Quality Joseph Juran the Term

Quality

Joseph Juran

The term that we get to hear these days in business management arena more often is 'Total Quality Management' but it has its origins in the initial concept of quality used in Japanese Management. The term became acceptable as a refined and successful business concept due to the efforts of management gurus like Dr. Joseph Juran. Joseph Juran worked all his life and devoted himself and his capabilities to the cause of quality and management. This paper attempts to look at the life history of Dr. Juran and his concepts and ideas and their impact on organizations.

Brief Life History

Joseph Juran was born as Joseph Moses to a Jacob Juran family in Romania. The family later on moved to America in search of a better living. Joseph got enrolled in school in United States and turned out to be an excellent student. He excelled particularly in mathematics and science in his school days. He was first from his family to pursue higher education in University of Minnesota earning a B.S. In electrical engineering.

After attaining his degree, he entered in the professional field and started working for the famous Western Electric in the Inspection Department. Western Electric which is now famous for its ground breaking Hawthorn Studies was one of the first few to use the concept of Quality Control introduced to them by the Bell Laboratories. The Quality Control program introduced in Western Electric was initially meant to introduce new methods and tools and for that they needed to train a group of people. Joseph Juran was among them and got trained for the Inspection Statistical Department to be introduced in the factory. He kept on working on quality aspects and role of management in this respect till World War II when he left Western Electric and worked for Lend-Lease Administration as assistant administrator. Again working for this new company Joseph's passion for quality and improving overall processes did not die and he worked to improve the process there by removing bottlenecks, extra paper work, and thus improving the speed of supplies to States.

After leaving Lend Lease Administration Joseph did not work for any particular company and kept on working on Quality Management. He started his consulting practice and at the same time became the faculty member and later on Chairman of the Department of Administrative Engineering at New York University. His book called 'Quality Control Handbook' came out in 1951 and is still considered a basic guide on Quality Management. He also became associated with American Management Association and so worked to improvise and refine his theories, ideas and concepts related to quality management. He even went on to establish his own institute called Juran Institute.

Crucial Link with Japanese Management

Joseph's brush with Japanese style of management came about when he was invited to Japan to help them in resolving the quality issues with Japanese products. So, on the invitation of Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) Joseph went there and started imparting knowledge theough courses in Quality Management. Initially the Japanese management showed concerns with rgard to the use of technology and factory mmanagement at the operations level but with time and Juran's guideline the emphasis shifted to overall management. The courses and the training emphasized on the top and middle management for their role in quality management. Due to his efforts quality control started being regarded as an important tool in the overall management fuction.Dr. Juran along with his another American counterpart W. Edwards Deming worked on the Japanese management and Japanese goods and econmy started showing reulta within two decades. His work in Japan was considered so important that Emperor Hirohito of Japan gave him the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure award. However, this was not the only award he got. In fact he has been honored with dozen of awards including ASQ's Edwards Medal, Brumbaugh and Grant Awards. Juran himself consider his years spent in Japan for the purpose of streamlining their quality problems crucial in the overall development of Total Quality Management as we know it today. It was only in Japan that Juran was able to work on new ideas and improvise on old ideas and also came up with unique concepts like quality circles. "One of the major events of our century has been Japan's rise to a state of an economic superpower, second only to the United States and ahead of nations like Great Britain and Germany. That's a big event. An important question is, how did they get there? My assertion is, they never would have gotten there if it hadn't been for the quality revolution in Japan. That quality revolution took several decades, from the time they got into it until it came to full flower. That took the 1950s, the 1960s and well into the 1970s before they had overtaken the West. and, of course, that had enormous consequences. That forced the West to undertake its own counterrevolution, which started in the 1980s" (Paton)

Important Works

Joseph and his work in Western Electric as Statistician got him fame and renown when he first wrote a pamphlet called 'Statistical Methods Applied to Manufacturing Problems'. He also contributed to the field of management by offering courses on 'Managing for Quality' through the American Management Association. Juran also made significant contributions to the filed of management by writing and editing in 'Industrial Quality Control' and 'Management's Corner'. Even though his earlier book called 'Quality Control Handbook' was being considered a text book for all learners of quality management, his year spent in the field of management made him write another book with Frank Gryna. This new book called 'Quality Planning and Analysis' became a hit in the academic circles once it came out in 1970. The book is the collection of his lectures from Japan. 'Managerial breakthrough' was another his book in which he extensively talked about human resistance to changes and inherent cultural problems in managing quality. "Dr. Juran wrote the standard reference work on quality control, the Quality Control Handbook, first published in 1951 and now in its fifth edition. This handbook is the reference for most quality departments and business improvement change agents since it provides important how-to information dedicated to improving an organization's performance by improving the quality of its goods and services. His classic book, Managerial Breakthrough, first published in 1964, presented a more general theory of quality management. It was the first book to describe a step-by-step sequence for breakthrough improvement" (Feo).

Along with Joseph there were other prominent names that became a force and shaped the future of quality management. W. Edwards Deming and Philip Crosby also put forward their work related to quality but Juran's work was different from other work in the sense that it gave people more pragmatic approach to quality management as opposed to vague ideas and theories. Juran's papers and books specifically talked about implementation issues and practical concerns apart from supporting an overall vision of quality that all other do.

Joseph and his writings are not only popular for their groundbreaking ideas but they also are known for the use of language and humor. His writing style is considered smooth, crisp and lucid. His valuable papers, books, pamphlets, lectures et al. can still be accessed through Juran Institute that continues to support the studies and research in the realm of quality management.

Basic Concepts

Joseph made his contributions in the field of management in general and quality management in particular with aid of his concepts and theories or improvements in earlier theories.

Pareto Principle: Joseph got his earlier inspiration from the famous Pareto principle which postulated that 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes. Joseph on the other ha nd expanded on this narrow approach and implied that all causes and all reason should be looked into and not avoided. Therefore, in a way he gave the concept of 100% quality.

Human Element in Management: Joseph is also known to emphasize on the human aspects rather than technical or scientific aspects of management. He stressed on the fact that human traits can make or break the quality standards. If humans resist a change then it would be difficult to manage quality. If human are convinced and trained then quality can be considerably improved and better managed. Dr. Juran is therefore the one person who shifted the focus of management from statistical to human elements.

Quality Trilogy: Apart from the basic quality management issues, Joseph's works are also considered important in the evolution of strategic management. It was Joseph who through 'Joseph's Trilogy' of quality planning, quality control and quality improvement put forward the idea that management role should be cross functional rather than functional. According to the basic concepts of quality planning Joseph talked about the importance of understanding the needs and wants of customers and then making a product plan and features according to those requirements. Then his quality improvement ideas were about making the process of product development efficient and optimal. According to his concepts the quality control can be done without too much emphasis on inspection if the process is smooth and can easily rum by the operations. It is today that we recognize the importance of customer's point-of-view but it was Juran who many years ago gave the idea that the perception of quality lies in the mind of customers rather than the producer. "According to the founders of TQM, the five interventions define the core of total quality management. Knowledge of customer requirements provides a test for considering and evaluating process changes. Supplier partnerships ensure that materials entering the organization are of acceptable quality. Cross-functional teams bring the full spectrum of relevant information and expertise to bear on decisions about system wide problems. Scientific methods and statistical analyses provide teams with trustworthy data to use in their decision making. And process management heuristics can improve the quality of the decision-making process itself" (Hackman 309+)

Project by Project Approach: Juran is also famous for his step-by-step approach to resolving a problem. According to his thinking all the problems and issued can be resolve at once. Instead a project by project and incremental approach is suggested by Dr. Juran. He suggested this approach because quality issues keep on haunting management and can never be avoided all together and so an incremental approach prepares management for quality as an ongoing process rather than a one time issue.

TQM & Strategic Management

Total quality management is now one of the most important concepts of the modern strategic management. TQM is about making incremental improvements in the processes and their flow is generally from bottom to top as opposed to other concepts regarding bringing about radical changes in the process designs where the flow is generally from top to bottom. Generally, in a management scenario operations level is avoided and TQM inculcates a strategic view at the operations level as the improvements in the processes can only be brought about if departments interact with each other. In the absence of this strategic interaction among departments, failed projects could be produced for example technological advancement brought about by the R&D department can be of no use if the firm does not have or cannot acquire the capabilities to produce or implement it. Hence, inter-organizational collaboration is one of the requirements of successful process improvement utilizing organizations resources and capabilities. Furthermore, TQM should not be considered as ends instead of means to achieve overall strategic goal. Overall strategy should be the guiding force behind TQM because without overall strategy managers cannot decide which operations are important. "Juran defines quality as 'the process of identifying and administering the activities needed to achieve the quality objectives of an organization'. He begins from two principles. First, managers have to realize that they, not the workers, must shoulder most of the responsibility for the performance of their companies. Second, they must understand the financial benefits that can be realized once quality is made a priority. He thus turns quality into a management issue first and foremost. Improving quality, he says, requires a systematic, company-wide approach; piecemeal efforts by individual teams or business units will not work" (Witzel).