Who is guru?

“A Guru is a spiritual guide who is considered to have attained complete insight.“ “A guru, by
definition, is a good person, a wise person and teacher. A quality guru should be all of these,
plus have a concept and approach to quality within business that has made a major and lasting
impact. “

Three groups of gurus

Early 1950’s Americans who took the message of quality to Japan

Late 1950’s Japanese who developed new concepts in response to the Americans

1970’s to 1980’s Western gurus who followed the Japanese industrial success.

Walter Shewhart - The Grandfather of Total Quality

Management.

History
Walter Andrew Shewhart (pronounced like "shoe-heart", March 18, 1891 - March 11, 1967) was an
American physicist, engineer and statistician, sometimes known as the father of statistical quality
control.

The original notions of Total Quality Management and continuous improvement trace back to a
former Bell Telephone employee named Walter Shewhart. One of W. Edwards Deming's
teachers, he preached the importance of adapting management processes to create profitable
situations for both businesses and consumers, promoting the utilization of his own creation --
the SPC control chart.

The industrial age was easing into its second century when a young engineer named Walter A.
Shewhart came along and altered the course of industrial history. Shewhart, first Honorary member,
successfully brought together the disciplines of statistics, engineering, and economics and became
known as the father of modern quality control. The lasting and tangible evidence of that union for
which he is most widely known is the control chart, a simple but highly effective tool that represented
an initial step toward what Shewhart called “the formulation of a scientific basis for securing
economic control.”
A strong background in the sciences and engineering prepared Shewhart for a life of
accomplishments. He graduated from the University of Illinois with bachelor’s and master’s degrees,
and he received a doctorate in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1917. He
taught at the universities of Illinois and California, and he briefly headed the physics department at
the Wisconsin Normal School in LaCrosse.

Most of Shewhart’s professional career was spent as an engineer at Western Electric from 1918 to
1924, and at Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he served in several capacities as a member of the
technical staff from 1925 until his retirement in 1956. He also lectured on quality control and applied
statistics at the University of London, Stevens Institute of Technology, the graduate school of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, and in India. He was a member of the visiting committee at
Harvard’s Department of Social Relations, an honorary professor at Rutgers, and a member of the
advisory committee of the Princeton mathematics department.

Shewhart wrote Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control in 1939 and gained
recognition in the statistical community. In addition, he published numerous articles in professional
journals, and many of his writings were held internally at Bell Laboratories. One of these was the
historic memorandum of May 16, 1924, in which he proposed the control chart to his superiors.

He also developed the Shewhart Cycle Learning and Improvement cycle, combining both creative
management thinking with statistical analysis. This cycle contains four continuous steps: Plan, Do,
Study and Act. These steps (commonly refered to as the PDSA cycle), Shewhart believed, ultimately
lead to total quality improvement. The cycle draws its structure from the notion that constant
evaluation of management practices -- as well as the willingness of management to adopt and
disregard unsupported ideas --are keys to the evolution of a successful enterprise.

Achievements and honours

In his obituary for the American Statistical Association, Deming wrote of Shewhart:

As a man, he was gentle, genteel, never ruffled, never off his dignity. He knew disappointment and
frustration, through failure of many writers in mathematical statistics to understand his point of view.

He was founding editor of the Wiley Series in Mathematical Statistics, a role that he maintained for
twenty years, always championing freedom of speech and confident to publish views at variance with
his own.

His honours included:

• Founding member, fellow and president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics;

• Founding member, first honorary member and first Shewhart Medalist of the American
Society for Quality;
• Fellow and President of the American Statistical Association;
• Fellow of the International Statistical Institute;
• Honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society;
• Holley medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers;
• Honorary Doctor of Science, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta

The Shewhart Medal, named in honour of Walter A. Shewhart, is awarded annually by the American
Society for Quality for ...outstanding technical leadership in the field of modern quality control,
especially through the development to its theory, principles, and techniques.[1] The first medal was
awarded in 1948

PDCA CYCLE
The PDCA Cycle is a checklist of the four stages which you must go through to get from `problem-
faced' to `problem solved'. The four stages are Plan-Do-Check-Act, and they are carried out in the
cycle illustrated below.

The concept of the PDCA Cycle was originally developed by Walter Shewhart, the pioneering
statistician who developed statistical process control in the Bell Laboratories in the US during the
1930's. It is often referred to as `the Shewhart Cycle'. It was taken up and promoted very effectively
from the 1950s on by the famous Quality Management authority, W. Edwards Deming, and is
consequently known by many as `the Deming Wheel'.

Use the PDCA Cycle to coordinate your continuous improvement efforts. It both emphasises and
demonstrates that improvement programs must start with careful planning, must result in effective
action, and must move on again to careful planning in a continuous cycle.

Also use the PDCA Cycle diagram in team meetings to take stock of what stage improvement
initiatives are at, and to choose the appropriate tools to see each stage through to successful
completion
W. Edwards Deming

Dr. W. Edwards Deming is known as the father of the Japanese post-war industrial revival and was
regarded by many as the leading quality guru in the United States. He passed on in 1993.

Trained as a statistician, his expertise was used during World War II to assist the United States in its
effort to improve the quality of war materials.

He was invited to Japan at the end of World War II by Japanese industrial leaders and engineers.
They asked Dr. Deming how long it would take to shift the perception of the world from the existing
paradigm that Japan produced cheap, shoddy imitations to one of producing innovative quality
products.

Dr. Deming told the group that if they would follow his directions, they could achieve the desired
outcome in five years. Few of the leaders believed him. But they were ashamed to say so and would
be embarrassed if they failed to follow his suggestions. He was invited back to Japan time after time
where he became a revered counselor. For his efforts he was awarded the Second Order of the Sacred
Treasure by the former Emperor Hirohito.

Japanese scientists and engineers named the famed Deming Prize after him. It is bestowed on
organizations that apply and achieve stringent quality-performance criteria.

Deming's business philosophy is summarized in his famous "14 Points," listed below. These points
have inspired significant changes among a number of leading US companies striving to compete in
the world's increasingly competitive environment.

But the 14 Points pose a challenge for many firms to figure out how to apply them in a meaningful
way that will result in continual improvement. Leadership Institute has developed powerful processes
for coaching executive teams, and eventually their entire organizations, to begin accomplishing what
Deming referred to as "the transformation."

His work is outlined in two books: Out of the Crisis and The New Economics, in which he spells out
his System of Profound Knowledge.
Honors & Achievement

In 1960, the Prime Minister of Japan (Nobusuke Kishi), acting on behalf of Emperor Hirohito,
awarded Dr. Deming Japan’s Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class.[13] The citation on the
medal recognizes Deming's contributions to Japan’s industrial rebirth and its worldwide success. The
first section of the meritorious service record describes his work in Japan:

• 1947, Rice Statistics Mission member

• 1950, assistant to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers
• instructor in sample survey methods in government statistics

The second half of the record lists his service to private enterprise through the introduction of epochal
ideas, such as quality control and market survey techniques.
Among his many honors, an exhibit memorializing Dr. Deming's contributions and his famous Red
Bead Experiment is on display outside the board room of the American Society for Quality

14 POINTS
Deming offered fourteen key principles for management for transforming business effectiveness. The
points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. (p. 23-24)[22] Although Deming does not use
the term in his book, it is credited with launching the Total Quality Management movement.[23]

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to
become competitive and stay in business, and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must
awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection
by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost.
Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and
trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and
productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8 of "Out of the Crisis"). The aim of supervision
should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of
management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company. (See Ch. 3 of "Out of
the Crisis")
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production
must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered
with the product or service.
 10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and
new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the
bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie
beyond the power of the work force.
11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
b. Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals.
Substitute leadership.
12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The
responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride
of workmanship. This means, inter alia," abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of
management by objective (See Ch. 3 of "Out of the Crisis").
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation
is everybody's job.

Joseph M. Juran

Joseph Moses Juran (December 24, 1904 – February 28, 2008) was a 20th century management
consultant who is principally remembered as an evangelist for quality and quality management,
writing several influential books on those subjects.[1] He was the brother of Academy Award
winner Nathan H. Juran. Dr. Juran's History

Dr. Juran graduated in 1924 with an electrical engineering degree and started his
career in Western Electric in Hawthorn IL. This was the same facility where Dr.
Deming also started his career. Upon arrival he was selected to work in the
inspection department. Later, he joined the newly formed statistical department.
Within Western Electric, he was promoted to manager and then division chief.
During his tenure in Hawthorn he advanced his studies and secured a law degree.
With this he moved to the company’s headquarters and worked in corporate
engineering.

When World War II started, The Lend Lease Administration recruited him. Here, he helped procure
arms, equipment and supplies for US allies. Joseph Moses Juran was responsible for improving the
procuring process and reducing the cycle-time by eliminating government red tape.

After the war Dr. Juran became a teacher at NYU. He taught industrial engineering and later became
the department chair. In 1949 he started his own consulting company. The company focused on
quality management, statistics and human interaction. He published his first version of the Quality
Control Handbook in 1951. During Japan’s reconstruction period of the 1950s he taught Quality
Control concepts to Japan.

Contributions
Pareto principle
In 1941 Juran stumbled across the work of Vilfredo Pareto and began to apply the Pareto principle to
quality issues (for example, 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes). This is also known as
"the vital few and the trivial many". In later years Juran preferred "the vital few and the useful many"
to signal that the remaining 80% of the causes should not be totally ignored.

Management theory
When he began his career in the 1920s the principal focus in quality management was on the quality
of the end, or finished, product. The tools used were from the Bell system of acceptance sampling,
inspection plans, and control charts. The ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor dominated.
Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension to quality management. He pushed for the
education and training of managers. For Juran, human relations problems were the ones to isolate.
Resistance to change—or, in his terms, cultural resistance—was the root cause of quality issues.
Juran credits Margaret Mead's book Cultural Patterns and Technical Change for illuminating the core
problem in reforming business quality.[9] He wrote Managerial Breakthrough, which was published in
1964, outlining the issue.
Juran's vision of quality management extended well outside the walls of the factory to encompass
non-manufacturing processes, especially those that might be thought of as service related. For
example, in an interview published in 1997[10] he observed:
The key issues facing managers in sales are no different than those faced by managers in other
disciplines. Sales managers say they face problems such as "It takes us too long...we need to reduce
the error rate." They want to know, "How do customers perceive us?" These issues are no different
than those facing managers trying to improve in other fields. The systematic approaches to
improvement are identical. ... There should be no reason our familiar principles of quality and process
engineering would not work in the sales process.

Juran's Trilogy
He also developed the "Juran's trilogy," an approach to cross-functional management that is
composed of three managerial processes: quality planning, quality control and quality improvement.
These functions all play a vital role when evaluating quality.
Armand V. Feigenbaum

History
Armand Vallin Feigenbaum (born 1922) is an American quality control expert and businessman. 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 wrote several books and served as
President of the American Society for Quality (1961-1963).
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

Awards and honors

• First 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 Materiel
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
Kaoru Ishikawa

History
Kaoru Ishikawa (Ishikawa Kaoru?, July 13, 1915 - April 16, 1989) was a Japanese university
professor and influential quality management innovator best known in North America for the
Ishikawa or cause and effect diagram (also known as fishbone diagram) that is used in the analysis of
industrial process.

Born in Tokyo, the oldest of the eight sons of Ichiro Ishikawa. In 1939 he graduated University of
Tokyo with an engineering degree in applied chemistry. His first job was as a naval technical officer
(1939-1941) then moved on to work at the Nissan Liquid Fuel Company until 1947. Ishikawa would
now start his career as an associate professor at the University of Tokyo. He then undertook the
presidency of the Musashi Institute of Technology in 1978.

In 1949, Ishikawa joined the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) quality control
research group. After World War II Japan looked to transform its industrial sector, which in North
America was then still perceived as a producer of cheap wind-up toys and poor quality cameras. It
was his skill at mobilizing large groups of people towards a specific common goal that was largely
responsible for Japan's quality-improvement initiatives. He translated, integrated and expanded the
management concepts of W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran into the Japanese system.

After becoming a full professor in the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Tokyo (1960)
Ishikawa introduced the concept of quality circles (1962) in conjunction with JUSE. This concept
began as an experiment to see what effect the "leading hand" (Gemba-cho) could have on quality. It
was a natural extension of these forms of training to all levels of an organization (the top and middle
managers having already been trained). Although many companies were invited to participate, only
one company at the time, Nippon Telephone & Telegraph, accepted. Quality circles would soon
become very popular and form an important link in a company's Total Quality Management system.
Ishikawa would write two books on quality circles (QC Circle Koryo and How to Operate QC Circle
Activities).

Among his efforts to promote quality were the Annual Quality Control Conference for Top
Management (1963) and several books on quality control (the Guide to Quality Control was
translated into English). He was the chairman of the editorial board of the monthly Statistical Quality
Control. Ishikawa was involved in international standardization activities.

1982 saw the development of the Ishikawa diagram which is used to determine root causes.

At Ishikawa's 1989 death, Juran delivered this eulogy:

There is so much to be learned by studying how Dr. Ishikawa managed to accomplish so much during
a single lifetime. In my observation, he did so by applying his natural gifts in an exemplary way. He
was dedicated to serving society rather than serving himself. His manner was modest, and this elicited
the cooperation of others. He followed his own teachings by securing facts and subjecting them to
rigorous analysis. He was completely sincere, and as a result was trusted completely.

Contributions to quality
• User Friendly Quality Control
• Fishbone Cause and Effect Diagram - Ishikawa diagram
• Implementation of Quality Circles
• Emphasised the Internal customer
• Shared Vision

Awards and recognition

• 1972 American Society for Quality's Eugene L. Grant Award
• 1977 Blue Ribbon Medal by the Japanese Government for achievements in industrial
standardization
• 1988 Walter A. Shewhart Medal
• 1988 Awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasures, Second Class, by the Japanese government.
Philip B. Crosby

History
Philip Bayard "Phil" Crosby, (Wheeling, June 18, 1926 - Winter Park, August 18, 2001) was a
businessman and author who contributed to management theory and quality management practices.[1]

Crosby initiated the Zero Defects program at the Martin Company Orlando, Florida, plant.[2] As the
quality control manager of the Pershing missile program, Crosby was credited with a 25 percent
reduction in the overall rejection rate and a 30 percent reduction in scrap costs.

In 1979, after a career at ITT, Crosby started the management consulting company Philip Crosby
Associates, Inc.[3] This consulting group provided educational courses in quality management both at
their headquarters in Winter Park, Florida, and at eight foreign locations. Also in 1979, Crosby
published his first business book, Quality Is Free. This book would become popular at the time
because of the crisis in North American quality. During the late 1970s and into the 1980s, North
American manufacturers were losing market share to Japanese products largely due to the superior
quality of the Japanese goods.

Crosby's response to the quality crisis was the principle of "doing it right the first time" (DIRFT). He
would also include four major principles:

1. the definition of quality is conformance to requirements

2. the system of quality is prevention
3. the performance standard is zero defects
4. the measurement of quality is the price of nonconformance

Crosby's prescription for quality improvement was a 14-step program. His belief was that an
organization that established a quality program will see savings returns that more than pay off the cost
of the quality program: "quality is free".

Philip Crosby is an American who promoted the phrases “zero defects” and “right first time”. “Zero
defects” doesn’t mean mistakes never happen, rather that there is no allowable number of errors built
into a product or process and that you get it right first time.
Philip Crosby believes management should take prime responsibility for quality, and workers only
follow their managers’ example. He defined the Four Absolutes of Quality Management.
The Four Absolutes of Quality Management

1. Quality is conformance to requirements

2. Quality prevention is preferable to quality inspection
3. Zero defects is the quality performance standard
4. Quality is measured in monetary terms – the price of non-conformance

Crosby's 14 Steps to Quality Improvement

1. Management is committed to quality – and this is clear to all

2. Create quality improvement teams – with (senior) representatives from all departments.
3. Measure processes to determine current and potential quality issues.
4. Calculate the cost of (poor) quality
5. Raise quality awareness of all employees
6. Take action to correct quality issues
7. Monitor progress of quality improvement – establish a zero defects committee.
8. Train supervisors in quality improvement
9. Hold “zero defects” days
10. Encourage employees to create their own quality improvement goals
11. Encourage employee communication with management about obstacles to quality
12. Recognise participants’ effort
13. Create quality councils
14. Do it all over again – quality improvement does not end

Philip Crosby has broadened his approach to include wider improvement ideals. He defined the:

Five characteristics of an“Eternally Successful Organisation”

1. People routinely do things right first time

2. Change is anticipated and used to advantage
3. Growth is consistent and profitable
4. New products and services appear when needed
5. Everyone is happy to work there
Genichi Taguchi

History
Genichi Taguchi (Taguchi Gen'ichi?, born January 1, 1924, in Tokamachi) is an engineer and
statistician. From the 1950s onwards, Taguchi developed a methodology for applying statistics to
improve the quality of manufactured goods. Taguchi methods have been controversial among some
conventional Western statisticians,[1][2] but others have accepted many of the concepts introduced by
him as valid extensions to the body of knowledge. Taguchi was raised in the textile town of
Tokamachi, in the Niigata prefecture of Japan. He initially studied textile engineering at Kiryu
Technical College with the intention of entering the family kimono business.[3] However, with the
escalation of World War II in 1942, he was drafted into the Astronomical Department of the
Navigation Institute of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

After the war, in 1948 he joined the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, where he came under the
influence of eminent statistician Matosaburo Masuyama, who kindled his interest in the design of
experiments. He also worked at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics during this time,[3] and
supported experimental work on the production of penicillin at Morinaga Pharmaceuticals, a
Morinaga Seika company.

In 1950, he joined the Electrical Communications Laboratory (ECL) of the Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation just as statistical quality control was beginning to become popular in Japan,[3]
under the influence of W. Edwards Deming and the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers. ECL
was engaged in a rivalry with Bell Labs to develop cross bar and telephone switching systems, and
Taguchi spent his twelve years there in developing methods for enhancing quality and reliability.
Even at this point, he was beginning to consult widely in Japanese industry, with Toyota being an
early adopter of his ideas.

During the 1950s, he collaborated widely and in 1954-1955 was visiting professor at the Indian
Statistical Institute, where he worked with C. R. Rao, Ronald Fisher and Walter A. Shewhart.[4] While
working at the SQC Unit of ISI, he was introduced to the orthogonal arrays invented by C. R. Rao - a
topic which was to be instrumental in enabling him to develop the foundation blocks of what is now
known as Taguchi methods.

On completing his doctorate at Kyushu University in 1962,[5] he left ECL, though he maintained a
consulting relationship. In the same year he visited Princeton University under the sponsorship of
John Tukey, who arranged a spell at Bell Labs, his old ECL rivals. In 1964 he became professor of
engineering at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo.[4] In 1966 he began a collaboration with Yuin Wu,
who later emigrated to the U.S. and, in 1980, invited Taguchi to lecture. During his visit there,
Taguchi himself financed a return to Bell Labs, where his initial teaching had made little enduring
impact. This second visit began a collaboration with Madhav Phadke and a growing enthusiasm for
his methodology in Bell Labs and elsewhere, including Ford Motor Company, Boeing, Xerox and
ITT.

Since 1982, Genichi Taguchi has been an advisor to the Japanese Standards Institute and executive
director of the American Supplier Institute, an international consulting organisation.[6] His concepts
pertaining to experimental design, the loss function, robust design, and the reduction of variation have
influenced fields beyond product design and manufacturing, such as sales process engineering

Contributions
Taguchi has made a very influential contribution to industrial statistics. Key elements of his quality
philosophy include the following:

1. Taguchi loss function, used to measure financial loss to society resulting from poor quality;
2. The philosophy of off-line quality control, designing products and processes so that they are
insensitive ("robust") to parameters outside the design engineer's control; and
3. Innovations in the statistical design of experiments, notably the use of an outer array for
factors that are uncontrollable in real life, but are systematically varied in the experiment.

Honours
• Indigo Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan
• Willard F. Rockwell Medal of the International Technology Institute
• Honorary member of the Japanese Society of Quality Control and of the American Society
for Quality[3]
• Shewhart Medal of the American Society for Quality (1995)
• Honored as a Quality Guru by the British Department of Trade and Industry (1990)