Guru of Quality Management - JOSEPH M. JURAN

JOSEPH M. JURAN:  Father of Quality

BACKGROUND

Joseph Moses Juran was born to a poor family in Romania in December of 1904.  His father left for America when he was five and in 1912, his father had earned enough to bring the rest of the family to Minnesota.  He was above-average for most of his mathematical and scientific proficiency and skipped the equivalent of four grade levels.  When he was 16,  he enrolled at the University of Minnesota and graduated in 1925 with a BS in Electrical Engineering.  He joined the Western Electric in the famous Hawthorne Works in Chicago. He had undergone a training to implement a new program from a team of Quality Control Pioneers.

In 1937, he became chief of the Industrial Engineering of Western Electric, and one of his assignments included visiting other companies and discussing methods of quality management.  After the war, he devoted his life to the study of quality management and he became well-known and highly credible in the field of statistics and industrial engineering.

He became well-known after he first visited Japan in 1954.  Perhaps most importantly, he is recognized as the “person who added the managerial dimension to quality—broadening it from its statistical origins.”

Along with Deming, Juran also received the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure award from Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Having extensively lectured in the country, Juran compiled his lectures in the book Managerial Breakthrough in 1964.  Fifteen years later, Juran established the The Juran Institute to further develop and expose his ideas and to “explore the impact of quality on society”.  To date, The Juran Institute, among others leads in quality management consultancies in the world.  Its materials: books, workbooks, videos, and other research resources continue to serve in making quality improvement accessible.

To Juran, quality has two aspects:  “product features and freedom from defects

Quality improvement depends on two different activities: control and breakthrough.  Control ensures that processes are performing consistently, free of assignable cause variation; breakthrough occurs after a process has been studied and some major improvement has been designed and implemented.  He suggests that these activities are not separate and sequential and can and should occur simultaneously.”

Juran died on February 28, 2008 after having lived the quality life for 104 years.

PUBLICATIONS

1.      Juran's Quality Handbook: The Complete Guide to Performance Excellence 6/E (2010)

Juran's Quality Handbook, sixth edition covers:

1.      Leadership--what everyone needs to know about managing for superior quality and results

2.      Methods--the most effective methods and tools for attaining superior results, such as Lean, Six Sigma, Root Cause Analysis, Continuous Innovation, and more

3.      Industry applications--effectively applying quality management

4.      The roles of key functions--such as quality professionals, research and development, supply chain, and governance--and what they must carry out to attain superior results in an organization

5.      Performance excellence--pragmatic roadmaps, templates, and tools to aid in developing an effective and sustainable performance excellence.

2.      Managerial Breakthrough: The Classic Book on Improving Management Performance

“This classic book, Managerial Breakthrough, first published in 1964, presented a more general theory of quality management, comprising quality control and quality improvement. It was the first book to describe a step-by-step sequence for breakthrough improvement, a process that has become the basis for quality initiatives worldwide. “

3.  Juran on Quality by Design: The New Steps for Planning Quality into Goods and Services (1992)

“Building on the experiences of scores of companies and hundreds of managers, J.M. Juran, the world-renowned quality pioneer, presents a new, exhaustively comprehensive approach to planning, setting, and reaching quality goals. Employing three case examples which encompass the three major sectors of the economy -- service, manufacturing, and support, he offers a practical plan for companies to achieve strategic, market-driven goals by following a structural approach to planning quality.

Quality, according to Juran, has become a prerequisite for business success. He cites the loss of market share, failure of products, and waste as results of poor quality planning. Juran provides a set of universal steps which can be used in the basic managerial process to establish quality goals, identify customers, determine customer needs, provide measurement, and develop process features and controls to improve business tactics.

The author gives new emphasis to setting quality goals, planning in "multifunctional" processes, establishing data bases for quality planning, motivating managers and the work force, and introducing quality planning into organizations.”

CONTRIBUTIONS

1.       The Pareto Principle.

This principle had been adapted from the 19^th century Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto.  He state that “80% of the wealth of the country was held by approximately 20% of the population.”  As applied to management, Juran stated that, “80% of the problems are caused by 20% of the defects, which meant that if you focused on that 20%, you could have a big effect with minimal effort.”

Quality improvement professionals communicate most effectively with managers when they use the language of management and finance. In this regard, the Juran Quality Trilogy provides a frame for linking finance and management to quality improvement.

2.      Juran’s  Quality Trilogy.

The three trilogy components are: Quality planning—define customers and how to meet their needs; Quality control—keep the process working well;  Quality improvement—learn, optimise, refine and adapt.

REFERENCES:

http://www.jmjuran.com/biography.htm

http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/juran.asp

http://www.amazon.com/Juran-Quality-Design-Planning-Services/dp/0029166837/ref=pd_sim_b_5/177-9192815-9216961

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2565827/

http://www.mftrou.com/joseph-juran.html

http://quality.dlsu.edu.ph/chronicles/juran.html

Guru of Quality Management - GENICHI TAGUCHI

GENICHI TAGUCHI

BACKGROUND

Genichi Taguchi was born in Takamachi, Japan on January 1, 1924.  Since he was born in a city famous for kimono industry, he was expected to follow on the family business. However, in 1942,  he shifted his interest in statistics and was under the mentorship ob Prof Masuyama, then, regarded by many as the best statistician.

 As  a Japanese engineer and statistician, Taguchi worked at the Japanese Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, Institution of Statistical Mathematics, the Ministry of Education, and also the Electrical Communications Laboratory of the Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Company.  As a researcher associate,  he visited Princeton University in 1962.  In that same year, too, he received his PhD from the Kyushu University.

Later, he became professor at Aoyama Gaukin University in Tokyo, and later became Director of the Japanese Academy of Quality. He received awards, namely: the Deming Application prize (1960), Deming awards for literature on quality (1951, 1953, and 1984), Willard F. Rockwell Medal by the International Technologies Institute (1986).

“The executive director of the American Supplier Institute, Genichi Taguchi is well-known for developing a methodology to improve quality and reduce costs, known in the United States as the "Taguchi Methods." He also developed the quality loss function.

"Taguchi Methods" is the American Supplier Institute's trademarked term for the quality engineering methodology developed by Taguchi, who was named an Honorary member in 1997. In this engineering approach to quality control, Taguchi calls for off-line quality control, on-line quality control, and a system of experimental design to improve quality and reduce costs.”

PUBLICATION/S:

1.  Taguchi's Quality Engineering Handbook (2004).  The book provides accessible material on such topics as:

·        Quality loss function

·        On-line quality engineering

·        Signal-to-noise ratio

·        Robust engineering

·        Design of experiments (known as the "Taguchi method")

·        Mahalanobis–Taguchi Systems (MTS)

2.  Robust Engineering: Learn How to Boost Quality While Reducing Costs & Time to Market / Edition 1 (1999) (with authors Subir Chowdhury and Shin Taguchi)

“Robust Engineering, by this three-time Deming Prize winner, along with Subir Chowdhury and Shin Taguchi, is the first book to explain and illustrate his newest, most revolutionary methodology, Technology Development. It joins Design of Experiments and Robust Design as the framework on which your company can build a competitive edge. Case studies of real-world organizations Ford, ITT, 3M, Minolta, NASA, Nissan, Xerox and 9 others show you how the techniques of all three methodologies can be successfully applied. You'll hammer flexibility into your manufacturing organization to minimize product development costs, reduce product time-to-market, and fully satisfy customers needs.”

3.  Taguchi on Robust Technology Development: Bringing Quality Engineering Upstream (1993)

Dr.Taguchi's comprehensive system of quality engineering is one of the great engineering achievements of the twentieth century. In this pioneering work, Dr. Taguchi uses easy to understand examples to show engineers and managers how to bring the immense power of his quality engineering methods upstream to develop the robust technologies that are essential for rapidly creating new product, refining existing ones, and manufacturing higher quality products at significantly lower cost.

Contents include: Quality and Productivity, Methods for Evaluating Quality, Methods for Specifying Tolerances, Quality Management for Production Processes, and Parameter Design.

4. The Mahalanobis-Taguchi Strategy: A Pattern Technology System / Edition 1(2002)

“The Mahalanobis-Taguchi Strategy presents methods for developing multidimensional measurement scales that are up to date with the most current trends in multivariate diagnosis/pattern recognition–namely, using measures and procedures that are data analytic and not dependent upon the distribution of the characteristics defining the system. Applications for these measurement scales are also explored across a wide range of disciplines from manufacturing to medicine.

This book presents methods that integrate mathematical and statistical concepts such as Mahalanobis distance and Gram-Schmidt’s orthogonalization method with the principles of Taguchi methods. These completely new systems of measurement and analysis move beyond anything Dr. Taguchi has done in the past. Coverage includes the refined Mahalanobis-Taguchi system, the Mahalanobis-Taguchi-Gram-Schmidt method, the Adjoint Matrix method, and other advanced topics, along with a detailed examination of each method. In addition to examining how real-world problems are solved using these methods, critical comparisons are made between the methods covered here and existing multivariate diagnosis/pattern recognition techniques. “

5. Taguchi Methods: Signal-to-Noise Ratio for Quality Evaluation (1993)

CONTRIBUTION/S:

Taguchi's contributions are in robust design in the area of product development. The Taguchi Loss Function, The Taguchi Method (Design of Experiments), and other methodologies have made major contributions in the reduction of variation and greatly improved engineering quality and productivity. By consciously considering the noise factors (environmental variation during the product's usage, manufacturing variation, and component deterioration) and the cost of failure in the field, Taguchi methodologies help ensure customer satisfaction.

1.      The Loss Function - Taguchi devised an equation to quantify the decline of a customer's perceived value of a product as its quality declines. Essentially, it tells managers how much revenue they are losing because of variability in their production process. It is a powerful tool for projecting the benefits of a quality improvement program. Taguchi was the first person to equate quality with cost.

2.      Orthogonal Arrays and Linear Graphs - When evaluating a production process analysis will undoubtedly identify outside factors or noise which cause deviations from the mean. Isolating these factors to determine their individual effects can be a very costly and time consuming process. Taguchi devised a way to use orthogonal arrays to isolate these noise factors from all others in a cost effective manner.

3.      Robustness - Some noise factors can be identified, isolated and even eliminated but others cannot. For instance it is too difficult to predict and prepare for any possible weather condition. Taguchi therefore referred to the ability of a process or product to work as intended regardless of uncontrollable outside influences as robustness. He was pivotal in many companies' development of products and processes which perform uniformly regardless of uncontrollable forces; an obviously beneficial service.

4.      Taguchi Method.  Quality control methodology that combines control charts and process control with product and process design to achieve a robust total design. It aims to reduce product variability with a system for developing specifications and designing them into a product or process.

REFERENCES

Rose, K.  (2005).  Project quality management:  Why, what, and how. USA:  J. Ross Publishing, Inc.

http://www.qualitygurus.com/gurus/list-of-gurus/genichi-taguchi/

http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/taguchi.asp

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/history_management/tqm.html

http://www.enotes.com/management-encyclopedia/quality-total-quality-management

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Taguchi-method.html

Guru of Quality Management - ELIYAHU GOLDRATT

ELIYAHU GOLDRATT

BACKGROUND

Eliyahu Moshe Goldratt was born in 1948 to the family of Avraham-Yehuda Goldratt. He finished his Bachelor of Science degree from Tel Aviv University; however, his Masters of Science and Doctorate of Philosophy degrees were earned from Bar-Ilan University.

He established his own company and aptly called it Creative Output.  The company “developed and sold a software package” called Optimized Technology (OPT), the “first hardware to provide finite capacity scheduling for scheduling environments”.

He was an “educator, author, scientist, philosopher, and business leader.”  Foremost, though, he was an unconventional thinker, which often drew him to his audience, who he prodded to “examine and reassess their business practices with fresh, new vision.”

Dr. Goldratt died June 11th, 2011 at noon, at his home in Israel.

BOOK/S:

Goldratt wrote business novels which often highlight application of his principles.  He wrote the following books:

1. The Goal, an underground best-seller which uses a non-traditional approach, in novel form.  This novel underscores his Theory of Constraints (TOC).

2. Production the TOC Way is a self-learning kit for “manufacturers interested in applying TOC techniques and spreading them within their companies.”

3. It’s Not Luck.  Sequel to The Goal. This shows how TOC “peels away the common nonsense and reveals what lies hidden beneath (our) inertia.”

4. The Critical Chain.  Another novel which “reveals the reasons projects never finish on time or within budget or specs, and develops alternate TOC approach to managing projects.”

5. Necessary But Not Sufficient.  This book “ makes Toc’s utility in problems outside manufacturing and other operations fields clear.”

6. Other books by Goldratt are:  The Race, What Is This Thing Called TOC?, The Haystack Syndrome.

7. The Goldratt Satellite Program (VIDEO)

“Considered a masterpiece, this 8-session educational series is taught by Dr. Eli Goldratt. His charismatic, stimulating, yet sometimes unconventional style captures the attention of the audience. Eli is a true thinker and throughout this program provokes others to think. He shares his life’s work revealing what to change, what to change to and how to cause the change to get fast results in today’s global and competitive environment and establishing a foundation for future success. “

CONTRIBUTION/S:

The Theory of Constraints (TOC):

“TOC  is a one of the most profound developments in the practical aspect of making organizational decisions in situations in which constraints exist. The Theory of Constraints provides a practical framework for managing enterprises with a holistic and focused approach and does away with conflicts between local operating level decisions and global company objectives and goals.

A constraint is anything in an organization that limits it from moving toward or achieving its goal. Of course, this assumes that an appropriate goal has been defined. TOC recognizes two types of constraints that can exist in any business – the size notwithstanding. These are – physical constraints and non-physical constraints. A physical constraint is something like the physical capacity of a machine. A non-physical constraint might be something like demand for a product, a corporate procedure, or an individual’s paradigm for looking at the world.

TOC brings in the powerful ‘five focusing step’ methodology to identify the constraint in the company and systematically attack the associated problems. The result is dramatic improvements of throughput (or contribution) and customer order due date performance, and inventory reduction.

The steps in applying TOC are as follows:

1. Identify the system’s constraints..
2. Decide how to exploit the system’s constraints. Once it is decided how to manage the constraints within the system, how about the majority of the resources that are not constraints? The answer is to manage them so that they just provide what is needed to match the output of the constrained resources.
3. Subordinate everything else to the above decision in Step 2. Since the constraints are keeping us from moving toward our goal, all the resources are applied that can assist in breaking them.
4. Elevate the system’s constraints. If we continue to work toward breaking a constraint (also called elevating a constraint) at some point the constraint will no longer be a constraint. The constraint will be broken.
5. If the constraint is broken, return to Step 1. When that happens, there will be another constraint, somewhere else in the system that is limiting progress to the goal.

The process must be reapplied, perhaps many times. It is very important not to let inertia become a constraint. Most constraints in organization are of their own making. They are the entrenched rules, policies, and procedures that have developed over time. Many times, when we finally break a constraint, we do not go back and review and change the rules and policies that caused the constraint initially. Most constraints in organizations today are policy constraints rather than physical constraints.”

REFERENCES:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliyahu_M._Goldratt

http://www.qualitygurus.com/gurus/list-of-gurus/eliyahu-m-goldratt/

http://www.toc-goldratt.com/content/Biography-of-Eli-Goldratt

http://www.scienceofbusiness.com/dr-lisa/eliyahu-goldratt/

http://www.toc-goldratt.com/product/Goldratt-Satellite-Program

Guru of Quality Management - ARMAND FEIGENBAUM

ARMAND FEIGENBAUM:  Total Quality Originator

BACKGROUND

Armand Vallin Feigenbaum was born in the United States in 1922.  He is a graduate of Union college and from 1958-1968, he was directly in charge of the production and quality control at General Electric Company.  He received a doctorate and a master of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He also founded and was president of the American Society of Quality Control and  General System Company in Massachusetts.

He authored many books on quality management, but he was rather known for his concept of total quality control.  His ideas on the topic were detailed in his book Total Quality Control which was first published in 1951.  Because of the popularity of his ideas his book had been translated into many languages.

Feigenbaum, a recognized innovator in the area of quality cost management, was first to “characterize quality costs as the costs of prevention, and appraisal, and internal and external failure.”

“Feigenbaum's diverse achievements and many awards testify to his profound influence on management strategy in the competition for world markets, and to the timeless good sense of total quality control.”

PUBLICATION/S

1.  Total Quality Control (Volume 1 of 2).

“Total quality control is a system for integrating the quality development, maintenance, and improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to produce marketing, engineering, production, and service at the most economical levels for full customer satisfaction. This is a complete handbook on the subject by the originator of total quality control. The first edition of this book was published in 1951 and this is the 40th third edition complete with a new 16 page addition on: The Total Quality Imperative, 12 Benchmarks for Quality Control in the 90's and 4 management principles for total quality.

Total Quality Control integrates an organization's quality development with existing business practices to produce quantifiable customer satisfaction. The heavily-revised Fourth Edition introduces new TQM methodologies and shows how to achieve productivity, market penetration, and thrive in a global economy.”

CONTRIBUTIONS

“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 elements of total quality to enable a totally customer focus (internal and external)

1.      Quality is the customers perception of what quality is, not what a company thinks it is.

2.      Quality and cost are the same not different.

3.      Quality is an individual and team commitment.

4.      Quality and innovation are interrelated and mutually beneficial.

5.      Managing Quality is managing the business.

6.      Quality is a principal.

7.      Quality is not a temporary or quick fix but a continuous process of improvement.

8.      Productivity gained by cost effective demonstrably beneficial Quality investment.

9.      Implement Quality by encompassing suppliers and customers in the system.

REFERENCES:

Rose, K.  (2005).  Project quality management:  Why, what, and how. USA:  J. Ross Publishing, Inc.

http://asq.org/about-asq/who-we-are/bio_feigen.html

http://mfiles.pl/en/index.php/Armand_Feigenbaum

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Armand+Feigenbaum,+Total+Quality+Originator,+to+Address+First+Ever...-a053091837

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/total-quality-controlrevised-armand-v-feigenbaum/1101913168

http://quality.dlsu.edu.ph/chronicles/feigenbaum.html

http://www.qualitygurus.com/gurus/list-of-gurus/armand-feigenbaum/

Gurus of Quality Management - KAORU ISHIKAWA

KAORU ISHIKAWA: Father of Quality Circles

BACKGROUND

Kaoru Ishikawa was the oldest of the eight sons of Ichiro Ishikawa. He was born in 1915.  After graduating from University of Tokyo in 1939 with a degree in Engineering major in  Applied Chemistry, he landed on a naval technical officer job, then moved to Nissan Liquid Fuel company until 1947.  After that, he started his career as an associate professor at the University of Tokyo.  In 1978, he became president of the Musashi Institute of Technology.

In 1949, he joined the the Union of Japanese Scientist and Engineers (JUSE) quality control research group.  He later mobilized a lot of people to a “specific common goal” which was responsible for Japan’s “quality-improvement initiatives”.  As a devotee to quality control, he “translated, integrated, and expanded the concepts of management” of Deming and Juran into the Japanese system.

When he was declared full professor in the Faculty of Engineering in the University of Tokyo, he initiated the use of quality circles.  This concept was actually an experiment  on the effect of the “leading hand” 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).  However, only one company, Nippon Telephone and Telegraph accepted.  The Quality Circles he advocated became popular and formed an “important link in a company’s Total Quality Management System.

He authored 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. In 1982, the Ishikawa diagram used to determine root causes was developed. His influence on quality often go unrecognized because the principles he pointed at were so ingrained they seemed naturally a part of things.

PUBLICATION/S

1.       What Is Total Quality Control?: The Japanese Way (1986)

This book describes quality control techniques which helped Japanese businesses produce higher quality goods at much lower costs.  It further explains how quality standards are made, how cost savings is achieved, how the the 10 major blocks to quality control are overcome, and how quality circles are set up.

The author insists that total quality comes from team work and coined the term company-wide quality control, and although this is a slow process often destroyed by rapid implementation, it can be done by “collecting and analysing factual data.

Quality begins with the customer, Ishikawa belives, and therefore any improvement must be based on understanding the customer’s needs and reactions. Because of this, the customers must be the focus of quality rather than the methods of production.  Therefore, workers need to be trained, quality circles need to be created, and workers must be involved in solving problems and identifying opportunities for improvement.

2.     Introduction to Quality Control

3.     QC Circle Koryo : General Principles of the QC Circle. (1980) [original Japanese ed. 1970].

4.      How to Operate QC Circle Activities.

5.     What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way [Originally titled: TQC towa Nanika—Nipponteki Hinshitsu Kanri].

6.     Introduction to Quality Control. J. H. Loftus (trans.).

CONTRIBUTIONS:

1.     Simple Tools.  Ishikawa led out in the use of seven quality control tools: control chart, run chart, histogram, scatter diagram, Pareto chart, and flowchart.

2.     Quality Circles. Kaoru Ishikawa led the concept and use of Quality Circles. The intended purpose of a Quality Circle is to:

·        Support the improvement and development of the company

·        Respect human relations in the workplace and increase job satisfaction

·        Draw out employee potential

Many, including Juran and Crosby, consider Kaoru Ishikawa’s teachings to be more successful in Japan than in the West. Quality circles are effective when management understand statistical quality management techniques and are committed to act on their recommendations.

3.     Company-Wide Quality. To achieve company-wide quality, these eleven points must be observed:

1. Quality begins and ends with education.  

2. The first step in quality is to know the requirements of the customer. 

3. The ideal state of quality control is when quality inspection is no longer necessary. 

4. Remove the root cause, not symptoms. 

5. Quality control is the responsibility of all workers and all divisions. 

6. Do not confuse means with objectives. 

7. Put quality first and set your sights on long-term objectives. 

8. Marketing is the entrance and exit of quality. 

9. Top management must not show anger when facts are presented to subordinates. 

10. Ninety-five percent of the problem in a company can be solved by the seven tools of quality. 

11. Data without dispersion information are false data.

4.     Fishbone or Cause and Effect Diagram. The Cause and Effect diagram identifies many possible causes for an effect or a problem.

REFERENCES:

Rose, K.  (2005).  Project quality management:  Why, what, and how. USA:  J. Ross Publishing, Inc.

http://www.process-improvement-japan.com/kaoru-Ishikawa.html

http://www.saferpak.com/tqm_art1.htm

http://www.process-improvement-japan.com/total-quality-control.html

http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/ishikawa.asp

http://www.bexcellence.org/Kaoru-Ishikawa.html