| Deming
W. Edwards (1900 - 1993) |
|
Deming was a statistician and management
thinker who had a profound influence on
the quality movement through his work in
both Japan and the USA. He is beats known
for his '14 points' and his 'System of Profound
Knowledge'.
Deming earned a Doctorate in Physics from
Yale University in 1928, but his subsequent
work made him lean more towards statistics.
Deming went to Japan in 1947 to help the
U.S. Occupation. While there he have lectures
to Japanese industry, the most significant
series being in 1950. Following these JUSE
created the prestigious 'Deming Prize',
an annual prize awarded to companies with
outstanding quality programs.
He returned to the US, still relatively
unknown there but his contribution to a
television documentary "If Japan can
why can't we" captured the attention
of American industry. He went on to advise
and influence the Ford Motor company, K
Mart and Florida Power and Light. Deming
wrote "Out of the Crisis" and
"The New Economics for Industry, Government
and Education".
| Ishikawa
Kaoru (1915-1989) |
|
Ishikawa is best known for
the 'Fishbone Diagram'. As Chief Executive
Director of the Quality Control Circle Headquarters
at JUSE, he played an influential role in
the growth of Quality Circles and the use
of the 'seven quality tools' (control chart,
check sheets, run chart, histogram, scatter
diagram, Pareto chart and flowchart).
The ASQ established the Ishikawa
medal in 1993 to recognize leadership in
the human side of quality.
After graduating from Minnesota
University in 1924 Juran started a career
with Western Electric. By 1937 he was the
head of industrial engineering at the corporate
headquarters in New York. In 1941, after
a period working for the government in Washington,
he became an independent consultant. In
1951 he published the Quality Control Handbook.
He founded the Juran Institute in 1979 which
he led until 1987.
Juran proposed the 'Quality
Trilogy' of Quality Planning, Quality Control
and Quality Improvement.
| Shewhart
Walter. A(1891 - 1967) |
|
Shewhart obtained his doctorate and, after
a brief spell as an academic, joined the
Western Electric Company, hardware suppliers
to Bell Telephone. Bell had already realized
the importance of variation.
Shewhart formalized the concept of "assignable"
and "chance" causes (now usually
known as "common" and "special"
causes) and introduced the control chart
in 1924.
Shewhart also developed his Learning and
Improvement Cycle of Plan, Do, Study, Act
(PDSA). Shewhart was a mentor to Deming
who popularized the cycle as Plan, Do, Check,
Act.
Taguchi is a Japanese engineer. His notable
contribution was the concept of 'Robust
Design', the idea that design and production
should strive to minimize variation. He
proposed various tools to deal with this:
- the loss function, for calculating to
cost of variation
- design of experiments, orthogonal arrays,
outer arrays and linear graphs to analyses
variation. Also the Signal to Noise Ratio.
- robust design, engineering products
and processes to minimize variation through
a three step process; system design, parameter
design and tolerance design
Dr Taguchi is Executive Director of the
American Supplier Institute. |
