A root cause analysis (RCA) is a means to get to the bottom of a problem or unexpected event. Root cause analyses are important to undertake when your project or product is not what was expected. Root cause analyses aim at improving products or processes – quality – and they must be undertaken in systematic ways in order to be effective. There are several tools involved with RCA; this video takes a look at the 5 Whys and Fishbone Diagram.

Checkout this informative and educational video!

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Mark Graban is an internationally recognized leader in Lean healthcare and continuous improvement. His motivation is to apply Lean and Toyota Production System principles to improve quality of care and patient safety, to improve the customer-patient experience, to help the development of medical professionals and employees, and to help build strong organizations for the long term.

Lean management principles have been used effectively in manufacturing companies for decades. Those same principles can also be successfully applied to the delivery of healthcare. Lean  healthcare begins with driving out waste so that all work adds value and serves the customer-patient needs. Identifying value added and non-value added steps in every process is the beginning of the journey toward success.

Although Lean healthcare differs in many ways from manufacturing, there are also surprising similarities. Whether building a car or providing healthcare for a customer-patient, workers must rely on multiple, complex processes to accomplish their tasks and provide value to the customer or patient. Waste of money, time, supplies, or good will always decreases value.

Check out this educational video from Mark Graban.

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In God we trust¦and all others must bring data.

Dr. William Edwards Deming

Quality improvement concepts and techniques, such as Six Sigma and Lean practices, have been used to transform almost every major industry in the world with dramatic results. The last holdouts, the last passions of resistance, are primarily healthcare, higher education, and government. Healthcare professionals will take clear data and twist it just enough to make an argument, or they simply will refuse to accept the data being presented. Some will tell you that they are a skilled healthcare practitioner and simply will not be told how to deliver quality healthcare to patients by someone who possess the name of a karate belt in their job title.

The question is why does healthcare continue to resist the results presented from other industries and their significant success?

Can We Ever Have Real Quality Healthcare?

It just seems that no matter how much data can be thrown on the table, quality healthcare practices continue to be resisted like a despotic dictator. We all can acknowledge healthcare is very complex, but it’s really not fundamentally different from other industries. Healthcare is really made up simply of thousands of interlinked processes that result in a very complex system. If we focus on the processes of care one at a time, we can fundamentally change the game and deal with the challenges facing healthcare. We also understand Pareto’s Principle, which tells us 20% of the processes that will give us 80% of the results.

In healthcare, the real problem remains in two familiar circles. The first is silos. Healthcare is deeply entrenched in its divisions. Each group feels that they are doing a great job, and present arguments that the others are really responsible for making the changes required to find quality healthcare. This leads to back-and-forth finger pointing and blame games. Nursing will tell you that the problem is the physicians, and physicians will tell you that nursing is the group that needs to shape up. Then, you will hear from physicians and nursing that if you really want to improve quality healthcare initiatives, you must fix support services or even worse, the patients are at fault. They are the real problem.

The second challenge that faces quality healthcare initiatives is leadership support. C-suite executives are more than hesitant to challenge physicians or nursing on clear issues within their control. Physicians bring in significant amounts of revenue to the organization and could cripple a healthcare facility if they moved on. Nursing ensures care is delivered and is on the front line of quality healthcare. They will tell you that things work just fine using the same procedures and processes that have been in place for years. C-suite executives tend to shy away from powerful and strong-willed nursing departments.

Continuing on the Road to Quality Healthcare

There are numerous organizations that can clearly demonstrate significant levels of success in quality healthcare improvement. Just as many continue to resist embracing the practice, others implement Six Sigma and Lean programs, with a ‘nod and wink’, taking on easy projects that don’t stop on toes of the powerful in the organization. It continues to baffle how a healthcare organization can have Lean Six Sigma programs in place for years and fail a Joint Commission survey because of serious quality issues.

There is a long road ahead for all.

Do you think things are changing in healthcare, or is there still some major resistance?

Check out our other Lean Healthcare articles and videos >>>

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DMAIC, which stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control, presents organizations with a data-driven, customer-focused approach to process improvement. Each letter is a phase, and it must be completed in sequential order before moving on to the next one. However, there is still confusion on when exactly the method should be used.

When looking at a complex or high-risk issue with a process, bring out the DMAIC. The method has seen a great degree of success because it ensures that no critical process improvement steps are skipped. That means when looking to increase customer satisfaction or your bottom line or get rid of bottlenecks from time to time, the DMAIC is a no-brainer.

2 Ways DMAIC is Implemented

Another thing that causes confusion is how the methodology is used. For that, there are two major ways.

1. Team Approach

This is where the team leader is well-versed with the method and its tools. The team members still perform their regular duties in the organization while working on the project part-time. The leader, however, can be working on multiple long-term projects at any given time for months on end.

2. Kaizen

If the team approach isn’t for you, then Kaizen is next. Here, the DMAIC steps are usually carried out in a single week. The organization appoints a specialist to help with the process improvement, particularly in the first two phases. After those are complete, the organization organizes a team of people to focus on the rest of the phases until the Kaizen is complete.

Usually, improvements are given a trial run during the Kaizen before they are fully implemented. During the trial run, the impacts of the improvements are monitored carefully, even if the outcomes aren’t particularly good. This allows the team to course correct rapidly before finalizing everything.

Why Control is the Most Important Phase

The biggest challenge that teams often face, even after the improvements produced the desired results, is the difficulty of smoothly implementing the process in its improved state. Time is of the essence here, so there’s pressure to act, but this forces the team to forego any semblance of smoothly transitioning the gains. This makes sustaining the results challenging as well, considering the people haven’t really had the time to buy into the changes – there may even be resistance.

During the Control phase, the team suggests an implementation strategy that will lead to long-term gains. Basically, the team members come up with a set of standard operating procedures that will guide all future process improvement endeavors. That way, results are measured on a constant basis to ensure that all beneficial changes don’t revert to their previous state, and any potential problems can be handled proactively. This is essentially where the plan for continuous improvement is set in motion.

Conclusion

Knowing when and how to use the DMAIC method is key to ensuring that your process improvement efforts are successful. Not only that, but it also ensures that they are standardized for future process improvement projects and that the results are sustained through continuous improvement. As long as the problem is complex and high-risk, you shouldn’t think twice about using the DMAIC method.

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How to Speed Up Lean Six Sigma Implementation

The Lean Six Sigma toolkit is a very versatile and potent technique for process improvement. The tools help users understand the process and increase their productivity. Used the right way, the methodology would help reduce costs and increase the quality standards of the products and services offered.

The Cost of Poor Quality

This is a great tool to figure out the improvement areas. The number adds up all of the inefficiencies that are related to any process. It includes unnecessary waste; making up for the defective products produced by running the plants for longer times, additional costs incurred in waste disposal, reshipping products to the clients, warranty issuance, redundant audits and checks, etc.

Consider the cost of poor quality and figure out the expenses that will be incurred in continuing the current way. The Lean Six Sigma methodology can help with minimizing defects. It can drastically improve the effectiveness of business processes. The main purpose of the technique is to enhance the customer experience by eliminating all variations in processes.

Consistency is critically important for any business as it allows customer trust to build up. The tools help cut costs by cutting down on the different waste types.

Realization of the challenges and problems is the first step towards solving them.

Speeding Up Lean Six Sigma and Process Improvement

Process improvement is a critical component in organizations of all sizes. A number of factors prevent people from using the Lean Six Sigma methodology in their day-to-day activities. It is human nature to resist change. Teams might not be very comfortable with adapting to change. Budget constraints too play a role.

At times, organizations do not have the desired skill set or possess no one to take the lead. Often, teams believe they do not have the time. It is important to adopt a proactive methodology in order to increase quality.

• Lean Six Sigma is a defect-based methodology but it is important to approach it from an appreciative perspective. There are a lot of defects in business processes but teams must also appreciate things that have been working well and leave them unchanged.
• Focus on quick wins. These are opportunities that can result in fast success in the Lean Six Sigma framework. Quick wins also help accelerate further wins.
• It is important to take advantage of opportunities as and when they present themselves. Identify the opportunities and evaluate them.
• Identify the bottlenecks and suggest potential improvements. It is recommended to use business process management software.
• Businesses should compare the processes when it comes to efficiency. Softwares could be used to automate process enforcement. It can keep a track on the deadlines and assign the relevant tasks to appropriate employees.
• Users should consider their first quick win projects as the workable models. Once a few initial quick wins are complete, you should begin publicizing your team’s progress.
• Quick wins can help initialize processes quickly and help determine the speed with which the project will progress. They also provide a strong foundation on which to work. It is imperative to consider wisely your selection criteria for choosing quick wins.
• Trace and identify the most productive employees in your business. Driving quick wins is easier if you already have the most productive employees ready.
• Seamless communication is the key to a speedy implementation of Lean Six Sigma. Inspire your staff and publicize your successes with quick wins. Speeches and literature are a great way to spread the word and motivate your workforce.

Conclusion

Lean Six Sigma combines the strengths of the Lean approach focusing on waste reduction with the defect elimination and problem-solving strategies of the Six Sigma methodology. In order to ensure a speedy implementation of flawless processes using this technique, businesses must focus on quick wins and identify the right opportunities. In the end, it’s a collaborative team effort and relies on the support of your teammates for long-term success.

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Frank and Lillian Gilbreth

Frank and Lillian Gilbreth are names which will forever be associated with engineering and process improvement. They believed efficiency to be paramount in any process and also that once a decision is made regarding a particular method, it should be replicated everywhere. They were pioneers in their own right in the field of scientific industrial management and believed in the elimination of redundant steps in a process to improve efficiency.

Early Life, Work, and Contributions

Frank Gilbreth was born to John and Martha Gilbreth in Maine in the late 1860s. After the death of his father, the family moved to Massachusetts in the search for better education for the children. It was here that Frank took to math and science like fish to water and wrote the entrance exam for MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) but never went even after qualifying. Later in life, his studies on the motion to improve process efficacies among others would be renowned around the world as the pillars of modern scientific management.

His future wife, Lillian Gilbreth was born Lillian Moller to William and Annie Moller in the late 19^th century. Unlike the parents of Frank, hers were wealthy ones with German ancestry. Like most well-off citizens at that time, Lillian was home-schooled. She began going to school later, only to rapidly outshine her peers at every grade. Later in life, her work married the science of psychology with engineering and industrial management.

Together, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth re-wrote industrial engineering and management for the history books. Never had the efficiency of process controls been so succinctly brought into the limelight to improve quality and cut production costs in the 20^th century.

The Gilbreths’ Contributions To Industrial Management

It would near impossible to talk about all the couple’s contributions to the field of scientific industrial management, but a few worthwhile mentions would be their work in time and motion studies. By the early 20^th century with Henry Ford’s moving assembly line, there were a lot of interesting studies going on around industrial management. Challenges spread across reducing costs while maintaining quality all done within a minimum time. Time reduction was the key catalyst in most of the advancements made at the time.

Both Frank and Lillian were owners of a company they founded together which delved in consultancy for industries and engineering houses. It was here that they began advanced experiments based on their belief that every process will have one and only one efficient way with a maximum output. They believed the answer lay in the balancing of the three main aspects of any production process: Motion, Time and Cost. Their method came to be known as the Gilbreth System and was one of the most important works in the space at the time.

Time, Motion And Fatigue Study The study related to the various motions by a worker to complete a task can actually be broken down into very small movements. It was the brilliance of the couple that identified and leveraged motion pictures for the first time to study such movements. These movements are also associated with a minimum time required to execute them. Painstaking observations by Frank and Lillian over hours helped them to create a fixed set of movements for specific tasks.

These movements they believed were the minimum ones required to produce one efficient way to do a certain task. Efficiency was the key outcome they looked for in all of their studies. They came up with the minimum number of motions required per task and also sketched out drawings to illustrate the improvement the changes could make. They also studied the fatigue of the workers and how the motions could be optimized to reduce it. This was a new way of thinking where importance was given to the worker as well. With optimized movements came less fatigue which in turn improved the productivity of the worker. The drawings by the Gilbreths are still studied by engineers who are researching ways to improve process optimization processes at various manufacturing hubs.

Conclusion

It was the pioneering work of both Frank and Lillian Gilbreth that identified the inherent synergy between time, motion, and fatigue to change the field forever. Their micro-motion study will always be a stroke of brilliance which led to bleeding edge studies and deep analyses of industrial engineering. Their imprint on scientific management will forever be a standing legacy to quality and six sigma.

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Kaoru Ishikawa: Contribution to The Theory of Process Improvement

Kaoru Ishikawa is known as the Father of Japanese Quality’. He invented major quality tools and concepts including the Fishbone diagram (cause and effect diagram) frequently used in the analysis of industrial processes and CWQC Company-Wide Quality Control.

Ishikawa sponsored the “next operation (process step) as the client” concept to avoid workplace politics.

Early Life and Career

Kaoru Ishikawa was born in the year 1915 and went on to complete his engineering in applied chemistry from the University of Tokyo. Until 1947, he was associated with Nissan after which he started rendering his services as a professor in a university.

He played an instrumental role in the development of the concept of the Quality Circle’. Ishikawa believed that increased internal cooperation and coordination positively affects a customer’s needs and ultimately leads to process efficiency and better quality of products and services.

He expressed the need for the top level management to support the teams which were under their control all the time. He was awarded the Shewhart Medal & the Order of the Sacred Treasure (Japan) for his outstanding technical leadership in the area of modern quality control.

He received the Industrial Standardization Prize for his eminent writings on quality control. The American Society for quality control awarded him with the Nihon Keizai Press Prize and the Grant Award for his education initiatives in the area of quality control.

Kaoru Ishikawa: Contribution to the Theory of Process Improvement

Ishikawa’s major contributions in the area of quality control and process improvement can be traced as under:

1. Fishbone Diagram (Cause & Effect Diagram) – This tool created by Kaoru Ishikawa is known as the Fishbone Diagram owing to its shape. It is one of the seven basic Quality Control tools. The objective of the Six Sigma program is the removal of waste so as to identify the areas for improvement. A fishbone diagram clusters the roadblocks together to identify which factors have the greatest impact. Ishikawa diagram is commonly used in product design and prevention of quality defects to reveal the factors causing the overall effect.

2. Implementation of Quality Circles: A voluntary group of people who meet to identify, analyze, and resolve work-related issues. Improvement in Occupational health and safety, product design, manufacturing processes, and the overall culture of the organization are the objectives of a Quality Circle. In Japan, this concept was first launched in Nippon Wireless and Telegraph Company in the year 1962. The idea of Quality Circles was described by Edward Deming in 1950 and was later expanded by Ishikawa. Basically, Quality Circles are formal groups of people trained by specialists in human factors and skills of problem identification, data gathering, and analysis and generation of solutions.

3. Emphasis on Internal Customer: Ishikawa suggested that over-reliance on specialists would limit the scope of improvement for all the employees. Therefore, an overall participation was required from workers at all the levels of the organization. Every area has the potential for contributing to the overall quality, therefore; all areas should embed statistical techniques in the internal and external audit programmes. The term company-wide does not only include a company’s activities focusing on internal quality control, but also the quality of management, human aspects, after sales service, and sensitive customer care.

Conclusion

The contribution of Kaoru Ishikawa stands tall and unquestioned in the area of quality control and process improvement. The cause and effect diagram is used by global organizations in order to understand the causes behind the quality gaps and the effects of these gaps on the overall functioning of the organization.

Ishikawa propagated the concept of Quality Circles’ and Internal Customers’ thereby emphasizing the strategic importance of the employees of an organization. He stressed the equal participation of all employees rather than relying only on the specialists.

This leads to the overall development of employees with respect to the processes in the organization. Further training can even lead to the formation of voluntary groups called Quality Circles which under the supervision of an expert can identify and solve various quality problems in an organization.

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Walter A Shewhart and His Contributions to Statistical Quality Control

Walter A Shewhart is a name highly revered amongst modern engineers as a man who married statistics, quality control, and process improvement in an era when quality control involved discarding defective items post-manufacture.

He is often regarded as the grandfather of total quality management and process improvement. Not only that, his concepts serve as a primer for quality engineers to this day.

Early Life, Work, and Contributions

Shewhart attended the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign before pursuing his doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1917. He worked for the Western Electric Company and was with the Inspection Engineering Department until 1925 when he joined the newly established Bell Telephone Laboratories.

Whilst at Bell Labs, Shewhart revolutionized the production process followed at the time. He leveraged schematic control charts of his creation to bring down the number of defective pieces being manufactured. This not only brought down costs for the company but also helped in building credibility among consumers.

Today, he is one of the most revered and well-respected personalities in the field of process improvement and quality. His contributions to process adjustments in manufacturing are still considered the founding stones for modern industry six sigma quality guidelines.

Shewhart’s contributions to Process Improvement Reducing variation

Shewhart is best known for his simple schematic control chart which changed the manufacturing industry forever. This chart outlined principles essential to modern process quality control. These are followed to this day with certain improvements as production processes became more complicated.

A key thing to remember in any process is that no two products will ever be the same. Reducing these variations to improve quality has always been one of the manufacturing industry’s greatest challenges. Dr. Shewhart’s acknowledgment of two classes of variation, namely special-cause’ and common-cause’ led him to improve his control chart mentioned above.

He proposed variables which would reduce common-cause’ variations. According to him, to distinguish between the two, every manufacturing process would need to be brought under statistical control. This and other principles of Shewhart helped pave the way for modern analysis of manufacturing processes.

Deming Wheel Cycle and Six Sigma

One of Shewhart’s other well-known accomplishments included a simple plan termed PDCA or plan-do-check-act, an iterative four-step management method for the continual improvement of processes. This is also known famously as the Deming Wheel cycle.

In six sigma programmes, the above-mentioned cycle is renamed as DMAIC or define-measure-analyze-improve-control. A guiding principle of the PDCA/DMAIC is the iterative nature of the processes. More the number of iterations a product is subjected to, the better the end output.

To illustrate and highlight his contribution to six sigma and the PDCA cycle, the latter needs to be looked at from the perspective of a company which isn’t experiencing profits.

The company would brainstorm ideas for improvement which is the plan’ phase of the cycle. Next, the company chooses an actionable course, then pursues it, which constitutes the “do” phase. The next phase check’ constitutes studies conducted to test the results of the actions taken prior. This phase also quantifies the efficacy of the prior phase and serves as the foundation stone for the next step. In the act phase, the company analyses the observed results. If the results are up to the mark, the process is set in stone until further improvements are needed. If they are not, this phase instructs the company to circle back to the original brainstorming pool to start the process over again and repeat the cycle until the company is pleased with the results.

This plan illustrates Shewhart’s brilliance and the thought process that the continuous evaluation of management procedures and the consideration of new ideas are vital in streamlining “common causes” and mitigating “special causes” in variation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Shewhart is one of the most eminent contributors in Six Sigma and process improvement. His work and contributions help organizations identify unique attributes in their processes which influence customer experience and quality.

They will always be leveraged by organizations operating on the bleeding edge and wanting to re-define the way things are done.

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Dr. Noriaki Kano, a Japanese educator and thinker, is one of the world’s leading authorities in the field of quality management and process improvement. He is an emeritus professor of TUS (Tokyo University of Science). Kano did his undergrad, post-grad, and doctorate degrees from the University of Tokyo.

A Brief Discussion of Kano’s Works

He is most known for his invaluable contribution to the field of quality management. He is one of those rare personalities who received the prestigious Deming Award in two different categories in their lifetime. In the year 1997, he received the Deming Prize for individuals, administered by JUSE (Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers). In the same year, he was awarded the Deming Lecturer award for his paper titled, Business Strategies for the 21^st Century and Attractive Quality Creation.”

His book Guide to TQM in Service Industries’ is one of the most read and referred books in the areas of Six Sigma and Quality Management. Dr. Kano has delivered lectures in many international universities and eminent societies like American Society for Quality, European Organization for Quality, and Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers and firms in over 50 countries around the world.

Dr. Kano is well known for his innovative approach to modeling customer satisfaction. He challenged the conventional beliefs that all attributes in a product or service lead to customer satisfaction. He stated that it is not all but some attributes that actually lead to higher customer loyalty than the other attributes. This belief was developed into a model now popularly known as the Kano Model.”

The Kano Model & Its Applications to Process Improvement

Dr. Kano formulated the well-known Kano Model. The major objective of creating this new model was to identify and understand the five major categories of customer requirements and how these requirements influence the satisfaction and dissatisfaction of customers for a particular product and service.

The purpose of the Kano model is to support product specification through better development of team understanding. Kano’s model is focused on differentiating product features, as compared to focusing on customer needs initially.

Kano Analysis was devised for mapping consumer responses into the model and classifies customer requirements into five categories so that they can focus on these categories that maximize the satisfaction and loyalty indexes.

The Kano Model has three main categories of attributes which play a pivotal role in its functioning.

1. Threshold or Basic Attributes: These are the basic attributes in a product or service. The product/service is believed to be incomplete without them. They are basically those simple attributes without which the product will be out of the market owing to the dissatisfaction of customers. Their presence will not ensure the satisfaction of the customers; however, their absence can lead to dissatisfied customers.

2. Performance or Linear Attributes: They are the attributes on which an organization bases its performance aspirations. For instance, for Walmart, it is price (Low cost always) that serves this purpose. Higher quality on these attributes implies more satisfaction and vice versa.

Companies generally schedule their investments and decisions using performance attributes. A customer’s willingness to pay for a product is directly associated with the performance attributes. The higher the performance attributes, the higher the customer’s willingness to pay.

3. Excitement or Delighter Attributes: The excitement attributes help in spurring the hidden needs of the consumers that they have never thought about before. Building in excitement attributes in the product or service can help organizations create a competitive advantage over their market competitors.

The attributes discussed above drift from basic to performance and to excitement over time. The drift is driven by the performance levels of the competitors and the expectations of the end consumers.

Conclusions

Dr. Noriaki Kano is one of the eminent contributors in the field of quality management, process improvement and Six Sigma. His highly successful Kano Model is being used by organizations the world over today irrespective of the size and industry type.

The model not only helps organizations identify the attributes influencing the satisfaction and loyalty among the customers, but also gives businesses a strategic direction through which a competitive edge can be had over the competitors.

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Joseph Moses Juran (1904) was born in Romania. He demonstrated his quest for knowledge since an early age; in school, his mathematical and scientific proficiency was brilliant. He was the first member of his family to enroll in the University of Minnesota in 1912. In 1924, he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota and joined Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works.

His first job was in the Complaint Department. In 1925, the Bell Labs proposed the training of Hawthorne Works personnel in its new statistical sampling and control chart techniques. Juran was also chosen to join the Inspection Statistical Department, a small group of engineers charged with the application and dissemination of Bell Labs’ innovations in statistical quality control. This highly visible position was the stepping stone in Juran’s ascent in the organization. The complexity of this enormous factory, with a labor base of 40,000 workers, presented Juran his first ever challenge in management.

In 1926, a new program was introduced by a team of quality control pioneers from the Bell Laboratories to Hawthorne Works. Designed to implement new tools and techniques, the project posed the requirement of a training program. Juran became one of the two engineers from a group of 20 engineers for the Inspection Statistical Department.

The end of World War II compelled Japan to change its focus to become an economic power rather than being a military power. The attention of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers JUSE was drawn to the first edition of Juran’s Quality Control Handbook in 1951 and they invited him to Japan in 1952. He campaigned for quality and quality management throughout his life. Juran wrote several books on the concept of quality and its applications.

Contributions to Quality Management

Pareto principle: In 1941, Juran applied the Pareto principle to quality concerns in the organization: 20% of the causes are responsible for creating 80% of the problems. This is also popularly quoted as “the vital few and the trivial many.” In the later years, Juran used this quote to signal that the remaining 80% of the causes cannot be ignored.

Management theory: Juran is widely acknowledged for the addition of the human dimension to quality management. He advocated the training and education of managers. Juran proposed that human relations problems are supposed to be isolated and that the fundamental cause of quality issues was resistance to change. Juran’s concept of quality management can be extended outside the factory to encompass non-manufacturing processes and those that are service related.

The Juran trilogy: Juran was one of the first to point out the cost of poor quality. He illustrated this concept in “Juran trilogy,” a cross-functional management approach, constituted of three managerial processes: quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement. He pointed out that without change, there will be a constant waste. However, margins will be higher and the increased costs are recouped after the improvement.

Transfer of quality knowledge between East and West: He became aware of the concept of quality circles during his visit to Japan in 1966. He preached this concept with enthusiasm in his assignments in the West. He acted as a moderator between the U.S. and Japanese companies looking for mutual and professional introductions to each other.

Conclusions

Joseph M. Juran has many contributions in the field of quality management. His book, the Quality Control Handbook’ is a classic reference for quality engineers to date. He transformed the Japanese philosophy of quality management and worked hard in shaping their economy helping them to become industry leaders.

Dr. Juran was the first to embed the human aspect of quality management, known as Total Quality Management. The involvement of top management, the Pareto principle, identifying the need for widespread training in quality, propagating the new definition of quality as fitness for use, and the project-by-project approach towards quality improvement are the ideas and concepts for which Juran is best known, and they are still widely used today.

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Armand V. Feigenbaum is an American quality specialist who devised the concept of Total Quality Control (TQC). This concept later became the foundation stone of the stream of TQM (Total Quality Management).

Early Life, Work & Contributions

Armand V. Feigenbaum earned his master’s and doctorate degrees from MIT. During his doctoral studies, he started writing his book “Total Quality Control.” From 1958 to 1968, he served as the Director of Manufacturing Operations at General Electric.

In 1968, he founded General Systems Company at Massachusetts, which was mainly operational into the field of defining Business Operating Systems for companies. Dr. Feigenbaum shared his concepts and processes through a number of articles, books, and interviews.

Today, he is one of the most revered personalities in the field of quality and process improvement. His name cannot be missed in any discussion of the concept of total quality. He also served as the president of prestigious societies such as ASQ (American Society for Quality) and IAQ (International Academy for Quality). He passed away at an age of 94.

Approach to Quality and Six Sigma: Process Improvement

Armand V. Feigenbaum is most known for his major contributions in the field of quality and Six Sigma techniques, helping improve processes through his innovative strategies.

1. Total Quality Control: A system where quality development, maintenance, and improvement are effectively integrated to ensure production and service at considerably lower costs. This ultimately leads to higher customer satisfaction, which is so critical for all businesses.

According to Feigenbaum, it is imperative to consider a few elements of quality to enable complete customer focus, i.e. both internally and externally.

• Firstly, quality should be understood from the customer’s perception, not from the organization’s.
• Secondly, quality and cost should not be viewed as different, but the same.
• Thirdly, both individual and team commitment are needed for ensuring quality. Quality should be permanently embedded as a part of process improvement. Innovation and quality are interrelated and mutually benefitting.

2. Hidden Plant: Fiegenbaum stated that almost 15% to 40% of an organization’s capacity is wasted by not getting the things right as they should be. He explained that the cost of quality can be understood under two heads: the cost of getting the things right and the cost of not getting them right.

Even today, most organizations fail to understand that huge wastes on account of this major shortcoming. With what is called this hidden factory, it is a waste to establish big change interventions like restructuring or downsizing.

3. Quality Accountability: Fiegenbaum stressed that quality is a universal concept and cannot be restricted to a department or individual.

Each and every process and functional area is responsible and accountable for ensuring quality control in the organization. Quality in an organization needs to be managed actively and has to be made visible at the higher levels of management.

4. Quality Costs: Fiegenbaum described the concept of quality costs in an article in HBR (Harvard Business Review) in 1956. He stated that it is important to quantify the total cost of quality as a part of process improvement.

He challenged the conventional belief that higher costs are incurred in order to deliver higher quality (in buying better quality machines or materials or hiring expensive labor). He was of the opinion that the classification of quality-related entries in a company’s ledger would enable business managers and quality experts to evaluate decisions based on improvement in costs and the enhancement of profit.

He further identified the areas of cost control (prevention and appraisal costs) and the areas of failure of cost control (internal and external failure costs).

Conclusion

Armand Fiegenbaum will always be remembered for his invaluable contributions to the field of quality control and management. His works on quality costs and the hidden plant have paved the way for business organizations to identify the reasons for cost inefficiency and quality failures.

His principles in the areas of cost control and quality improvement are the guiding light for companies to build in processes with embedded quality systems in order to ensure higher customer satisfaction and value.

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Everyone is searching for the magical formula or ‘guru’ to help them find perfection in their personal lives. Type in “self-help” in your browser, hit search and pages of results will fill your screen. There are endless amounts of solutions to every possible behavior known to man and a guru behind every one of those concepts. It can be mind-numbing trying to find a technique that works for you. As with most challenges in life, some of the most effective practices are the simplest. Take some time and watch this inspiring video on how Kaizen can be applied to your personal life.

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Philip Crosby is a noted quality professional, author, and consultant who is widely known for promoting the concept of “zero defects” and for attempting to define quality from the viewpoint of conformance to requirements.

He was born in West Virginia in 1926. He graduated from Western Reserve University and rendered service in the Navy during World War II and then again in the Korean War. He graduated from the Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine. His working life started on the assembly line in 1952 at the Crosley Corporation, later switching on to the Bendix Corporation in 1955. After two years, he joined as a senior quality engineer at The Martin Company in Florida where he developed and implemented the zero defects concept.

In 1965 Crosby was promoted to the position of the Corporate Vice President and Director of Quality at the ITT Corporation for 14 years. Due to the magnitude of response to his book “Quality is Free,” he left the ITT Corporation and started his own consultancy company, Philip Crosby Associates, and as defined in his book, started explaining quality principles & practices to organizations.

His company was floated in 1985 for $30 million. In 1991, he launched Career IV Inc, a consultancy firm advising on the development of senior executives after his retirement from Philip Crosby Associates. On the quality crisis, Crosby devised the principle of “doing it right the first time” (DIRFT). He also included four major principles:

1. The definition of quality is conformance to product and customer’s requirements.
2. Prevention is the system of quality.
3. Zero Defects should be the performance standard.
4. Quality measurement is the price of non-conformance

He believed that establishment of good quality management principles in organizations will have more savings returns than what the organization pays for the cost of the quality system. Crosby stated that since “quality is free” it is less expensive to do it right the first time rather than paying for repairs and reworks.

Contributions to Six Sigma & Process Improvement

The Zero Defect Theory: The Zero Defects theory states that there is no existence of waste in a project. Waste refers to anything that is unproductive i.e. processes, tools, and employees etc.

Anything that is not adding any value to a project should be eliminated, thereby leading to the elimination of waste. Eliminating waste leads to process improvement and consequently lowers costs. The zero defects theory is the concept of doing it right the first time to avoid cost and time spent later in the process of project management.

14 Steps to Quality Improvement: Crosby gave 14 steps for process improvement. They are as follows:

1. Management’s commitment towards quality should be clear to all in the organization and those outside it.
2. Creation of quality improvement teams with senior representatives from all departments.
3. Continuous measurement of processes to determine current and potential issues related to quality.
4. The cost of poor quality has to be calculated.
5. Quality awareness has to be raised in the organization.
6. Corrective actions should be taken to address quality issues.
7. Establishment of a Zero Defect committee to monitor the progress of quality improvement.
8. Quality improvement training to all the employees.
9. Organize zero defects days in the organization.
10. All employees should be encouraged to set their own quality improvement goals.
11. Obstacles to quality should be discussed with employees in an open communication.
12. Participants’ efforts should be recognized.
13. Quality councils should be created.
14. Quality improvement is a continuous process. It keeps going.

Conclusions:

Philip Crosby’s ideas on quality came from his vast experience of working with an assembly line. His main focus was on zero defects which ultimately led to the adoption of this concept by the modern Six Sigma Quality movement.

Mr. Crosby explained the idea that zero defects is not a phenomenon that originated on the assembly line. He defined quality as a conformity to a set of specifications defined by the management rather than a vague concept of “goodness.” However, these specifications are set according to the needs and wants of the customer rather than being arbitrarily defined.

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Taiichi Ohno, popularly known as the pioneer of the Toyota Production System was born in Dalian, China in 1912. He graduated from the Nagoya Technical High School in Japan and joined Toyoda Spinning in 1932. He joined the Toyota Motor Company as a shop-floor supervisor in the year 1943 and rose to the position of an executive.

In the early 1950s, Ohno, then working as an assembly manager in Toyota, developed significant improvements that eventually took the shape of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Toyota was on the verge of becoming bankrupt and was not in a position to afford large investments in major inventories or equipment. In the 1950s, a major collaboration with Shigeo Shingo started and further refinement in the direction of framing an integrated manufacturing strategy took shape.

The Rise of Toyota Production System

The oil crisis of 1973 hit Japan just as it affected America and Europe. By 1974, Japan’s economy collapsed and crashed to a state of zero. At the Toyota Motor Company, profits witnessed a downfall; however, greater earnings were reported and sustained in 1975, 1976, and 1977 as compared to other Japanese companies.

The huge gap between Toyota and other Japanese companies resulted in the other firms in Japan adopting the Toyota Production System, and began spreading its roots rapidly in the country.

Ohno’s success resulted in his career acceleration from an Assembly Shop Manager to the Executive Vice President in 1975. He retired from Toyota in the early 1980s and joined the Toyota subsidiary and supplier, Toyota Gosei, as the President.

Ohno strongly believed that “Having no problems is the biggest problem of all.” He stated that problems are not the cause of worry; rather it is a Kaizen opportunity to improvise and grow. He also stressed that each problem has to be seen without any set of preconceived notions.

Taiichi Ohno: Contribution to Six Sigma & Lean Manufacturing

Ohno was strongly of the opinion that waste & inefficiency are the two major reasons why Toyota’s production was suffering. He personally took charge of the elimination of wastes and reducing the inefficiency in the production area.

His efforts finally took the shape of the Toyota Production System. Ohno’s principles influenced people in the areas outside of manufacturing, including the service arena.

Ohno also played an instrumental role in identifying ways by which organizations identify waste with his model known as the Seven Wastes which forms the core of many academic studies to date.

A Muda’ is a Japanese term that stands for any entity that doesn’t have any further value and should be eliminated from the organization without any further delay. It is critical to examine the values that each activity contributes to the organization and identifying those that do not contribute any value. After reaching this point it is easier to see what it is that the customer pays for. Organizations can then start working on the elimination of waste. These seven wastes are as follows:

1. Any time wasted in delays or waiting in the queue with no value addition
2. The production is more than the demand
3. Resources (physical or material) being wasted in a non-strategical activity
4. Unorganized or unplanned transportation
5. Unplanned movements or motion
6. Non-utilized inventory
7. The defects, for the inspection of the inventory, cost time and money

A few parts of the Toyota Production System are frequently used in the United States such as kanban (the tagging/signal in JIT stock control system), jidoka (the injection of quality), and muda (the elimination of waste).

Conclusions

Taiichi stated that progress cannot be possible if one stays happy with the present conditions. He took the elimination of the inefficiency in Toyota as his personal goal and kept working until he devised the well-known Toyota Production system.

He was very proactive in removing defects and unusable stock from any organization. He devised seven categories of wastes through which organizations can easily proceed with systemic waste removal from their businesses. His contributions have made Toyota a world-renowned organization with respect to quality excellence.

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Career Snapshot and Milestones

Edward Deming, born in Iowa in 1900, was a trained physicist with a doctorate from Yale University in 1928. His previous degrees were from the University of Wyoming and the University of Colorado. Dr. Deming has an extensive list of nearly 200 research papers, articles, and books covering a wide range of interrelated subjects”from systems and systems thinking to statistical variance, human psychology, and a variety of topics in the field of physics.

Deming was associated as a mathematical physicist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1938 and was responsible for guiding courses like math and statistics at the Graduate School of the USDA. Later in 1938, Deming switched to the Bureau of the Census as an adviser in sampling. His applications of statistical process control to their techniques led to a multi-fold improvement in productivity.

In 1942, during his tenure at the Bureau of the Census, Deming was retained to extend his services as a consultant to the Secretary of War and was asked to suggest and present ideas on ways to assist in the war effort. Because of his contribution at the USDA and his statistical expertise, Deming was deputed in Japan in 1946 by the Economic and Scientific Section of the War Department to study agricultural production and related issues in the war-affected country.

Dr. Deming’s is considered the architect of Japan’s post-World War II industrial transformation. It is one of the most significant achievements of the 20th century. His reintroduction to America happened in June 1980 after the release of the acclaimed documentary If Japan Can, Why Can’t We.” He quickly sparked the quality revolution and became the face of quality. He played a major role in the resurgence of the American automobile industry in the late 1980s. Dr. Deming rendered consultancy to corporations such as Ford, Toyota, Xerox, Ricoh, Sony, and Proctor & Gamble, and revitalized their businesses with the adoption of his management techniques.

Contributions to Process Improvement

Understanding the importance of deviations: Deming’s ideas on quality are based on his recognition of the significance of variation. He stated that the central problem in management and in leadership…is the failure to understand the information in variation.’

Deming was perplexed with unpredictability. He opined that all systems have variation, but it is critical for managers to distinguish between common and uncommon causes of variation. He established a theory of variation that attributes special causes of variation to quickly recognizable factors such as procedural changes, shift change etc, and after the elimination of special causes, common causes of variation will still exist and can be recognized easily by the workers. Managers have the authority to alter them in order to prevent their frequent reoccurrence. According to Deming’s estimates, management is responsible for more than 85% of the reasons for variation. This was his focal message to the Japanese which lead to the ultimate transformation of the country post World War.

14 points for management: Deming created 14 points capable of providing a framework for knowledge development in the workplace and which could guide long-term business goals and plans. The points are a philosophical code for management. Dr. Deming’s 14 Points, originally presented in Out of the Crisis,’ cultivate a fertile soil where a more efficient workplace, higher profits, and enhanced productivity can grow.

Seven deadly diseases of management: As given by Deming, the main barriers faced by management in order to improve effectiveness and to ensure continuous improvement are the lack of consistency of purpose to plan products and services, an over-emphasis on short-term profits and thinking, performance evaluation and annual reviews, mobility of managers and job hopping, as well as management with the use only of available data and high medical costs. Effective management and a commitment to quality are needed to combat these seven deadly diseases.

PDCA Cycle: Walter Shewhart discovered the concept of the PDCA cycle and introduced it to Deming. Deming promoted it in the 1950s and it came to be known as the Deming Wheel or the Deming Cycle. The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle has four steps which must be followed in order to get the problem solved. Repetition of these steps will lead to a cycle of continual improvement.

Conclusions

Deming has been universally acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of Total Quality Management. He is attributed with the economic miracle of the 1970s and 1980s led by the revolution in Japanese manufacturing management. His philosophy is derived not from the world of management, but from mathematics, and the way he combined it with a human relations approach gives his work a breath of originality and freshness.

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