Evaluation of Quality Management: How did it emerge?

Quality is not new or innovative and it was also not a competitive weapon until Japan’s business success after World War II. Most of the prominent scholars categorized QM into two phases, premodern QM and postmodern QM. In the premodern QM era, management concepts such as craftsmanship, Taylor’s scientific management, and Mayo’s Hawthorne efforts were used to improve the productivity of an organization. In that era, organizations used an inspection-oriented approach to maintain quality. In the postmodern QM era, organizations used preventation-oriented approach to maintain quality.

I believe you all know the history of World War II. (Brief history of World War II- roughly thirty million people lost their life which was the worst war in the history. After the war, United Nations (UN) was established to prevent such wars in the future. Soviet Union and United States emerged as a super power. Political integration between countries has started after that).

But what most of us do not know is that the war helped us shape up the QM field.  The outbreak of the Second World War created an open environment for organizations from countries around the world to import goods and services, thereby increasing competition. After the war, the U.S. Department of Defense sent Deming to Japan to rebuild Japan’s war losses. He traveled throughout Japan and offered 14 points to produce quality products. Likewise, other quality techniques developed after the war, which also helped Japan to emerge as an economic power. To compete with Japan’s economic success in the world market, Western Organizations started to find and adapt various QM techniques for success. In 1984, Deming’s presentation about Japan’s success, “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?” on NBC Created awareness about quality in the United States. From then onwards, companies started to adapt various approaches including Statistical quality control, quality assurance, total quality control, total quality management, strategic quality management, and finally Six Sigma to maintain quality in organization products and services.

In 2007, I conducted a literature review in QM to identify the list of scholars who shaped the QM field as part of my thesis. The scholars and their contributions are shown here:

Frank Gilbreth- Improvement of work methods

Henry Ford -Short cycle time and continuous improvement

Taichi Ohno- Elimination of waste, the idea of kanban

Shigeo Shingo - Japan’s Poka-yoke, zero quality control

Philip Thomas - Analysis, reduction, and control of cycle time

Peter Dewhurst-  Design for manufacturability

 Edwards Deming- Fourteen transformations for quality

Joseph Juran - Juran trilogy and Pareto chart

Philip Crosby- Zero defect (Do it right the first time)

Walter Stewart- Control chart and father of modern quality control

Armand Feigenbaum - Originator of total quality control

Kaoru Ishikawa - Quality circle and fishbone diagram

Genichi Taguchi- Robust design

David Garvin -Strategic quality planning

To summarize, the World War II played a vital role in the evaluation of QM. Premodern QM which was before the war and postmodern QM are after the war. I’m sure you all know the proverb “April showers bring May flowers. This is true here.