CHAPTER 2 Literature Review
2.7 Concept from Quality Gurus
Quality Gurus are the people who have given different ideas from the beginning of quality. The total quality management (TQM) which is prevailing now, received a shape based on their concepts. To get a better understanding of TQM, we need to know the concept of their philosophy. The summary of their individual ideas is shown in Table 2.2.
2.7.1 Walter A. Shewhart
Walter A. Shewhart worked as a statistician of Bell Labs from 1920 to 1930.
Observing the randomization, he acknowledged that there are variability in all manufacturing processes. He has identified the quality control charts so that the variability in the process is random or due to a cause which can be assigned, e.g.
poor workmanship or non-calibrated equipment. According to Walter, removing
2.7.2 W. Edwards Deming
W. Edwards Deming is often called "father of quality control". He was a Professor of statistics for New York University in the 1940s. After World War II, he helped many Japanese companies to improve quality. The Japanese respected him so much that they established the Deming Award in 1951, which provides annual awards to firms which show outstanding quality. After almost
18 conventional concept of quality. The first is that role management should try to improve the quality of a company. Historically, poor quality has been attributed to workers - because of their lack of productivity, laziness or neglect. However, Deming has shown that only 15 percent of the quality problem is actually due to the error of the worker. The remaining 85 percent is due to processing and systems, including poor management.
Deming says that management rectifies system problems and creates an environment that enhances the standard and enables employees to achieve their full potential. He believed that the managers would remove any fear employees have to identify the quality problem. Proper procedures should be taught, and everyone should have the responsibility to evaluate and eliminate poor quality.
Deming mentions his philosophy on the quality in his famous "14 Points". These points are the principles that help guide the company to improve quality. The principle is basically established on the idea that commitment to the quality of the senior management and a mechanism to support this commitment should include all employees and suppliers. Deming emphasizes that quality cannot improve without the organizational change that comes from higher management.
2.7.3 Joseph M. Juran
Dr. Joseph Juran was considered to have had the greatest effect in quality management after W.Edwards Deming. Juran initially worked in the Western Electric quality program. He was better known in 1951 after publishing Quality Control Handbook. In 1954 he went to Japan to work with the manufacturers and to take classes on quality. Although his philosophy is similar to Deming, there are some differences. Deming emphasizes the need for an organizational
"transformation", Juran on the other hand believes that to implement the quality of the enterprise, such a dramatic change is not required, and quality management is required to be embedded in the organization.
Juran's notable contribution is his focus on definition of quality and the cost of ining it as fitness for use rather than conformation to specification. Juran is also a developer of the
19 concept of cost of quality, which is able to measure the quality in dollar instead of subjective evaluation. Juran is well-known for the innovation of quality trilogy: quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement. The first part of the trilogy, quality planning is needed, so that companies override their customers, product requirements and business goals. The procedures should be established to ensure that the quality standards can be met. The second part of the trilogy, the quality control, emphasizes regular use of the statistical control methods measures the variations from the standards. The third part of the quality triangle is a quality improvement. According to Juran, quality improvements should be continuous and breakthrough as well. Together with Deming, Juran emphasized that the continuous improvement of staff requires proper training on a regular basis.
2.7.4 Armand V. Feigenbaum
Another quality Guru is Armand v. Feigenbaum, who introduced the concept of total quality control. In his 1961 book Total Quality Control, he mentioned his quality principles in 40 steps. Feigenbaum promoted the concept of work environment where quality improvements are integrated across the entire organization, where the management and employees have complete commitment to improve the quality and people learn from each other's success. This philosophy is adapted by Japanese and is called "company-wide quality control."
2.7.5 Phillip B. Crosby
Another recognizable leader in TQM area is Philip B. Crossby. He worked in this area for many years, first in Martin Marietta and then, in the 1970s, as vice president for quality in ITT. He coined the phrase "Do it right the first time" and the concept of zero defects, and argues that no defects will be considered acceptable. He dislikes the idea that a small number of operating errors are a normal part because the system and staff are imperfect. Instead, he stressed the concept of prevention. To promote his concept, Crossby wrote a book named Quality is Free, which was published in 1979. He became famous for developing the phrase "quality is free" and became famous for pointing out many costs of
20 quality, of which only the cost of labour, equipment, time scraps, rebuilding, and lost sales are measurable, but the organizational costs are difficult to measure.
Crosby asserted that attempts to improve quality more than pay for themselves because these costs are prevented. Therefore, quality is free. Like Deming and Juran, Crosby emphasized the role of management in improving quality and the use of statistical control tools in measurement and monitoring quality.
2.7.6 Kaoru Ishikawa
Kaoru Ishikawa is well known for the quality tool called cause and effect diagram, also known as Fishbone or Ishikawa Diagrams. These diagrams are used to solve the quality problems. He was the first quality guru to emphasize the importance of "internal customer". He emphasized the importance of Total company quality control, rather than focusing solely on products and services.
Dr. Ishikawa believed that the company requires to be united with the shared vision and a common goal. He said that quality initiative should be taken at every stage of the organization and all workers must be involved. Dr. Ishikawa was an advocator of implementation of the quality circles, where volunteers solve the quality problems in small groups composed from employees.
2.7.7 Genichi Taguchi
Dr. Genichi Taguchi is a Japanese expert who is known for his work in the product design area. He estimates that around 80 percent of all faulty items are created by poor product design. Taguchi insists that companies should focus their quality efforts during the design stage as it is easier and cheaper to change in this stage than later during the manufacturing process. Taguchi is known for applying concept named design of experiment (DOE) to product design. It is based on developing an engineering method which is for developing robust design, a design which can perform on a broad range of conditions that results in products. Based on Taguchi's philosophy, it is easy to design a product that can perform over a wide range of environmental conditions than to control environmental conditions. Today's view of the cost of quality has a huge effect from Taguchi. He mentions that the traditional point of view of cost of
21 conformance to specification is wrong, and a different way has been proposed to look at these costs. Taguchi also developed the Taguchi loss function. According to this function, smaller differences from the target result in smaller costs: the larger the differences, the larger the cost. This function has had a significant effect in changing the view of quality cost.
Table 2.2: Summary of contributions of quality Gurus [11]
Quality Guru Main Contribution
WalterA. Shewhart Contributed to understanding of process variability.
Developed concept of statistical control charts
W. Edwards Deming for quality.
Joseph M. Juran
Developed concept of cost of quality Armand V. Feigenbaum Introduced concept of total quality control.
Philip B. Crosby
Introduced concept of zero defects.
Kaoru Ishikawa Developed cause-and-effect diagrams.
Genichi Taguchi Focused on product design quality.
Developed Taguchi loss function