Walter Shewhart - The Grandfather of Total Quality Management.

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.
Dr. Shewhart believed that lack of information greatly hampered the efforts of control
and management processes in a production environment. In order to aid a manager in making
scientific, efficient, economical decisions, he developed Statistical Process Control methods.
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 referred 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.
Joseph M. Juran
Joseph M. Juran made many contributions to the field of quality management in his 70+
active working years. His book, the Quality Control Handbook, is a classic reference for quality
engineers. He revolutionized the Japanese philosophy on quality management and in no small
way worked to help shape their economy into the industrial leader it is today. Dr. Juran was the
first to incorporate the human aspect of quality management which is referred to as Total Quality
Management.
The process of developing ideas was a gradual one for Dr. Juran. Top management
involvement, the Pareto principle, the need for widespread training in quality, the definition of
quality as fitness for use, the project-by-project approach to quality improvement--these are the
ideas for which Juran is best known, and all emerged gradually.
Juran defines quality as fitness for use in terms of design, conformance, availability, safety, and field use.
Thus, his concept more closely incorporates the viewpoint of customer. He is prepared to measure everything and
relies on systems and problem-solving techniques. Unlike Deming, he focuses on top-down management and
technical methods rather than worker pride and satisfaction.

Jurans 10 steps to quality improvement are:

1. Build awareness of opportunity to improve.
2. Set-goals for improvement.
3. Organize to reach goals.
4. Provide training
5. Carryout projects to solve problems.
6. Report progress.
7. Give recognition.
8. Communicate results.
9. Keep score.
10. Maintain momentum by making annual improvement part of the regular systems and processes of the
company.
Dr. Armand V. Feigenbaum
He developed the Total Quality Control concept while concurrently at GE. He
introduced the concept first in an article in 1946. In 1951, while a doctoral student at MIT, Dr.
Feigenbaum wrote the first edition of his book Total Quality Control. He established the
principles of Total Quality Management (TQM), the approach to quality and profitability that
has profoundly influenced management strategy and productivity in the competition for world
markets in the United States, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. He wrote, 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.
Armand V. Feigenbaum is also known for his concept of the hidden plant. That is in
every factory a certain proportion of its capacity is wasted through not getting it right the first
time. Dr. Feigenbaum quoted a figure of up to 40% of the capacity of the plant being wasted. At
that time, this was an unbelievable figure; even today some managers are still to learn that this is
a figure not too far removed from the truth.

Kaoru Ishikawa: One Step Further

With his cause and effect diagram (also called the "Ishikawa" or "fishbone" diagram) this
management leader made significant and specific advancements in quality improvement. With
the use of this new diagram, the user can see all possible causes of a result, and hopefully find
the root of process imperfections. By pinpointing root problems, this diagram provides quality
improvement from the "bottom up." Dr. W. Edwards Deming --one of Isikawa's colleagues -adopted this diagram and used it to teach Total Quality Control in Japan as early as World War II.
Both Ishikawa and Deming use this diagram as one the first tools in the quality management
process.
Contributions to Quality Control

User Friendly Quality Control

Fishbone Cause and Effect Diagram - Ishikawa diagram

Implementation of Quality Circles

Emphasized the Internal customer

Shared Vision

Genichi Taguchi
Here are some of the major contributions that Taguchi has made to the quality improvement
world:

The Loss Function - Taguchi devised an equation to quantify the decline of a customer's
perceived value of a product as its quality declines. Essentially, it tells managers how
much revenue they are losing because of variability in their production process. It is a
powerful tool for projecting the benefits of a quality improvement program. Taguchi was
the first person to equate quality with cost.

Orthogonal Arrays and Linear Graphs - When evaluating a production process analysis
will undoubtedly identify outside factors or noise which cause deviations from the mean.
Isolating these factors to determine their individual effects can be a very costly and time
consuming process. Taguchi devised a way to use orthogonal arrays to isolate these noise
factors from all others in a cost effective manner.

Robustness - Some noise factors can be identified, isolated and even eliminated but
others cannot. For instance it is too difficult to predict and prepare for any possible
weather condition. Taguchi therefore referred to the ability of a process or product to
work as intended regardless of uncontrollable outside influences as robustness. He was
pivotal in many companies' development of products and processes which perform
uniformly regardless of uncontrollable forces; an obviously beneficial service.

Philip Crosby: The Fun Uncle of the Quality Revolution

Mr. Crosby defined quality as conformity to certain specifications set forth by
management and not some vague concept of "goodness." These specifications are not arbitrary
either; they must be set according to customer needs and wants.
Four Absolutes of Quality Management
1. Quality is defined as conformance to requirements, not as 'goodness' or 'elegance'.
2. The system for causing quality is prevention, not appraisal.
3. The performance standard must be Zero Defects, not "that's close enough".
4. The measurement of quality is the Price of Nonconformance, not indices.