A Note on Quality: The Views of Deming,

Juran, and Crosby

Group 1B

During the 1980s the loopholes in the American companies were revealed
as their Japanese counterparts starting capturing the market share all
over the world. The pioneer for the outstanding performance of Japanese
companies happened to be two men Deming and Joseph Juran. Both of
them along with Crosby were the three leading quality gurus. As the
weaknesses in the American companies were highlighted their advices
were taken seriously in USA. The case discusses the strategies and ideas
these men suggested for improvement in American companies.
Deming
Deming blamed the failure of American companies on the poor
management. His message was clear that there need to be some radical
changes in the functioning of the companies for any development in
performance and quality. For this to happen he challenged the entrenched
notions such as quality and productivity involve a trade-off. He believed
that the problems arise from two types of causes
1) Common Causes
2) Special Causes
Common causes are not related to operations and are basically the failure
of top management to perform properly. Special causes are the
operational faults in the working.
The tool proposed by Deming to distinguish between common causes and
special causes was Statistical Process Control. It relied on fact that
variation was inevitable in industrial life however through this tool it can
be identified as to whether the variation was random or not. Readings that
fell outside the accepted variation indicate a special cause, one that
requires an intervention. However if the readings fall between the
specified limits then the processes in conformation to the historical
standards. However it does mean that the performance is ideal. There is a
possibility that the system itself is not performing well over the years and
development in entire process might be required. This requires removal of
common causes and it will shift the entire average up or down. For all this
he suggested implementation of various tools such as control charts, SPC,
Pareto analysis (80: 20 rule), Ishikawa cause and effect diagram among
others.
Juran
For Juran quality meant fitness for use. Fitness for use comprised of five
major dimensions

Quality of design Self explanatory

Quality of conformance to what extent does the design intent

math with actual product
Safety risk of injury due to product hazard
Field use products conformance and conditioning after it reaches
the intended customer
Availability reflected reliability and maintainability

In order to attain efficiency in the abovementioned components Juran

developed a series of analytical methods. Knowing well that they are
unlikely to be received well by the top managements as they listened to
the language of money only, he advocated a COQ accounting system.
Cost of Quality was a sum total of four components

External failure costs defects discovered after shipment

Internal failure costs defects discovered before shipment
Appraisal costs cost of assessing condition of material
Prevention costs preventing defects from occurring at the first
place

He identified that major component of COQ were the external and internal failure
costs. Also he stated the COQ cannot be brought down to zero, it can only be
decreased to a certain level. Decrease in external and internal failure costs would
mean an increase in appraisal costs and prevention costs. So the additional
expense on appraisal and prevention costs should only be to a point wherein the
COQ is minimum. If further expense is incurred then though the Internal and
external failure costs would decrease but their decrease would be more than
offset by the corresponding increase in appraisal and prevention costs.
In order to reach the minimum COQ Juran suggested a three pronged approach:

Breakthrough projects would be developed under guidance of special few

Control sequence once development is done, control sequence is
implemented to preserve gains
Annual quality programs for internalizing habit of continuous quality
improvement in the top management
Crosby
Crosby advocated the importance of quality and perfection. He challenged the
belief that perfection is for high-end products only. He stated that if quality were
improved profitability wold inevitably increase. He believed that the problem was
with the thinking of the management, if the management accepts defects as
usual occurrence then they would really be a usual occurrence. Workers would
not try to limit the faults or mistakes as the top management finds them as
routine occurrences. He provided two primary tools to cater to this problem.

Cost of Quality measures to show the mangers the size of quality

problems
Management maturity grid used for self-assessment