Quality philosophers

Quality philosophers

William Edwards Deming

1900 - 1993

The Japanese call Deming "The Father of the Third Industrial Revolution." This renown is just because it showed them that when quality is relentlessly pursued, resources are optimized, costs are lowered and the market is conquered, going against the classical economic theories according to which the economic policies adopted by Japan were a error.

Deming's greatest contribution to quality processes in Japan is statistical process control, which is a mathematical language with which managers and operators can understand "what the machines say." Process variations affect the fulfillment of the promised quality.

Deming's ideas are collected in Deming's Fourteen Points and Seven Diseases of Management

Philip Bayard Crosby

1926 - 2001

He asserted that top management is responsible for change, advocating for creating change when the process needs improvement and for preventing change when problems are sporadic.

He managed to develop the technique of quality costs, preparing a Quality Manual, where there is a strong administrative content focused on planning, organization and responsibility. In 1954 he was invited by the JUSE to give lectures in Japan, so together with Deming and Ishikawa they are considered the main promoters of success in Japan.

Its definition is strictly a level one formulation, in which the quality of a product or service is equivalent to being sure to measure all the characteristics of a product or service that satisfy the specification criteria. Crosby proposed a 14-step program, which he called “zero defects,” through which he made managers understand that whatever perfection is required can be achieved, but to do so, senior management has to motivate its workers. In this way, he raised the importance of human relationships at work.

He participated in the Japanese quality movement, his main contributions being the Cause and Effect Diagram, also known as the Fish Diagram or Ishikawa Diagram. His main hypothesis was that different cultural characteristics in both societies were key to Japanese success in quality. Ishikawa's main ideas are found in his book "What is Total Quality Control ?: The Japanese Way . " In it he indicates that the CTC (Total Quality Control) in Japan is characterized by the participation of everyone, from the highest managers to the lowest employees.

Feigenbaum is recognized for three great contributions; the concept of “total quality” that the Japanese picked up as “TQC”, the international promotion of quality ethics and the classification of quality costs. In 1951 he published the book "Quality Control: Principles, Practice and Administration".

Joseph Moses Juran

1904 - 2008

Kaoru Ishikawa

1915 - 1989

Armand V. Feigenbaum

1922