Armand Feigenbaum

Born: 1922

Occupation: Engineer and Quality Control

• KEY LEARNING POINTS

• Armand V. Feigenbaum’s definition of quality: A way of running a business organization.
• Key Beliefs: Systems thinking, relevant measurement, participation.
• Principal Methods: The four steps to quality, operating quality costs.
 Biography

• Armand Vallin Feigenbaum (born 1922) is an American quality control expert

and businessman. Feigenbaum was “the first in the United States to move quality
from the offices of the specialist back to the operating workers”.

He devised the concept of Total Quality Control, later known as Total Quality
Management (TQM).

• Feigenbaum received a bachelor's degree from Union College, and his master's

degree and Ph.D. from MIT.
• He was Director of Manufacturing Operations at General Electric (1958-1968),
and is now President and CEO of General Systems Company of Pittsfield,
Massachusetts, an engineering firm that designs and installs operational
systems.
• Feigenbaum served as President of the American Society for Quality (1961-
1963),  which awarded him the Edwards Medal and Lancaster Award for his
international contribution to quality and productivity.
 Contributions
His contributions to the quality body of knowledge include:

• "Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality

development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement efforts of the
various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the
most economical levels which allow full customer satisfaction.“

• The concept of a "hidden" plant—the idea that so much extra work is performed
in correcting mistakes that there is effectively a hidden plant within any factory.

• Accountability for quality: Because quality is everybody's job, it may become

nobody's job—the idea that quality must be actively managed and have
visibility at the highest levels of management.

• The concept of quality costs

 Feigenbaum’s 3 Step Process
Feigenbaum’s 3 Step Process for Improving Quality:

• Quality Leadership – motivating force for quality improvement

• Quality Technology – statistics and machinery used to improve technology
• Organizational Commitment – includes everyone in the quality struggle
 Feigenbaum’s 4 Deadly Sins

Feigenbaum’s 4 Deadly Sins:

• Hot House Quality – Quality programs that receive a lot of hoopla and
no follow-through

• Wishful Thinking – Those who would pursue protectionism to keep

American firms from having to compete on quality

• Producing Overseas

• Confining Quality to the Factory – When quality is viewed as a shop-

floor concern, verses the responsibility of everyone
 Feigenbaum’s 19 Steps

1. Total quality control is defined as a system for improvement.

2. Big Q quality (company-wide commitment to TQC) is more
important than little q quality (improvements on the
production line).
3. Control is a management tool with four steps.
4. Quality control requires integration of uncoordinated
activities.
5. Quality increases profits.
6. Quality is expected, not desired.
7. Humans affect quality.
Feigenbaum’s 19 Steps( cont..)
8. TQC applies to all products and services.
9. Quality is a total life-cycle consideration.
10. Control the process.
11. Total quality system involves the entire
company-wide operating work structure.
12. There are many operating and financial
benefits of quality.
13. The costs of quality are a means for
measuring quality control activities.
Feigenbaum’s 19 Steps( cont..)
14. Organize for quality control.
15. Managers are quality facilitators, not quality
cops.
16. Strive for continuous commitment.
17. Use statistical tools.
18. Automation is not a panacea.
19. Control quality at the source.
 Books
• Quality Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration,
McGraw-Hill, 1951
• Total Quality Control: Achieving Productivity, Market
Penetration, and Advantage in the Global Economy,
1983, 1985, 1991, 2010(Yet to be Released)
• The Power of Management Capital, McGraw-Hill, 2003 (
co- author Donald S. Feigenbaum)
• Total Quality Control, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2004
• Process Management Excellence: The Art of Excelling in
Process Management, 2006
 Books( cont..)
• The power of Management innovation: 24
Keys for Sustaining and Accelerating Business
Growth And Productivity(co-author Donald S.
Feigenbaum), 2009
 Awards and Honors
Awards and Honors of Feigenbaum:

• Recipient of ASQ's Lancaster Award

• ASQ 1965 Edwards Medal in recognition of "his origination and implementation of basic
foundations for modern quality control"
• National Security Industrial Association Award of Merit
• Member of the Advisory Group of the U.S. Army
• Chairman of a system-wide evaluation of quality assurance activities of the Army Material
Command
• Consultant with the Industrial College of the Armed Forces
• Union College Founders Medal
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Life member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Life member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• Life member of Plymouth Society of Marine Biology
Thank you

- Tata Reddy