Remembering the Great Leaders of Quality

This article is a tribute to the 10 greatest leaders of quality and a brief snapshot of their key contribution towards quality.     

1. Edward Deming (1900 to 1993)

• Best known for the P-D-C-A cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act)
• Brought significant improvements to Japanese manufacturing
• Other quality and management philosophies and thoughts from him were - i) The Deming System of Profound Knowledge, ii) The 14 points for Transformation of Management, iii) Seven Deadly Diseases, iv) The PDSA cycle, v) The Red Bead Experiment, and, vi) The Funnel Experiment.

2. Joseph Moses Juran (1904 to 2008)

• First to apply Pareto principle to Quality Management
• First to add Human Dimension to Quality Management
• First to write about Cost of Poor Quality (later popularized by James Harrington of IBM)
• The Juran Trilogy, an approach to cross-functional management - The three managerial processes: quality planning, quality control and quality improvement
• Brought various Japanese quality principles (example: Quality Circles) to the US

3. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 to 1915)

• Father of Scientific Management and Efficiency Movement
• Early proponent of benchmarking and business process re-design
• Scientific management theory helped the upcoming of Total Quality Control and Re-engineering

4.  Shigeo Shingo (1909 to 1990)

• Contributor of the famous TPS - Toyota Production System, that focused on reducing over-burden,  inconsistency,  and to eliminate waste
• Creator of concepts such as Poka-yoke or mistake-proofing, Zero Quality Control, The SMED system etc

5. Taiichi Ohno (1912 to 1990)

• Father of TPS - Toyota Production System which later became Lean Manufacturing
• Devised the 7 wastes (muda in Japanese) in Lean
• Proponent of JIT - Just-In-Time system
• Developed the Kanban concept

6.  Sakichi Toyoda (1867 to 1930)

• Implemented automation (Jidoka in Japanese)
• Developed the root cause analysis technique, 5-Whys

7. Kaoru Ishikawa (1915 to 1989)

• Introduced the concept of Quality Circles
• Developed the statistical tool - Fishbone Cause and Effect Diagram
• Stressed the importance of an internal customer

8. Armand V. Feigenbaum (1920)

• Devised the Total Quality Control concept
• Innovator in the area of the Quality Cost Management - Costs of prevention, appraisal, and internal and external failure 

9. Genichi Taguchi (1924 to 2012)

• Applied statistics to improve the quality of manufactured good - through famous Taguchi Methods
• Researched further on design of experiments
• Contributed towards fields such as product design and manufacturing, such as sales process engineering

10.  Philip B Crosby (1926 to 2001)

• Initiated the Zero Defects concept
• Conceptualized Quality Management Maturity Grid

I believe that these godfathers of quality have provided significant contributions for the mankind to live a high-quality life. 

Remembering them and sharing their key contributions, I trust, is a great way to celebrate the World Quality Month.

ISI Mark of India - Synonym for Quality, Safety and Reliability

November is the World Quality Month.  This probably is the best time of the year to write about the how a customer, in India, gets the ability to choose to buy a high quality product.  What quality certification do they look for in a product before purchase?   How do product companies in India guarantee quality?  What are the quality standards they adhere to?  These are some interesting questions for which we will look for answers here.

In India, certain products carry a certification logo that says 'ISI'.  People in India refer to this logo as "ISI Mark" and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) provides this product certification.  ISI stands for 'Indian Standards Institution', which is the institution that certifies that a product is of good quality and meets mandated specifications.   ISI mark is mandatory for certain products, for example,  kitchen appliances like pressure cookers, electrical appliances such as water heaters, wiring cables, milk powder, masonry cement, clinical thermometers etc.

The ISI mark provides the customer the guarantee of quality, safety and reliability.  Companies adhere to certification procedures and obtain licenses to use the ISI mark.  Certification application procedures are of 2 types - normal and standard.  Standard certification process is a quicker certification process applicable to certain products while normal certification process is an exhaustive process conducted by a BIS officer.  It is to be noted that BIS laboratories adhere to ISO/IEC Guide 17025:1999 quality standards. 

Overseas applicants and Indian Importers are also granted license for use of ISI mark under certain product categories.   

BIS provides another interesting quality certification - specifically for products such as gold jewels and gold coins.  This is popularly known as 'BIS Gold Hallmark'.  Gold products with BIS Hallmark logo carry a premium over non-certified gold products.  Purity of gold is guaranteed with BIS Hallmark certification.  BIS is the designated agency by Indian Government for providing the BIS Hallmark certification.   The BIS Hallmarking Scheme is aligned to the International criteria on hallmarking (Vienna Convention 1972).  

BIS acts as a third-party certification provider that guarantees quality, safety and reliability for various consumer products including gold.  People in India are very cautious to look for ISI mark and BIS Hallmark when purchasing  products.  The ISI mark has become a symbol of trust and provides peace of mind for the people in India and it is a synonym for high quality. 

How a common man measure quality?

Paul has asked a simple-looking question in the October 2013 blog post - "What new fields or disciplines could most reap the benefits of quality tools and techniques"?  Paul's question is focused on application of quality beyond 'manufacturing' - be it in, say, 'athletics', 'customer service', or 'education'. 

Quality is not easily quantifiable for a common man. He cannot apply quality tools and techniques so easily to measure quality.  Most consumers get to measure quality using simple qualitative parameters. 

For example, say, in a WalMart store, people easily identify the best quality apples from the assortment displayed in various aisles.  Most people can measure value of products on sale.  Thus, value becomes an important aspect of quality, as certain high quality products (say, apples) are available at relatively cheaper prices. 

Let us look at healthcare.  We prefer to go to certain hospitals or pharmacy stores and even prefer to visit certain doctors to others.  Why?  We, somehow, perceive high quality - another qualitative measurement.  The perception may be due to the high availability of products, proximity to work or home, or, even a particular salesperson.   Thus, perception becomes another aspect of quality.  Good perception, most often, is a result of high quality products and services offered.

Here is yet another example.  This example may be applicable only for people who commute regularly to work using public transport (especially bus) services.  Many times, people prefer to ride certain buses/routes.  Most times, it is the bus driver that is the reason for this preference.  The driving skill and high degree of professionalism are some of the qualitative aspects that help the driver to deliver high quality services.  So, skill and character plays a key role in delivering quality.

There are quality tools and methodologies available for quality practitioners to measure the quality service levels quantitatively.    But people, the real customers, can measure quality (high or low), relatively easily and accurately, by looking at certain aspects of quality such as value, perception, skill, character etc. 

I would invite to you take a look at the work done by ASQ on service quality.