History of Quality

The origins of quality movement

 Evolution
• Earliest (“On the eighth day of May [1382]”) documented
evidence of quality concern –
A merchant named John Welburgham of Canterbury was fined
six pence for selling two cooked fishes that were “rotten and
stinking and unwholesome.” The fined was imposed by the
Mayor of the town against the complaint by six citizens of the
town.

• Biggest reason for concern for quality: scarcity of resources.

Food production/productivity was less and starvation was a real
possibility. Consumer goods, being handcrafted, were
extremely expensive.

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 Evolution

• Cost of “thirteen quires of paper…(was)… six shillings and

eight pence, as against a penny for ten eggs.”
• Hence one bad quire of paper meant considerable loss.
Imagine the plight of the merchant if the whole consignment
was found lacking in quality!

• Even today quality is equally important.

Loss of quality is invariably borne by the consumer, as the real
costs of a quality failure are often out of proportion to the
value of defective item.

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 History of Quality
• B.C. era structures in India and Egypt show evidence of
measurement and inspection. e.g. precisely cut stones for
pyramids, forts.
• “Quality” of those structures was due to consistent use of well-
developed methods and procedures and precise measurement
devices. Evidence of quality assurance.
• Before Industrial Revolution, skilled craftsmen served both as
manufacturers and inspectors, building quality into their
products through their considerable pride in their
workmanship.
• During this time, quality assurance was informal. Efforts were
directed to building quality into the final product.

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 History of Quality

• Industrial Revolution changed this basic concept to

interchangeable parts. Likes of Thomas Jefferson and F. W.
Taylor (“scientific management” fame) emphasized on
production efficiency and decomposed jobs into smaller work
tasks. Holistic nature of manufacturing rejected!
• First recorded deviation from this production system was tried
by French gunsmith Honore’ Le Blanc (Eighteenth century) –
he developed interchangeable parts for manufacturing muskets
to a standard pattern.
• Thomas Jefferson brought this technology to US.

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 History of Quality
Whitney disaster
• In 1798, the US government awarded a two-year contract of
supplying 10,000 muskets to Eli Whitney.
• Whitney designed special machine tools and trained workers
to make parts following a fixed design.
• He underestimated the process variation.
• It took him more than 10 years to supply the muskets!

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 History of Quality
• Early twentieth century saw F.W. Taylor’s “scientific
management” philosophy applied to production processes.
Under this, the work was split into small `jobs’ and workforce
was trained to be master of those jobs.
• Manufacturers were able to ship good parts, but at a very high
cost.
• Defects were present, but were removed via inspection.
• Birth of separate “quality control” department.
• Assigning the responsibility for quality to inspection
department, the upper management focused instead on
quantity and efficiency.

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 History of Quality
The Bell story
• Started an inspection department in its Western Electric
Company in early 1900s to support Bell operating companies.
• Through massive inspection efforts, achieved its reputation in
the field of quality.
• Employees of Western Electric were transferred to Bell
Telephone Laboratories in 1920s.
• Their goal – develop theories and methods for improving and
maintaining quality.

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 History of Quality

• Statistical approaches to quality control started at Western

Electric with the separation of inspection division. Pioneers
like Walter Shewhart, George Edwards, W. Edwards Deming
and Joseph M. Juran were all employees of Western Electric.
• During the Second World War, US military started using
statistical sampling and imposed stringent standards on
suppliers.
• Tie-up between US War Production Board and Bell Labs.
• Importance for statistical quality control rose and gradually
adopted throughout the manufacturing industry.

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 History of Quality

• Post-war period saw a massive shortage of consumer goods in

US and the emphasis shifted from quality to quantity. Quality
remained the area for the specialist, and managers started
thinking about productivity, efficiency.
• After World War II, under General MacArthur's Japan
rebuilding plan, Deming and Juran went to Japan.
• Deming and Juran introduced statistical quality control theory
to Japanese industry.
• The difference between approaches to quality in USA and
Japan: Deming and Juran were able to convince the top
managers the importance of quality.

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 History of Quality
World realizes the importance of quality - ISO standards

• Created by International Organization for Standardization

(IOS) which was created in 1946 to standardize quality
requirement within the European market.
• IOS initially composed of representatives from 91 countries:
probably most wide base for quality standards.
• Adopted a series of written quality standards in 1987 (first
revised in 1994, and more recently (and significantly) in
2000).

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 History of Quality

“The book”
• Western managers did not focus on the “total quality”
approach…. Almost all!
• When Ford executives visited Japan in 1982, the Japanese
managers told them that they learned the total quality
principles from “the book.”
• Turned out, the book was My Life and Work written by Henry
Ford and Samuel Crowther in 1926.
• Where Ford missed out, Japanese industry capitalized!

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 History of Quality

• Slow moving giant: It took almost 20 years for Japanese

industry to overtake western manufacturer.

• Widely reported cases

1. Hewlett-Packard report in 1980 about RAM chips from US
and Japanese manufacturer.
2. Business Week report in 1987 on automobile industry –
failure data per car.
3. Steel and banking industry realized the growing clout of
Japanese manufacturers in the quality aspect.

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 History of Quality

• Top managers in USA focused on marketing, production

quantity and financial performance, Japanese managers
improved quality to an unprecedented level.
• Market started preferring Japanese products and American
companies suffered immensely.

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 History of Quality

• The western world woke up to the quality revolution – 1986

Challenger exploded killing all seven astronauts made
everyone aware of the importance of quality.
• Ford Motor Company consulted Dr. Deming to help transform
its operations.
(By then, 80-year-old Deming was virtually unknown in USA.
Whereas Japanese government had instituted The Deming
Prize for Quality in 1950.)
• The Xerox story - “Leadership Through Quality.”
• 1980 NBC telecast of a special program “If Japan can…why
can’t we?”
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 History of Quality
• Malcolm Baldrige award institutionalized in 1987 by US
government.
• Managers started to realize that “quality of management” is
more important than “management of quality.” Birth of the
term Total Quality Management (TQM).
• Florida Power and Light the first non-Japanese company to be
awarded Deming prize in 1989.
• Early 1990s: Quality management principles started finding
their way in service industry. FedEx, The Ritz-Carton Hotel
Company were the quality leaders.
• TQM recognized worldwide: Countries like Korea, India,
Spain and Brazil are mounting efforts to increase quality
awareness.

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 Current and future challenges
• Current challenge: To ensure that managers don’t lose sight of
the basic principles on which quality management and
performance excellence are based.
• Former Xerox president David Kearns – “quality is a race
without a finish line.”
• A key challenge is to allocate the necessary resources to
maintain a focus on quality, particularly in times of economic
downturns.
• Increasing awareness of quality will only increase the level of
competition in the future.

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 Future challenges
1. Partnerships
2. Learning systems
3. Adaptability and speed of change
4. Environmental sustainability
5. Globalization
6. Knowledge focus
7. Customization and differentiation
8. Shifting demographics.

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