not been so extensive as in Japan, however,
although even there have been limitations too. The nature and role
of quality circles varies between companies. In Japan a quality circle
is a typically voluntary group of some 5-10 workers from the same
workshop, who meet regularly and are led by a foreman, assistant
foreman, work leader or one of the workers. The aims of the quality
circle activities are:
o To contribute to the improvement and development of the enterprise,
o To respect human relations and build a happy workshop offering job satisfaction,
o To deploy human capabilities fully and draw out infinite potential.

These aims are broader than is consistent with a narrow definition of

quality as often used in the West, and Circle activities reflect this.
The members of the circle have mastered statistical quality control
and related methods and all utilize them to achieve significant
results in quality improvement, cost reduction, productivity and
safety. The seven tools of quality control are taught to all
employees:
o Pareto charts
o Cause and effects diagrams
o Stratification
o Check sheets
o Histograms
o Scatter diagrams
o Shewhart�s control charts and graphs.

All members of the circle are continuously engaged in self-and-

mutual development, control and improvement whenever possible,
the circles implement solutions themselves, otherwise they put
strong pressure on management to introduce them. Since
management is already committed to the circles, it is ready to listen
or act. Circle members receive no direct financial reward for their
improvements.

The Japanese experience of quality circles itself provides an insight

into the problems of implementation in the West. Strangely enough,
however, many companies in the West have attempted to minimize
or even cover up the Japanese origins, apparently to avoid cultural
rejection on antagonism to "Japanese workaholics" grounds. Even in
Japan many quality circles have collapsed, usually because of
management�s lack of interest or excessive intervention. However,
many have worked. There are now more than 10 million circle
members there. The benefits are typically seen as being minor from
 any one improvement introduced by a quality circle, but that added
together they represent substantial improvements to the company.

Perhaps more importantly, greater worker involvement and

motivation is created through:
o An atmosphere where employees are continuously looking to resolve problems,
o Greater commercial awareness
o A change of shopfloor attitude in aiming for ever increasing goals.

Quality circles have been vigorously marketed in the West as a means

of improving quality. There seems to be agreement, however, that
they cannot be used naively, and take careful adoption for use in
Western companies. Adoptions have been various and of varying
effectiveness; in some companies circles have been successful, or
regarded as such, in others they have failed. Many commentators,
such as Philip Crosby, have warned against the fashion for quality
circles as a cure-all for poor employee motivation or inadequate
quality and productivity in either white-collar areas or on the
shopfloor. The senior American Quality Guru Joseph Juran, in
particular, has gone further, in throwing doubts on their likely
effectiveness in the West at all where few company hierarchies are
permitted with executives trained in quality management.
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Philip B. Crosby (1926 � 2001)

Philip Crosby is a particularly well-marketed and

charismatic Quality Guru. An article in the Financial
Times a few years ago described him thus: "Florida has
provided him with a year-round tan. That, and his
thinning golden hair and snappy dress give him the look
of a sunbelt Senator rather than a man from the quality department.
He does have a campaign button in his lapel. It says ZD, of course,
for Zero Defects.' Financial Times 26 November 1986.

Crosby is a graduate of the Western Reserve University. After naval

service in the Korean War, he held a variety of quality control jobs
starting as line inspector. One early experience was as quality
manager on the first Pershing missile program. He worked his way up
within ITT and for fourteen years he was a Corporate Vice President
and Director Quality of ITT, with world-wide responsibilities for
quality.

In 1979 he published Quality is Free, which became a bestseller. In

response to the interest shown in the book, he left ITT that year to
set up Philip Crosby Associates Incorporated. At the Quality College
established in Florida he started to teach organizations how to
manage quality as advocated in his book. Crosby published his second
bestseller, Quality Without Tears in 1984, and he is also the author of
The Art of Getting Your Own Sweet Way. More recently he has
published a group of three management books, Running Things, The
Eternally Successful Organization and Leading: The Art of Becoming
An Executive.

Crosby's name is perhaps best known in relation to the concepts of

Do It Right First Time and Zero Defects. He considers traditional
quality control, acceptable quality limits and waivers of sub-standard
products to represent failure rather than assurance of success.
Crosby therefore defines quality as conformance to the requirements
which the company itself has established for its products based
directly on its customers' needs. He believes that since most
companies have organizations and systems that allow (and even
encourage) deviation from what is really required, manufacturing
companies spend around 20% of revenues doing things wrong and
doing them over again. According to Crosby this can be 35% of
operating expenses for service companies. He does not believe that
workers should take prime responsibility for poor quality; the reality,
he says, is that you have to get management straight. In the Crosby
scheme of things, management sets the tone on quality and workers
follow their example; whilst employees are involved in operational
difficulties and draw them to management's attention, the initiative
comes from the top. What zero defect means is not that people
never make mistakes, he says, but that the company does not start
out expecting them to make mistakes.

As indicated earlier, not everyone agrees with this approach to

quality. As Crosby himself said: "I never received any encouragement
from the quality establishment. These are ideas whose time has
come. This was an idea whose time had come, but it took 20 years
before people realized it." In the Crosby approach the Quality
Improvement message is spread by creating a core of quality
specialists within the company. There is strong emphasis on the top-
down approach, since he believes, without reservation, that senior
management is entirely responsible for quality. His goal is to give all
staff the training and the tools of quality improvement, to apply the
basis precept of Prevention Management in every area. This is aided
by viewing all work as a process or series of actions conducted to
produce a desired result. A process model can be used to ensure
clear requirements have been defined and understood by both the
supplier and the customer. He also views quality improvement as an
ongoing process since the word 'program' implies a temporary
situation.

Crosby's Quality Improvement Process is based upon the Four

Absolutes of Quality Management:
o Quality is defined as conformance to requirements, not as 'goodness' nor 'elegance'.
o The system for causing quality is prevention, not appraisal.
o The performance standard must be Zero Defects, not "that's close enough".
o The measurement of quality is the Price of Non-conformance, not indices.

The Fourteen Steps to Quality Improvement are the way that the
Quality Improvement Process is implemented in an organization.
They are a management tool which evolved out of a conviction that
the Absolutes should be defined, understood, and communicated in a
practical manner to every member of the organization:
o Make it clear that management is committed to quality.
o Form quality improvement teams with senior representatives from each department.
o Measure processes to determine where current and potential quality problems lie.
o Evaluate the cost of quality and explain its use as a management tool.
o Raise the quality awareness and personal concern of all employees.
 o Take actions to correct problems identified through previous steps.
o Establish progress monitoring for the improvement process.
o Train supervisors to actively carry out their part of the quality improvement program.
o Hold a Zero Defects Day to let everyone realize that there has been a change and to reaffirm
management commitment.
o Encourage individuals to establish improvement goals for themselves and their groups.
o Encourage employees to communicate to management the obstacles they face in attaining their
improvement goals.
o Recognize and appreciate those who participate.
o Establish quality councils to communicate on a regular basis.
o Do it all over again to emphasize that the quality improvement program never ends.

In his book Quality is Free, Crosby identifies additional quality-

building tools, including the Quality Management Maturity Grid which
enables a company to measure its present quality position. In Quality
Without Tears he develops the Quality Vaccine which comprises
twenty one ingredients for Executives to use to support the
implementation process. As his books on leadership reflected his
broadening approach to improvement, he defined five new
characteristics essential to becoming an Eternally Successful
Organization:
o People routinely do things right the first time.
o Change is anticipated and used to advantage.
o Growth is consistent and profitable.
o New products and services appear when needed.
o Everyone is happy to work there.