Short Biography Contributions to the Field of Quality Management

W. Edwards Deming William Edwards Deming was a leading American quality thinker, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and a business consultant. Born in the early 1900s in Iowa, he contributed immensely to the recovery of Japan after the second world war. He had a modest upbringing which influenced his thinking later in life. He attained a degree in engineering in 1921 and later a Masters in physics. He was awarded a doctorate degree from Yale in 1928.

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Demings contributions in the field of quality management can be summed up in 14 points (Deming & Orsini, 2013). His philosophy focuses on continuous improvement and quality. Some of his great ideas include:

Creating and communicating to the employees about the aims and purposes of the company to enhance profits and increase companys productivity.

Adapt to day-to-day changes since organizations do not remain constant.

Ensure that production builds quality into a product.

Leadership as a skill should be taught and cultivated to improve job functions.

An organization should strive to reduce conflicts that arise across different departments in an organization.

Joseph M. JuranBorn in 1904 in Romania, Juran lived in poverty for much of his childhood. His father immigrated to America in 1909 in search of work and his family joined him later. Juran enrolled in school where he excelled in science and mathematics. In 1920 he joined the University of Minnesota and graduated with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1924. During his career, Juran produced many training courses, handbooks, and training books which were widely acknowledged across the globe and earned him around 40 honorary doctorates, memberships, medals, and plaques.

Juran covers different aspects on quality management. In his concept, he focused on issues of planning and organization, the role of the managerial team in ensuring quality, and the need of organization targets to improve on performance (Stephens & Juran, 2005). According to Juran, quality is planned and the process of quality improvement is summarized in a concept that involves financial control, planning, and improvement. The concept is referred to as a trilogy and involves:

Quality planning involves identifying the customers and their needs and making products that meet these specifications.

Quality control involves developing a process that can produce quality product.

Under quality improvement, the process should be able to produce a product under operating conditions.

Armand FengenbaumFeigenbaum was born in 1922 in New York. He is widely known for his role in devising the concept of Total Quality which led to the birth of Total Quality Management.

He died in November, 13th 2014.

Feigenbaum contributed immensely in the field of quality management by establishing principles that offered a quality approach which led to profitability in management. (Feigenbaum & Feigenbaum, 2003).

According to Feigenbaum, the concepts of total quality should be based on customers perspective and not the companys.

Moreover, in his concept of total quality, he established that quality should be both an individual and team commitment.

He also established that quality and innovation are beneficial rather than the fact that they are interrelated.

GenishiTagushiTaguchi was born in 1924 in Tokamachi Japan. While in college he studied textile engineering. After the second world war he worked at the ministry of public health and welfare.

He died in 2012 in Tokyo, Japan. Taguchi is credited for making great contributions to the world of Quality management. They include;

The loss function-It is an equation that managers can use to ascertain the revenues a company is losing due to the inconsistency in the production process (Taguchi, Chowdhury & Wu, 2005). It can be used to project the benefits of quality improvement program.

Orthogonal Arrays and Linear Graphs- Can be used to isolate noise factors that are responsible for deviations from the mean. The method has been proven to be cost effective.

Robustness refers to the ability of a product to work as intended regardless of the uncontrollable outside forces.

Jack Welch Welch was born in Massachusetts to a conductor and a homemaker. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the university of Massachusetts and later a master in science. In 1960 he attained a Ph. D from the University of Illinois.

Welch has contributed immensely in the field of quality management by emphasizing on the need of innovative ideas (Welch & Welch, 2005). Moreover, he argues that a company should strive to a vision that is clear and able to communicate with all its customers.

Furthermore, a company should set aggressive targets which it should strive to meet

In addition, an organization should have the confidence to empower others to be open to new ideas.

References

Deming, W. E., & Orsini, J. N. (2013). The essential Deming: Leadership principles from the father of total quality management. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Feigenbaum, A. V., & Feigenbaum, D. S. (2003). The power of management capital: How to sustain and accelerate business growth and profitability by effectively accumulating, innovating, and utilizing management capital. New York: McGraw-Hill

Stephens, K. S., & Juran, J. M. (2005). Juran, quality, and a century of improvement. Milwaukee, Wis: ASQ Quality Press.

Taguchi, G., Chowdhury, S., & Wu, Y. (2005). Taguchi's quality engineering handbook. Hoboken, N.J: Livonia, Mich.

Welch, J., & Welch, S. (2005). Winning. New York: HarperBusiness Publishers.