What are the underlying quality philosophies suggested by Deming, Juran and Crosby?

Module I. Introduction to Quality Management

Lecture 4 - What are the underlying quality philosophies suggested by Deming, Juran and Crosby?

Several quality guru’s, such as W. Edwards Deming. Philip B. Crosby, and Joseph M. Juran, has made significant contributions in the field of quality. They are largely responsible for the global adoption and integration of quality management in industry. They preached that management commitment is the key to a successful program in quality. They also emphasized that any philosophy to improve quality in a company needs time and cannot occur overnight.

W. Edwards Deming is credited with the impressive turnaround in Japanese industry after World War  X. Deming's philosophy emphasizes the role of ‘management of the problems’ that industry faces. Deming said that about 85% of the problem can be solved only by management. These involve changing the method of operation and are not by scolding the workers. His idea was to improve process and not on blaming or scolding workers. In Deming's world, workers' responsibility lies in communicating to management the information they possess regarding the process and both must work in harmony. The Deming's ideal management style is holistic and organization is viewed as an integrated entity. The idea is to plan for the long run and provide a course of action for the short run. Deming believed in the adoption of a total quality philosophy and emphasized the never ending nature of statistical quality control in the quality improvement process. Deming's approach demands a cultural transformation in the organization. Deming advocated certain key components that are essential for the journey toward continuous improvement, viz. Knowledge of the system and the theory of optimization(to look into system as a whole and not as individual process), Knowledge of the theory of variation( understanding common and special cause of variation and emphasize on statistical process control), Exposure to the theory of knowledge(data driven prediction that is based on underlying knowledge about processes), Knowledge of psychology (understand the behavior and interactions of people and also the interactions of people with their working environment). Deming provides 14 points for management that will sustain productivity and competitiveness of the company in the long run. Book by Deming (published in 1982, 2000)or any book on Quality Management can be seen by readers to understand in-depth the 14 points. In around 1950, Shewart cycle was renamed in Japan as Deming PDCA cycle. This is a continuous cycle of process improvement. This is illustrated in Figure 1-2 given below.

Figure 1-2 PDCA Deming Cycle

Deming's 14 points for management provide a road map for continuous quality improvement. While implementing these points, certain practices of management are labeled by Deming as deadly diseases or sins. These are (i) management by visible figures only, (ii) lack of constancy of purpose, (iii) performance appraisal by numbers, (iv) a short-term view of organization, and (v) mobility of management. These must be eliminated. Most of Deming's deadly diseases involve a lack of understanding of variation.

Joseph. M. Juran emphasized on seven step process for controlling quality, which is employed by various organizations to control the processes.In this context, Juran first visited Japan in 1950’s,and educated the management of large organistions about the need of management’s commitment to attain quality. The quality standards developed by Japanese are based on these concepts. According to Juran philosophy,Quality is defined as “fitness for use”.

Philip B. Crosby has a particularly wide-ranging understanding of the various operations in industry because he started as a line inspector and worked his way up. Such firsthand experience has provided him with a keen awareness of what quality is, what the obstacles to quality are, and what can be done to overcome them. He founded Philip Crosby Associates in 1979. His quality management grid identifies and pinpoints operations that have potential for improvement. The grid is divided into five stages of maturity, and six measurement categories aid in the evaluation process. Readers can refer to his book ‘Quality is Free (1979)’ for in-depth about his philosophy. He suggested that the rational quality improvement approach is to prevent defects. He defined that the only performance standard is zero defect. Crosby emphasized on performance from the cost of quality perspective. He preached to reduce costs of unquality, such as scrap, rework, inventory, machine breakdown, inspection, etc. These are the cost that leads to poor quality.