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Quality | |
Understanding TQM, Six Sigma and QFDThe quality revolution has been well documented. It starts in post-war Japan as two American statisticians, W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran, who were spurned by American companies finding receptive Japanese ears. The Japanese embrace quality management and implement techniques like statistical process control, SPC, and effect of variation on a process' loss function. Soon, the Japanese become the quality experts and expand total quality management, TQM, further based the philosophies of Juran, Crosby and Taguchi. They focus on customer satisfaction, teamwork, statistical methods and continuous improvement. In the 1970's and 1980's, American companies play catch up. In the 1990's, new quality management approaches are developed like QFD and Six Sigma. Motorola developed six Sigma and other companies like Texas Instruments and General Electric have followed their lead. Now, career development at these companies is dependent on engineers and scientists achieving green belt or black belt status.
A summary of Deming's fourteen points for quality management from Deming Management at Work by Mary Walton: For more information, the following books are recommended: | |
 What Is Total Quality Control? the Japanese Way
|  Managing Six SIGMA: A Practical Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Implementing the Strategy That Yields Bottom-Line Success
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