The foundations of modern quality management: The Gurus

Walter A. Shewhart

• Pioneer of Modern Quality Control

• Founder of the control chart “father of statistical quality control.”

•  Originator of the plan-do-check-act cycle

• Perhaps the first to successfully integrate statistics, engineering, & economics

W. Edward Deming

• Theory of variance: controllable & uncontrollable variance

• PDCA cycle: Core element is ‘Management Team’

• Fourteen points for quality and productivity.

• Seven deadly sins and diseases.

• Out of Crisis (Having a satisfied customer is not enough)

- Profit in the business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your product & service & customers that bring friends with them

Deming’s 14 points

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product & service 
2. Reduce levels of delays, mistakes, defective materials, & defective workmanship 
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection (Prevent defects rather than detect defects) 
4. Eliminate suppliers that cannot qualify with statistical evidence of quality 
5. Find problems. It is management’s job to work continually on system improvement 
6. Institute modern methods of training on the job 
7. Adopt & institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, & aspiration 
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company 
9. Break down barriers between departments 
10. Eliminate goals asking for new levels of productivity without providing methods 
11. Eliminate work standards that prescribe numerical quotas 
12. Remove barriers between the hourly worker & right to pride of workmanship 
13. Institute a vigorous program of education & retraining 
14. Create a top management that will push every day on the above 13 points

Joseph M. Juran

• Companywide quality management cannot be delegated

• Defined quality as ‘fitness of use’ and categorized the cost of quality

• Developed quality habit: a four-step process

- Define a specific goal
- Make plan to achieve that goal
- Assign clear responsibilities
- Base the award on the result

• Developed ‘the juran trilogy’ for quality management

- Quality planning
- Quality control &
- Quality improvement

• Enlightened the world on the concept of the “vital few, trivial many” which is the foundation of Pareto charts

Philip Crosby

• Well known for his concept of ‘quality is free’ & ‘zero defect’

• Quality management: four absolutes of quality

- Quality is defined as conformance to requirements, not as goodness or elegance
- The system for creating quality is prevention, not appraisal
- The performance standard must be zero defects, not ‘that’s close enough’
- The measurement of quality is the price of non-conformance, not indexes

Kaoro Ishikawa

• Developed concept of true & substitute quality characteristics

- True characteristics are the customer’s view of product performance
- Substitute characteristics are the producer’s view of product performance
- Degree of match between true & substitute ultimately determines customer satisfaction

• Developed cause & effect diagram & assembly

• Advocate of the use of ‘seven basic tools’ of quality control

Genichi Taguchi

• Emphasize an engineering approach to quality, producing target goal or requirement with minimal product performance variation in customer’s environment

• Identified three distinct types of noise (variation in product performance)

- External Noise (variables in environments or condition of use)
- Internal Noise (changes that occur as a result of wear or storage)
- Unit-to-unit Noise (differences between individuals products)

• Focused on design for quality by defining three design levels

- System design (primary), Parameter design (secondary), Tolerance design (tertiary)

Shigeo Shingo

• Statistical quality control can lower, but not eliminate, defects

• Proposed the poka-yoke (mistake-proofing) system to totally eliminate defects

• A human or machine-sensor-based system of 100% source inspection, self-check