MODULE 3

GURUS OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Objectives:
1. Identify the different quality gurus in quality management.
2. Recognize contributions of quality gurus in quality management.

In order to fully understand the TQM movement, there are philosophies of notable
individuals who have shaped the evolution of TQM. Their qualitative and quantitative
contributions have been critical in the emergence and development of contemporary knowledge
regarding quality. Their common thrust is towards the concept of continuous improvement of
every output, whether a product or service by removing unwanted variation and improving
underlying work processes. Their philosophies and teachings have contributed to the knowledge
and understanding of quality.

DR. WALTER ANDREW SHEWART MASAKI IMAI

DR. WILLIAM EDWARDS DEMING (14th October, 1900- 20th December 1993)
Dr. William Edwards Deming is often referred to as the "Father of Quality Control."
Deming is best known for initiating a transformation in the Japanese manufacturing sector in the
after effects of World War II, which enabled it to become a big player in the world market. The
Deming Prize, the highest award for quality in Japan, is named in his honor. He is also known
for his 14 points, for the Deming Chain Reaction and for the Theory of Profound Knowledge. He
also modified the Shewhart PDSA (plan, do, study, act) cycle to what is now referred to as
Deming Cycle (plan, do, check, act).
 Deming does not define quality in a distinct phrase. He said that only the customer can
define the quality of any product or service. Quality is a relative term that will adjust in meaning
based on the customer's needs. Deming approach to TQM is mainly concentrated on the creation
of an organizational system that is based on cooperation and learning for facilitating the
implementation of process management practices, which, in turn, leads to continuous
improvement of processes, products, and services as well as to employee fulfillment, both of
which are critical to customer satisfaction, and ultimately, to firm survival.
Deming stressed the responsibilities of top management to be the leader in changing
processes and systems. He said that leadership plays an important role in ascertaining the success
of quality management. It is the top management's responsibility to create and communicate a
vision to move the firm toward continuous improvement. Top management is in charge for most
quality problems. Top management should give employees clear standards for what is considered
acceptable work, and provide the methods to achieve it. These methods include an appropriate
working environment.
Deming also emphasized the importance of identification and measurement of customer
requirements, creation of supplier partnership, use of functional teams to identify and solve
quality problems, enhancement of employee skills, participation of employees, and pursuit of
continuous improvement. He is cautious in defining quality and characterizes the difficulty of
achieving it. "The difficulty in defining quality is to translate future needs of the user into
measurable characteristics by using statistical approach, so that a product can be designed and
turned out to give satisfaction at a price that the user will have to pay".

Deming's 14 Point Methodology

1. Constancy of purpose - Create firmness of purpose for continual improvement o products
and service and distribute resources to accommodate long term needs rather than short-
term profitability with a plan to become competitive, stay in business and provide jobs.

2. The new philosophy - Espouse the new philosophy for one can no longer allow delays,
mistakes and faulty workmanship. Transformation of the Western management style is
necessary to bring to an end the continued decline in the industry.

3. Cease dependence on inspection - Remove the need for mass inspection as a technique to
attain quality by building quality into the product in the first place. Insist statistical
evidence of built-in quality in both manufacturing and purchasing functions.

4. End 'lowest tender contracts - Reduce total cost. Many companies and organizations grant
contracts to the lowest bidder as long as they meet certain requirements. However, low
bids do not promise quality. Unless the quality aspect is carefully thought of, the effective
price per unit that a company pays its vendors may be understated and, in some cases,
indefinite. Deming advised businesses to utilize single sourcing for long-term
 relationships with a few suppliers leading to loyalty and opportunities for shared
improvement. Using several suppliers has been long acceptable for reasons like providing
protection against strikes or natural disasters or making the suppliers compete against
each other on cost. However, this approach has overlooked hidden costs like increased
travel to visit suppliers, loss of volume discounts, increased set-up charges resulting in
higher unit costs, and increased inventory and administrative expenses. In addition,
always changing suppliers only on the base of price increases the deviation in the
material supplied to production, since each supplier's process is different.

5. Improve every process - Management's job is to constantly make better the system with
contribution from workers and management. Deming was a o follower of Walter A.
Shewhart, the developer of control charts and the continuous cycle of process
improvement known as the Shewhart cycle, Deming popularized the Shewhart Cycle as
the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) or Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle. Therefore, it is
also often referred to as the Deming cycle. In the planning stage, chances for
improvement are acknowledged and operationally defined. The theory and course of
action developed in the earlier stage is tested in the doing stage, on a small range through
performing trial runs in a laboratory or prototype setting. The results of the testing phase
are examined in the check/study stage using statistical methods. In the action stage, a
decision is prepared about the implementation of the proposed plan. If the results were
encouraging in the pilot stage, then the plan will be implemented. Or else alternative
plans are developed. After complete scale implementation, customer and process
feedback will once more be taken and the process of continuous improvement continues.

6. Institute training on the job - Introduce up to date methods of training on the Jo

incorporating management to make greatest use of all employees. Fresh skills are
essential to sustain changes in materials, methods, product design, machinery, techniques
and service.

7. Institute leadership - Espouse and introduce leadership, aimed at helping people carry nut
a better job. The responsibility of managers and supervisors must be altered to highlight
on quality rather than quantity. This will automatically increase productivity. The
management has to make sure that urgent action is taken on reports of inherited defects,
maintenance requirements, poor tools, fussy operational definitions and other conditions
damaging to quality.

8. Drive out fear - Build a fear-free environment where everyone can contribute and work
effectively. There is a financial loss related with fear in an organization. Employees strive
to satisfy their superiors because they believe that they might lose their jobs. They are
cautious to ask questions about their jobs, production methods, and process parameters. If
a supervisor or manager reflects the feeling that asking such questions is a squander of
time, then employees will be more focused about satisfying their supervisors than
 meeting long-term goals of the organization. For that reason, creating an environment of
trust is a significant task of management.

9. Break down barriers – People should work cooperatively with reciprocal trust, respect,
and appreciation for the needs of others in their work. Internal and external organizational
barriers hamper the flow of information, put off entities rom perceiving organizational
goals, and encourage the quest of subunit goals that are not essentially align with the
organizational goals. Barriers between organizational levels and departments are internal
barriers. External barriers are between the company and its suppliers, customers,
investors, and community. Barriers can be removed using better communication, cross-
functional teams, and changing attitudes and cultures.

10. Eliminate exhortations - Do away with use of slogans and exhortations demanding zero
defects and new level of productivity from the workforce, with no commensurate
methods provided. Such exhortations only form adversarial relationships. The volume of
the cases of low quality and low productivity belong to the system; thus, lie outside the
power of the workforce.

11. Eliminate arbitrary numerical targets - Remove work standards that stipulate numerical
quotas for the workforce and the numerical goals for people in the management. Replace
these with aids and useful supervision and employ statistical methods for continual
improvement of quality and productivity.

12. Permit pride of workmanship - Eliminate the barriers that steal from hourly workers and
people in the management of their rights to pride of workmanship. This implies the
eradication of the annual merit rating and management by objectives. Again, the
responsibility of managers, supervisors and foremen must be changed from absolute
numbers of quality.

13. Encourage education - Deming's philosophy is founded on long-term, continuous process

improvement that cannot be carried out without properly trained and motivated
employees. This point tackles the need for ongoing and continuous education and self-
improvement for the whole organization. This educational investment serves the
following objectives:
a. it leads to better motivated employees;
b. it communicates the company goals to the employees;
c. it keeps the employees up-to-date on the latest techniques and supports
teamwork;
d. training and retraining offers a mechanism to ensure enough performance
as the job responsibilities change; and
e. through increasing job loyalty, it lessens the number of people who job-
hop.
 14. Top management's commitment - A clearly defined commitment by the top management
to cons ant y improve quality and productivity and strengthening of obligations to put
into practice all these principles is always advantageous to the workforce and the
organization. Form a structure in the top management whose main task will be to push
these 13 points continually and take action in order to achieve the change.

Deming's 7 Deadly Diseases

Deming's seven deadly diseases recap the factors that he believes can slow down the
transformation that the fourteen points can bring about. The seven deadly diseases are:
1. Lack of constancy of purpose to plan products and services that have a market sufficient
to leap the company in business and, provide jobs.
2. Stress on short-term profit; short-term thinking that is driven by a fear of unfriendly
takeover attempts and pressure from bankers and shareholders to generate dividends. (12
months to 3 years
3. Personal review systems for managers and management by objectives with no methods or
resources provided to achieve objectives; includes performance evaluations, merit rating,
and annual appraisals.
4. Job-hopping by managers.
5. Using only evident data and information in decision making consideration given to what
is unknown or cannot be known.
6. Extreme medical costs.
7. Too much costs of liability driven up by lawyers who work on contingency.

PHILIP CROSBY (18th June, 1926 - 18th August, 2001)

Philip Crosby came to national prominence with the publication of his book Quality is
Free in 1979. He established the absolutes of quality management, which states that the only
performance standard is zero defects and the basic elements of improvement.
While Crosby, like Deming and Juran, stresses on the importance of the management's
commitment and error-cause removal, some aspects of Crosby's approach to quality are quite
different from Deming's. Zero defects, the heart to Crosby's philosophy, was censured by
Deming as being directed at the wrong people and forming worker frustration and bitterness.
Goal setting, vital to Crosby's theory was also scorned for leading to unhelpful accomplishment.
The truth is that Deming was most likely reacting to the wrong use of slogans and goals. Deming
may not have censured them if they had always been used correctly within the Crosby system.
The essence of Crosby's teachings is contained in what he calls the "four absolutes of
quality."
1. The definition - Quality is conformance (compliance) to requirements, not
goodness.
 2. The system - Prevention, not appraisal.
3. The performance standard - Zero defects.
4. The measurement - The price of non-conformance to requirements, not quality
circles.
Crosby defines quality as a means "conformance to requirements". Quality must be
defined in quantifiable and clearly stated terms to aid the organization take action based on
feasible targets, rather than experience, or opinions. For Crosby, quality is either present or not
present. There is no such thing as varying levels of quality.
Management must assess quality by continually tracking the cost of doing things
erroneously. Crosby calls this as the "price of nonconformance."
The requirements of a product need to be defined and specified clearly so that they are
correctly known. He emphasized that higher quality lessens costs and increases profits. Quality is
measured by the quality cost. His categories of quality costs are identical to those of Juran which
are prevention, appraisal and failure. This needs an accent on prevention rather than after-the-
fact inspection.
Crosby also presents the quality management maturity grid which contains five stages
which are uncertainty, awakening, enlightenment, wisdom, and certainty. These stages can be
employed to appraise progress in management understanding and attitude, the standing of quality
in the organization, problem treatment, cost of quality as a fraction of sales, quality improvement
actions.
Quality Management Maturity Grid by Crosby
5. Certainty - sure
4. Wisdom - smart
3. Enlightenment - clear
2. Awakening - alert
1. Uncertainty – not sure

1. Based on these premises, he developed a 14-step methodology. Management

commitment - To make clear the management's position on quality.
2. Quality improvement team - To carry out the quality improvement program.
3. Quality measurement - To exhibit exist, and possible nonconformance problems
in the way that permits objective evaluation and remedial action.
4. Cost of quality - To identify the components of the cost of quality, and give
details on its application as a management tool.
5. Quality awareness – To give method of elevating individual concern among the
personnel in the company towards the conformance of the product and service,
and the status of the company on the subject of quality.
 6. Corrective action - To offer a systematic method of deciding the problems
recognized through actions taken in the past.
7. Zero defects planning - To study the different activities that must be performed as
groundwork for officially initiating the zero defects program.
8. Supervisor training - To name the type of training that supervisors require to
energetically perform their roles with regard to the quality improvement program.
9. Zero defects day - To produce an event that will allow all employee appreciate,
through a personal experience, that there has been change.
10. Goal setting - To twist promises and commitments into action by persuading
individuals to set up improvement goals for themselves and their groups.
11. Error-cause removal - To offer individual employees a way of communicating to
the management, the situations that make it not easy for employees to fulfill the
promise to improve.
12. Recognition - To be thankful for those who contribute.
13. Quality councils - To bring collectively professionals in the realm of quality or
planned communication on a customary basis with the workforce and
management alike.
14. 14 Do it over again - To accentuate that the quality improvement program never
ends.
Crosby claims "mistakes are caused by two factors: lack of knowledge and lack of
attention". Education and training can eradicate the first cause, and a personal commitment to
excellence (zero defects) and attention to detail will cure the second.

DR. JOSEPH MOSES JURAN (24thDecember, 1904 -28th February, 2008)

Dr. Joseph Juran assisted the Japanese in their reconstruction processes after World War
II. Juran first became well-known in the US as the editor of the Quality Control Handbook
(1951) and alter for his paper introducing the quality trilogies which are quality planning, quality
control and quality improvement
1. Quality planning - This involves identifying the customers’ needs and
expectations, proposing products and services, setting goals, giving training,
implementation of projects, reporting, recognizing, and communicating outcome
and improvements in systems.
2. Quality control - This concerns creating standards, naming measurements and
methods thereof, contrasting results with actual standards and construing the
differences and taking action on differences.
3. Quality improvement - This is about the use of structured annual improvements
projects and plans need of improvement, organizing to guide the projects,
detecting the causes, giving and verifying remedies and establishing control to
keep up gains made.
 Questioning which aspect of the quality trilogy is most vital is like asking "Which leg of
a stool is the most important?" The stool cannot function effectively without all three. Juran
defined quality as "fitness for use" and also developed the idea of cost of quality.
While Deming's approach is radical in nature, Juran's approach is more evolutionary. For
Deming statistics is the language of business while Juran says that money is the language of
business and quality efforts must be communicated to the management in their language. Juran
concurs with Deming that more than 80% of defects are caused by the system rather than the
workers and lists motivation of workers as a solution to quality problems.
Juran propounded the following message on quality:
1. Quality control must be essential part of management
2. Quality is no mistake
3. Quality must planned
4. There are no shortcuts to quality
5. Make use of problems as sources of improvement

Juran's formula consists of:

1. Create an awareness about the need and propose an opportunity for improvement
2. Set goals for improvements
3. Systemize paths to attain the goals (begin a quality council, identify problems,
choose projects, assign teams, delegate facilitators and so on)
4. Give training
5. Do projects to resolve problems
6. Inform progress
7. Provide recognition
8. Communicate outcome
9. Keep score
10. Uphold thrust by making yearly improvements component of the regular systems
and processes of the company

In his view, the approach to managing for quality consists of:

1. The irregular problem is detected and acted upon by the process of quality
control;
2. The constant problem needs a special process, namely, quality
improvement;
3. Such constant problems are traceable to a poor quality planning process.
Like Deming, Juran believes most quality problems are due to management, not
employees. He also states that the distinction between constant and irregular problems is
essential because there are two different approaches to handling the problems. Constant
problems require the principle of "breakthrough", while irregular problems require the principle
of "control".
He further elaborates the sequence of activities required for breakthrough" and "control".
Breakthrough activities or quality improvement include:
1. Breakthrough in attitudes - persuading those responsible that a change in quality
level is advantageous and practical;
2. Discovery of the vital few projects – determining which quality problem areas are
essential;
3. Organizing for breakthrough in knowledge - defining the organizational system
for attaining the knowledge for accomplishing a breakthrough;
4. Formation of a steering arm - defining and staffing a system for directing the
study for quality improvement;
5. Formation of an investigative arm - defining and staffing a system for executing
the technical inquiry;
6. Diagnosis - collecting and examining the facts necessary and proposing e action
desirable;
7. Breakthrough in structural pattern - determining the effect of a anticipated change
on the people involved looking for ways to rise above opposition to change;
8. Breakthrough in performance - getting agreement to take action;
9. Transition to the new level - implement the change.
"Control" activities include:
1. Choosing the control subject which is choosing what is intended to regulate;
2. Choosing a unit of measure;
3. Setting a goal for the control subject;
4. Creating a sensor which can measure the control subject in terms of the unit of
measure;
5. Measuring real performance;
6. Interpreting the difference between actual performance and the goal;
7. Taking action (if any) on the difference.

"Planning" activities include:

1. Establish the quality goal
2. Identify customers
3. Discover customer needs
4. Develop product features
5. Develop process features
6. Establish process controls and transfer to operations

DR. WALTER ANDREW SHEWART (18th March, 1891 - 11thMarch,1967)

 Dr. Walter Shewhart the "Grandfather of Quality Control" was a giant among giants in
the quality movement during20th century. His mentoring of other engineers at Western Electric
and his groundbreaking work with control charts arguably led a quality revolution and launched
the quality profession.
Walter Andrew Shewhart was born to Anton and Esta Barney Shewhart on March 18,
1891, in New Canton, IL. Shewhart died on March 11, 1967, in Troy Hills, New Jersey. He
received from the University of Illinois both bachelor's and master's degrees. In 1914, he married
Edna art and moved to California where he earned his doctoral degree in physics while studying
as a Whiting Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1917.
He had short stints of teaching at University of Illinois, University of California at
Berkeley, and. La Crosse State Teachers College (renamed Wisconsin State University), but his
academic career was brief.
In 1918, Shewhart joined the inspection engineering department of the Western Electric
Co. in Hawthorne, IL. Western Electric manufactured telephone hardware for Bell Telephone
Co. Although no one could have realized it at the time, Shewhart would alter the course of
industrial history.
Shewhart was part of a group of people who were all destined to become famous in their
time. This groom included Harold Dodge and Harry Romig, known for their work on product
sampling plans. George D. Edwards, who became the first president of the American Society for
Quality Control (renamed American Society for Quality) in 1997, was Shewhart's supervisor.
Shewhart mentored several during his tenure, including Joseph M. Juran. During the
summers of 1925 and 1926, W. Edwards Deming worked as an intern at the Hawthorne, IL, plant
where he became interested in Shewhart's work.
By 1924, Shewhart determined the problem of variability in terms of assignable cause
and chance cause (Deming named this as common cause). On May 16, 1924, Shewhart prepared
a message of less than one page in length and forwarded it to his manager, George Edwards.
About 1/3 of the page was devoted to a plain diagram that people would today recognize as a
control chart. This memorandum set forth the essential principles and considerations that became
known as process quality control.
Shewhart's principle was that bringing a process into a state of statistical control would
permit the distinction between assignable (such. as unskilled workers or equipment not being
calibrated) and chance cause variation. Through keeping the process in control, it would be likely
to forecast future output and to cheaply manage processes. This was the birth of the modern
scientific study of process control. Shewhart developed what came to be known as the Shewhart
cycle: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) or Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) to manage the effects of
variations. He stressed that eliminating variability improved quality. His work created the
foundation for statistical process control measures used today.
DR. ARMAND FEIGENBAUM (Born in 1922)
Armand Feigenbaum is given the credit to the formation of the idea of total quality
control in his book Quality control-Principles, Practice and Administration Db]) and in his article
Total Quality Control (1956). The Japanese version of this concept is called Company-wide
Quality Control, while it is termed Total Quality Management (TQM) in the United States and
elsewhere. He was also the first to classify quality costs as costs of prevention, appraisal and
internal and external failures. Feigenbaum philosophy is summed up in his Three Steps to
Quality which has been described as follows:
1. Quality leadership - This is apparent when the management stresses on sound
planning rather than reacting to failures. The management must maintain a
constant focus and lead the quality effort.
2. Modern quality technology - The traditional quality development processes as
cannot resolve 80%-90% of quality problems. This task involves integration of
office staff, engineers as well as the shop-floor workers who continually assess
and apply latest techniques to satisfy customers in the future.
3. Organizational commitment - Continuous training and motivation of the whole
workforce as well as a combination of quality in business planning stage indicates
the significance of quality and offers the means for including it in all respects of
the organization's activities.

Feigenbaum 10 points on TQM include:

1. Quality is consciousness programmed not only a technical function.
2. Quality is not what an engineer or marketer says but it is that what the customer
speaks of.
3. Quality and cost are a sum, not differences.
4. Quality must be organized to identify everybody's job in the organization
5. Quality is a technique of managing an organization. Good management means
continuous stress on the quality.
6. The quality improvement highlighting must take place all through all activities of
the organization.
7. Quality is realized through assistance and contribution of each and every person
related to the organization. It is also an ethic.
8. Continuous quality improvement needs extensive range of new and existing
quality technology of information applications.
9. Total quality program approach leads to productivity and is most effective and
less capital intensive.
10. Quality comes, if it is clear, customer oriented, effective and structured.
Feigenbaum defines quality as the "total composite product and service characteristics of
marketing, engineering, manufacture and maintenance through which the product and service in
use will meet the expectations of the customer". He states that total quality management covers
the complete scope of the product and service "life cycle" from product conception through
production and customer service. The quality chain, he argues, begins with the recognition of all
customers' requirements and ends only when the product delivered or service is rendered to the
customer who stays satisfied. Thus, all functional activities, such as marketing, design,
engineering, purchasing, manufacturing, inspection, shipping, accounting, installation, and
service, and the rests, are involved in and influence the attainment of quality. Effective total
quality control needs, therefore, a high degree of functional integration. Furthermore, it guides
the synchronized actions of people, machines and information to attain quality goals. He
highlights a system approach to quality.
The stress is on the prevention of poor quality rather than detecting it after the event. He
argues that quality is an integral part of the day-to-day work of the line, staff and operatives of an
organization. It cannot be effectively separated from other activities undertaken by employees
and any attempt to do so more would than likely result in substandard quality. He, like most
other gurus, considers effective staff training and education to be an essential component of
TQM. He states that education and training should address the three vital areas of quality
attitudes, quality knowledge, and quality skills.
One of the more well-known concepts developed by Feigenbaum was that of the "hidden
plant". He maintained that within every company or factory a proportion of the capacity was
wasted by not getting it right first time.
Quality control underlining that human relation was a fundamental issue in quality
control activities, and such things as statistics and preventive measures were only a fraction of
the whole equation.
Quality is what fits the customer at the right price for both the provider and customer and
a common sense approach to quality standards, conformance, corrective actions, and planning
for improvement is the control necessary to achieve that quality. Through inspiring and pushing
everybody in an organization to realize their responsibilities and potential effects on the quality
of a product or service.

PROF. KAORU ISHIKAWA (13th July, 1915 -16th April, 1989)

Prof. Kaoru Ishikawa is the "Father of Quality Circles" for his role in launching Japan's
quality movement in 19607.71Tis recognized with developing the idea of company-wide quality
control in Japan. He established the use of quality circles and championed the use of quality tools
to know the root causes of problems. He developed one of those tools, the cause-and-effect
diagram, which is also known as the Ishikawa diagram or the fishbone diagram.
For Ishikawa quality is the "development, design, production and service of a product
that is most efficient, most helpful, and constantly acceptable to the consumer". He argues that
quality control extends further than the product and includes after-sales service, the quality of
management, the quality of individuals and the company itself. He advocates employee
contribution as the input to the successful implementation of TQM. Quality circles, he believes,
are an essential medium to achieve this. In his work, like all other gurus, he emphasizes the value
of education. He states that quality starts and culminates with education. In his book "What is
Total Quality Control?" Ishikawa said that the seven basic tools were "indispensable for quality
control". These tools are:
1. Process flow chart
2. Check sheet
3. Histogram
4. Pareto chart – Wilfredo Pareto –Italian Economist
5. Cause - effect diagram (Ishikawa diagram)
6. Scatter diagram
7. Control chart
Ishikawa believed that with these tools, managers and staff could deal with and solve the
quality problems facing them. Ishikawa was the first quality guru to accentuate the importance of
the internal customer, the next person in the production process.
Ishikawa emphasized on quality as a way of management. He influenced the
development of participative, bottom-up view of quality which became the trademark of the
Japanese approach to quality management. Some of the key elements are:
1. Quality starts with education and culminates with education.
2. The first step in quality is to know the customers' requirements.
3. The perfect state of quality control happens when inspection is no longer
compulsory.
4. Take out the root cause, not the symptoms.
5. Quality control is the duty of all workers and all divisions.
6. Do not mistake means with the objectives.
7. Set quality first and set your sights on long-term profits.
8. Market is the entry and way out of quality.
9. Top management must not demonstrate annoyance when facts are presented by
subordinates.
10. 99% of problems in a company can be resolved with easy tools for analysis and
problem-solving
11. Data without dispersion information (variability) are fake data.
Ishikawa's concept of total quality control contains fundamental principles:
1. Quality first - not short-term profits first
2. Customer orientation - not producer orientation
3. The next step is your customer - breaking down the fence of sectionalism
4. Using facts and data to make presentations - use of statistical methods
5. Reverence for humanity as a management philosophy, full participatory
management.
 6. Gross = functional management.

GENICHI TAGUCHI (1st January, 1924 -2nd June, 2012)

Dr. Taguchi was born in Japan and completed his graduation in the subject of Mechanical
Engineering and obtained Ph.D. in the year 1962. He is a Japanese quality expert known for his
work in the area of product design. He estimated that 80% of all defective items are caused by
poor product design. Taguchi stressed that companies needed to center their quality efforts on the
design stage, as it was much less expensive and easier to make changes during this stage later in
the production process.
Taguchi underlines an engineering approach to quality. Taguchi defines quality as the
"loss imparted to the society from the time a product is shipped". Examples of loss include
failure to reach ideal performance, failure to meet the customer's requirements, breakdowns, and
harmful side-effects caused by products. This simply means that the smaller the loss, the more
desirable the product. The key elements of Taguchi's quality concepts are briefly stated below:
1. Quality improvement should focus on reducing the variation of the product's key
performance characteristics about their target values.
2. The loss suffered by a customer due to a product's performance variation is often
just about proportional to the square of the deviation of the performance
characteristics from its target value.
3. The ultimate quality and cost of manufactured products are determined to a great
extent by the engineering design of the product and the manufacturing process.
4. A product's or process's performance variation can be lessened by exploiting the
non-linear effects of the product or process parameters on the performance
characteristics.
5. Statistically planned experiments can be used to name the settings of product/
process parameters that reduce performance variation.
Taguchi is known for applying a concept called design of experiments to product design.
This method is an engineering approach that focuses on developing robust design that enables
products to perform under varying conditions. He believed that it was more difficult to control
the environmental conditions. Taguchi's approach focuses on a statistical method that zeros in
rapidly on the variations in a product that distinguish the bad parts from the good. He advocated
that all factors that can hamper uniformity between products and their long-term stable
performance must be studied, and safeguards must be built in the product design stage itself. He
called it the concept of robust design. Robust design results in a product that can perform over a
wide range of conditions.
Taguchi's eight-point approach
1. Determine the main functions, side effects and loss modes.
2. Determine the noise factors and the testing conditions for evaluating failure of
quality.
 3. Determine the quality characteristics to be observed and the objective functions to
be optimized.
4. Determine the control factors and their alternate levels.
5. Blueprint the matrix requirements and define the data analysis procedure.
6. Carry out the matrix.
7. Examine the data, identify optimum levels for the control factors and foresee
performance under these levels.
8. Perform the confirmation experiment and prepare future actions.

DR. SHINGO SHIGEO

Dr. Shingo Shigeo is the greatest contributor to modern manufacturing practices. While
his name has modest recognition in the western hemisphere, his teachings and principles have
formed the backbone of efficient engineering practices. In applying his experience and expertise
in the field of industrial engineering, Dr. Shigeo was able to give a better way of life for both the
operators and the companies. His policies have earned reputation through outcome in
manufacturing among the companies that have implemented these teachings. In view of his
contributions, Utah State University founded the Shingo prize for excellence in manufacturing in
1988. This prize encourages world-class manufacturing and distinguishes companies that
accomplish superior customer satisfaction and business results, and has been matched up to a
Noble Prize for manufacturing.
Dr. Shigeo was one of the greatest influences on Japanese quality control and his
contributions to quality improvement transformed the Japanese industrial sector and accordingly
influenced the industries in the west. Dr. Shingo Shigeo's teachings can be classified into the
three concepts listed as follows:
1. Just In Time (JIT) - The JIT manufacturing concept was originated in part due to
contribution of Dr. Shingo Shigeo and Taichii Ohno of Toyota Motor Corporation
from 1949 to 1975. During this period Dr. Shigeo took responsibility of industrial
engineering and factory improvement training at Toyota Motor Corporation. This
is commonly referred to as JIT or the Toyota Production System. The essential
element in developing JIT was the use of the Ford System along with the
consciousness that factory workers had more to contribute than just muscle
power. JIT is about supplying customers with what they want when they want it.
The aim of JIT is to diminish inventories by producing only what is necessary
when it is necessary. Orders are "pulled" through the system when prompted by
customer orders, not pushed through the system in order to attain economies of
scale with the production of larger batches.
 2. Single Minute Exchange o Dies (SMED) - It is a system for speedy changeovers
between products. The target is to make simpler materials, machinery, processes
and skills to significantly decrease changeover times from hours to minutes. As a
consequence, products could be produced in small batches or even single units
with negligible disturbance.
3. Zero Quality Control (ZQC) - The ZQC concepts are based on the theoretically
ideal scenario. However, quality improvement can be made using these principles
and concepts. Dr. Shigeo' basic idea was to implement error-proofing devices in
the assembly line to abolish the likelihood of flawed operations. In addition, his
accent was on targeting the root cause of defect whenever a defect took place,
thereby almost abolishing the requirement for statistical process control. The
famous equation in the spirit of Zero Quality Control Concepts formulated by the
Japanese quality guru, Dr. Shigeo Shingo is:

Poka-Yoke Techniques to Correct Defects + Source Inspection to Prevent Defects

= Zero Quality Control
This technique by Dr. Shigeo makes use of the following engineering principles:
a. 100% inspections done at the starting place instead of sampling
inspections
b. b. Instant feedback from consecutive quality checks and selfchecks
c. Poka-yoke designed manufacturing devices-Poka yoke relates to stopping
processes as soon as a defect happens, searching the defect source and
avoiding it from occurring once more so that there will be reduced reliance
on statistical quality inspections and the production process will have zero
defects. For example, Binney and Smith, maker of Crayola Crayons, uses
light sensors to verify if each crayon is present in each box of crayons they
produce. If a crayon is missing, the machines will discontinue
automatically. Producing complete boxes of crayons right the first time is
the preferred outcome on statistical quality inspections and the production
process will have zero defects. For example, Binney and Smith, maker of
Crayola Crayons, uses light sensors to verify if each crayon is present in
each box of crayons they produce. If a crayon is missing, the machines
will discontinue automatically. Producing complete boxes of crayons right
the first time is the preferred outcome.
Using his key teachings, many modern day manufacturing companies have
realized substantial profits.
MASAKI IMAI
Masaki Imai is the Founder and President of Kaizen Institute who threw the word
"Kaizen". Kaizen refers to continuous or ongoing improvement" in Japanese. Kaizen was
originally introduced to the West by Masaaki Imai in his book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's
Competitive Success in 1986. Today Kaizen is acknowledged globally as an essential pillar of an
organization's long-term competitive strategy. Kaizen is continuous improvement that is based
on certain guiding principles:
1. Good processes carry good results
2. Go see for yourself to grab the present situation
3. Speak with data, direct byfacts
4. Take action to contain and remedy root causes of problems
5. Work as a team
6. Kaizen is everyone's business
Kaizen is an inseparable aspect of TQM which is mandatory in all activities of the
organization. Kaizen has to essentially carry out with small, step-by-step continuous
improvement. Smaller and continuous improvements are more realizable, predictable,
controllable, and acceptable. Kaizen philosophy believes that people at all levels, together with
the lowermost levels in the organizational hierarchy, can add to improvements. This is possible
because Kaizen asks for simply little improvements.
In order to carry on in an increasingly competitive world, top management must adopt a
just-in-time (JIT) approach and drive change down the hierarchy without yielding to opposition.
The key ideas associated with JIT were developed at the Toyota Motor Company under the
leadership of founder Eiji Toyoto whose father had founded the successful Toyota Spinning and
weaving company. JIT is the management philosophy that endeavors to get rid of sources of
manufacturing waste and producing the right part in the right place at the right time.