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Part 1: What is
Quality?
"Tentative
efforts lead to tentative outcomes. Therefore, give yourself fully to
your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent
actions and determine to pay the price for a worthy goal. The trials
you encounter will introduce you to your strengths. Remain steadfast…
and one day you will build something that endures; something worthy of
your potential."
Epictetus, Roman Teacher and Philosopher 55-135 A.D.
Quality according to Webster’s New World Dictionary: 1: a: peculiar and
essential character > 2: a: degree of excellence > b: superiority
in kind > 3: a: social status: RANK
RCS was founded in 1992, since its inception quality is not only an
internal focus as a group of companies it is what we are, what we do
and is the greatest contribution we can offer.
Quality is the result of caring more, risking more, dreaming more, and
expecting more than others think is possible. It is the commitment to
high quality performance that produces the outstanding results of
lasting value. Quality is believing in continuous improvement and never
being satisfied with anything being less than it can be. Quality is a
way of life, not just some written plan/program that one needs to
follow in order to keep one’s job. When quality is adopted into the
core being of the individual the group will not fail when given
productive objectives.
In the following issues, I will relate some of the philosophies that
have shaped my vision of an effective quality model. Please keep in
mind that this is my vision and in no way tries to reflect the end all
be all for all business applications. For the sake of simplicity and
continuity the articles will be issued into three periods:
1. The early Americans who took the messages of quality to the Japanese
(early 1950s)
2. The Japanese response to the quality initiative (late 1950s onwards)
3. The new American and European wave concentrating on Quality
Awareness (1970s - 80s).
The Quality “Gurus” included in this series of articles cover the
historical period from World War II. Their emergence as experts largely
represents responses to changes in the American, Japanese and European
markets and the need to adapt to survive. They cover both the
developments of philosophy and tools used to achieve a standard of
quality. These standards include tools to control design and production
offered by Shingo, Ishikawa and Taguchi. Also presented are management
tools, such as the Zero Defect approach of Philip Crosby (my foray into
this existence), and the concepts of company wide and total quality
associated with Ishikawa and Feigenbaum.
Part One: The Early Americans
The Americans were primarily responsible for making it possible for the
Japanese to take on the role of an economic world power. They led the
way for Japan to write the book on the success of the quality business
model.
This transformation was associated with the introduction of statistical
quality control into Japan by the US Army over the period 1946 to 1950
and the work of three key American Quality Gurus in the early 1950s.
These were:
W Edwards Deming
Joseph M Juran
Armand V Feigenbaum
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