Course -21

Total Quality Management

4. Discuss the contributions of management gurus to total quality management

Introduction: -

To fully understand the TQM movement, we need to look at the philosophies of no table

individuals who have shaped the evolution of TQM. Their philosophies and teachings have

contributed to our knowledge and understanding of quality today. Their individual

contributions are summarized in Table.

Walter A. Shewhart was a statistician at Bell Labs during the 1920s and 1930s. Shewhart

studied randomness and recognized that variability ex isted in all manufacturing processes.

He developed quality control charts that are used to identify whether the variability in the

process is random or due to an as signable cause, such as poor workers or miscalibrated

machinery. He stressed that eliminating variability improves quality. His work created the

foundation for to day’s statistical process control, and he is often referred to as the

“grandfather of quality control.”

W. Edwards Deming is often referred to as the “father of qual ity control.” He was a statistics

professor at New York University in the 1940s. After World War II he assisted many Japanese

companies in improving quality. The Japan ese regarded him so highly that in 1951 they

1 |Page
established the Deming Prize, an annual award given to firms that demonstrate outstanding

quality. It was almost 30 years later that American businesses began adopting Deming’s

philosophy.

A number of elements of Deming’s philosophy depart from traditional notions of quality.

The first is the role management should play in a company’s quality improvement effort.

Historically, poor quality was blamed on workers—on their lack of productivity, laziness, or

carelessness. However, Deming pointed out that only 15 percent of quality problems are

actually due to worker error. The remaining 85 percent are caused by processes and

systems, including poor management. Deming said that it is up to management to correct

system problems and create an environment that promotes quality and enables workers to

achieve their full poten tial. He believed that managers should drive out any fear employees

have of identi fying quality problems, and that numerical quotas should be eliminated.

Proper methods should be taught, and detecting and eliminating poor quality should be

everyone’s responsibility.

Deming outlined his philosophy on quality in his famous “14 Points.” These points are

principles that help guide companies in achieving quality improvement. The prin ciples are

founded on the idea that upper management must develop a commitment to quality and

provide a system to support this commitment that involves all employ ees and suppliers. Deming

stressed that quality improvements cannot happen without organizational change that comes

from upper management.

2 |Page
Joseph M. Juran After W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Joseph Juran is considered to have had

the greatest impact on quality management. Juran originally worked in the quality program

at Western Electric. He became better known in 1951, after the publication of his book

Quality Control Handbook. In 1954 he went to Japan to work with manufacturers and teach

classes on quality. Though his philosophy is similar to Deming’s, there are some

differences. Whereas Deming stressed the need for an organizational “transformation,”

Juran believes that implementing quality initiatives should not require such a dramatic

change and that quality management should be embedded in the organization.

One of Juran’s significant contributions is his focus on the definition of quality and the cost of

quality. Juran is credited with defining quality as fitness for use rather than simply conformance

to specifications. As we have learned in this chapter, defining quality as fitness for use takes

into account customer intentions for use of the prod uct, instead of only focusing on technical

specifications. Juran is also credited with de veloping the concept of cost of quality, which allows

3 |Page
us to measure quality in dollar terms rather than on the basis of subjective evaluations.

Armand V. Feigenbaum Another quality leader is Armand V. Feigenbaum, who in troduced

the concept of total quality control. In his 1961 book Total Quality Control, he outlined his

quality principles in 40 steps. Feigenbaum took a total system ap proach to quality. He

promoted the idea of a work environment where quality devel - opments are integrated

throughout the entire organization, where management and employees have a total

commitment to improve quality, and people learn from each other’s successes. This

philosophy was adapted by the Japanese and termed “company-wide quality control.”

Philip B. Crosby is another recognized guru in the area of TQM. He worked in the area of

quality for many years, first at Martin Marietta and then, in the 1970s, as the vice president for

quality at ITT. He developed the phrase “Do it right the first time” and the notion of zero

defects, arguing that no amount of defects should be considered acceptable. He scorned the

idea that a small number of defects is a normal part of the operating process because systems

and workers are imperfect. Instead, he stressed the idea of prevention.

To promote his concepts, Crosby wrote a book titled Quality Is Free, which was published in

1979. He became famous for coining the phrase “quality is free” and for pointing out the

many costs of quality, which include not only the costs of wasted labor, equipment time,

scrap, rework, and lost sales, but also organizational costs that are hard to quantify. Crosby

stressed that efforts to improve quality more than pay for themselves because these costs are

prevented. Therefore, quality is free. Like Deming and Juran, Crosby stressed the role of

management in the quality im provement effort and the use of statistical control tools in

measuring and monitor ing quality.

Kaoru I sh i kawa Kaoru Ishikawa is best known for the development of quality tools called

cause-and-effect diagrams, also called fishbone or Ishikawa diagrams. These di agrams are used

for quality problem solving, and we will look at them in detail later in the chapter. He was the

first quality guru to emphasize the importance of the “in ternal customer,” the next person in

the production process. He was also one of the first to stress the importance of total company

4 |Page
quality control, rather than just focus ing on products and services.

Dr. Ishikawa believed that everyone in the company needed to be united with a shared

vision and a common goal. He stressed that quality initiatives should be pur sued at every level

of the organization and that all employees should be involved. Dr. Ishikawa was a proponent

of implementation of quality circles, which are small teams of employees that volunteer to solve

quality problems.

Dr. Genichi Taguchi is a Japanese quality expert known for his work in the area of product

design. He estimates that as much as 80 percent of all de fective items are caused by poor

product design. Taguchi stresses that companies should focus their quality efforts on the

design stage, as it is much cheaper and easier to make changes during the product design

stage than later during the production process.

Taguchi is known for applying a concept called design of experiment to product de sign. This

method is an engineering approach that is based on developing robust design, a design that

results in products that can perform over a wide range of condi tions. Taguchi’s philosophy is

based on the idea that it is easier to design a product that can perform over a wide range of

environmental conditions than it is to control the environmental conditions.

Taguchi has also had a large impact on today’s view of the costs of quality. He pointed out

that the traditional view of costs of conformance to specifications is incorrect, and

proposed a different way to look at these costs. Let’s briefly look at Dr. Taguchi’s view of

quality costs.

Conclusions:-

What characterizes TQM is the focus on identifying root causes of quality problems and

correcting them at the source, as opposed to inspecting the product after it has been made.

Not only does TQM encompass the entire organization, but it stresses that quality is customer

driven. TQM attempts to embed quality in every aspect of the organization. It is concerned with

technical aspects of quality as well as the involve ment of people in quality, such as

customers, company employees, and suppliers. Here we look at the specific concepts that

5 |Page
make up the philosophy of TQM.

6 |Page