Quality Management Gurus

As industry has become more concerned about quality as a competitive advantage, the question raises how to define the term quality as quality becomes more and more contentious. Many managers operate on the "I know it when I see it" principle; however, a growing awareness exists that in order to have a quality product or service or company, there must be some consensus on what quality is. Since in the past when not-so-quiet revolutionary management techniques were developed three individuals spearheaded and developed new techniques to manage and obtain quality products: Phillip Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, and Joseph Juran. While many people are of the opinion that the ideas of these three men may differ, here we will explain and compare the techniques devised by Crosby, Deming, and Juran to obtain quality , and how they defined the quality.

W. Edwards Deming:
The problem of defining quality is most important to Deming. In Demings view, the consumer is by necessity the most important part of the production system. Without a consumer, there is no reason to produce. The question then becomes one of what the consumer needs (or what the consumer thinks he needs or wants). To Deming, the only meaningful definition of quality is that which the consumer specifies. A product could meet every possible technical specification and be offered at an appropriate price, but if it is the wrong product, it is worthless to the consumer. Deming introduces his Continuous Improvement Helix, an outgrowth of the famous Deming Cycle (Plan, Do, Study/Check, Act):

1. 2. 3. 4.

(Plan) Design the product. (Do) make it; test it in the production line and the laboratory. (Check) put it on the market. (Act)Test it in service; find out what the user thinks of it, and why the nonuser has not bought it and act according to the response.

According to Deming, these four steps, repeated continuously, will result in increasing quality at a decreasing price. Dr. Deming also presented his famous 14 points in Out of the Crisis, serve as management guidelines. These points cultivate a fertile soil in which a more efficient workplace, higher profits, and increased productivity may grow. His famous 14 points are given below as management guideline: o It is important to Create and communicate to all employees a statement of the aims and purposes of the company. o Managers should adapt to the new philosophy of the day; industries and economics that are always changing. o Managers should build quality into a product throughout production process. o Managers should end up the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone; instead, try a long-term relationship based on established loyalty and trust. o Managers should work to constantly improve quality and productivity. o Company should train his employees by instituting on-the-job training. o Leadership (managers) should be taught and instituted to improve all job functions. o Fear among the employees should be driven out fear; and trust should be created. o Managers should strive to reduce intradepartmental conflicts. o Exhortations for the work force should be eliminate; instead, focus should be on the system and morale. o (a) Work standard quotas for production should be eliminated and substitute leadership methods should be used for improvement. (b) MBO should be eliminated. Managers should avoid numerical goals.

Alternatively, the capabilities of processes should be learnt, measures should be taken to improve them improve them. o Barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship should be removed. o Educate with self-improvement programs. o Everyone in the company should be included to accomplish the transformation. Deming believed that every worker has nearly unlimited potential if placed in an environment that adequately supports, educates, and nurtures senses of pride and responsibility; he stated that the majority--85 percent--of a worker's effectiveness is determined by his environment and only minimally by his own skill. A manager seeking to establish such an environment must: Employ an understanding of psychology--of groups and individuals. Eliminate tools such as production quotas and sloganeering which only alienate workers from their supervisors and breed divisive competition between the workers themselves. Form the company into a large team divided into sub-teams all working on different aspects of the same goal; barriers between departments often give rise conflicting objectives and create unnecessary competition. Spread profit to workers as teams, not individuals. Eliminate fear, envy, anger, and revenge from the workplace. Employ sensible methods such as rigorous on-the-job training programs. In the resulting company, workers better understand their jobs--the specific tasks and techniques as well as their higher value; thus stimulated and empowered, they perform better. The expense pays for itself. The ideas of W. Edwards Deming may seem common or obvious now; however, they've become embedded in our culture of work. Dr. Deming's ideas (and personal example) of hard work, sincerity, decency, and personal responsibility, forever changed the world of management. "It is not enough to just do your best or work hard. You must know what to work on."- W. Edwards Deming.

Joseph M. Juran:
Like Deming, Juran also sees quality as a concept which can only be usefully defined by the consumer. Strictly put, Juran defines quality as "fitness for use." Under this heading, Juran goes on further to quantify "fitness for use" in two different categories:
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1. Product features that meet customer needs. 2. Freedom from deficiencies To achieve the first objective, Juran, like Deming, proposes that the producer learn what the customer expects from the product. In many cases, this also includes determining who the end customer really is. At this point, the task is to translate the customer demands into the desired production specifications and features, and come up with a coherent plan to produce them The second objective is achieved through measuring the results of production and how well-received the product is in the marketplace. By comparing the actual results with the desired results, acting on deficiencies and providing feedback into the system, continuous improvement can be attained. The system is known as Juran trilogy. Juran trilogy: These three activities o quality planning, o quality control o quality improvement are known as the Juran Trilogy. Steps in quality planning process are: 1. Establish the project 2. Identify the customers 3. Discover the customer needs 4. Develop the product 5. Develop the process 6. Develop the controls and transfer to Operations The steps in Quality Control Process are:

1. Choose control subject 2. Establish Measurement 3. Establish standards of Performance 4. Measure Actual Performance 5. Compare to Standards (interpret the difference) 6. Take action on the difference
Quality improvement process is the process for creating breakthrough levels of performance by eliminating wastes and defects to reduce the cost of poor quality.

Steps for quality improvement process are: 1. Prove the need for improvement 2. Identify the improvement projects 3. Establish project improvement teams 4. Provide the project teams with resources, training, and motivation to: o diagnose the causes o stimulate the remedies o establish controls to hold the gains
Like the Deming Cycle, the Juran Trilogy is intended to be seen as an endless feedback loop, although Juran takes the concept further and explores the practicalities of implementing such a system for any given operation, be it service or manufacturing-related. Whereas Deming sees quality problems as a result of poor understanding of an existing system, Juran is of the opinion that proper planning of a system in the beginning can help the producer avoid unnecessary rework and hidden quality costs.

Philip B. Crosby
While Deming and Juran have mainly focused on quality as seen from a customer perspective, Crosby tends to take a narrower, management-centered view. Crosby sees many of the more nebulous statements about quality (delight the customer, continuous improvement, etc.) as simply extension of a very basic definition: conformance to requirements. In Crosbys view, if requirements are clearly communicated to all levels of the organization, then an attitude of "no reason for not doing it right" can be built throughout the company. he advocates the use of a simple tool to show where you are in the quality management spectrum; he calls it the Quality Management Maturity Grid. The grid is a simple 6 x 6 matrix that shows different stages of maturity of the companys quality management against six different quality management categories (management understanding of quality, problem handling, cost of quality, etc)

The lowest stage of maturity is called Uncertainty the organization is inexperienced, quality management is a low priority and reactive, etc then as quality management matures it goes through the stages of Awakening, Enlightenment, Wisdom, then the highest level, Certainty Quality Management Maturity Grid is (a) Very quick and easy to use (b) insightful it makes you think, and (c) most important it doesnt just show you where you are but, also, what your company would have to be like to get a higher score; it therefore acts as your route-map for strategic quality and helps you plan your quality improvement initiatives so that you move steadily towards the right in the grid.

Conclusion:
While all three major quality leaders have their own ideas on how quality should be measured and managed, it is clear that Deming, Juran, and Crosby all point in the same direction. Demings assertion that the customer be the one who determines whether or not quality exists in a product or service, Jurans bipartite definition of quality, and Crosbys tacit "conformance to requirements" definition all insist on the customer being the final arbiter of what quality is or is not with respect to a particular product or service. All three insist on there being some tangible definition of quality, though with varying degrees of rigor. And all three see the importance of feedback in any mechanism designed to measure and manage quality: Demings Continuous Improvement Helix, the Juran Trilogy, and Crosbys Price of Non-Conformance are all feedback mechanisms designed to answer one question: is the product performing in the marketplace as expected? If not, why not? The difference, as stated before, lies mainly in perspective. Demings perspective is customer-driven and relies heavily on market research to determine what the customer will define as a quality product or service. Jurans, while not independent of the marketplace, is more engineering-driven, designed to translate the customers vision of quality into that which can be produced. Crosbys perspective transcends both of these, taking the high-road view of management: how one achieves quality is less important at the upper

management level than whether or not the goals of quality are being met, and at what cost. To conclude, while one might at first glance think that Deming, Juran, and Crosby have different approaches to the management of quality, in the final analysis all three insist on the same basic principles. While an inherently subjective term such as quality can easily take on a multitude of definitions, it is clear that these three leaders of the quality movement are pointing in the same direction.