Japanese Quality Revolution

At first, Japan had a widely held reputation for less quality shoddy exports, and their goods were shunned by international markets. The birth of total quality in the United States, made major Japanese manufacturers converted from producing military goods for internal use to producing civilian goods for trade.

The quality movement in Japan began in 1946 (immediately after World War II) with the U.S. Occupation Force's mission to revive and restructure Japan's communications equipment industry. This led Japanese organizations to explore new ways of thinking about quality.

For this to make it possible Japan took help of two American quality experts, named W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran. The contributions of Deming and Juran emphasized the statistical quality control movement.

Japan rather than relying purely on product inspection, its manufacturers focused on improving all organizational processes through the people who used them. As a result, Japan was able to produce higher-quality exports at lower prices, benefiting consumers throughout the world.

Japanese manufacturers began increasing their share in American markets, causing widespread economic effects in the United States: Manufacturers began losing market share, organizations began shipping jobs overseas, and the economy suffered unfavorable trade balances. Overall, the impact on American business jolted the United States into action.

At first, U.S. manufacturers held onto to their assumption that Japanese success was price-related, and thus responded to Japanese competition with strategies aimed at reducing domestic production costs and restricting imports. This, of course, did nothing to improve American competitiveness in quality. As years passed, price competition declined while quality competition continued to increase. By the end of the 1970s, the American quality crisis reached major proportions, attracting attention from national legislators, administrators and the media.

In 1980, Finally U.S. organizations began to listen. The CEOs of major U.S. corporations stepped forward to provide personal leadership in the quality movement. The U.S. response, emphasizing not only statistics but approaches that embraced the entire organization, became known as Total Quality Management (TQM).

Impact of World War II in Quality

World War II(September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945) war field,

There was a soldier from USA with gun in his hands and in the middle of his opponents. He triggered his gun when the opponent soldier tried to shoot him. Unfortunately the gun did not work. He keep on pressing the gun trigger meanwhile the opponents’ bullet went inside his body he collapsed there and then. Alas! A man died because of poor quality gun.

This was the situation almost all soldiers in World War 2 faced. If gun fires that’s good he will be saved if it’s not then he will be destroyed. At that time, military contracts were typically awarded to the manufacturer that submitted the lowest bid. Products were inspected on delivery to ensure conformance to requirements.

In the middle of the war i.e., at 1941 people realized the importance of quality in human safety. Then US took a decision on weapon selection. Unsafe military equipment was clearly unacceptable, and the U.S. armed forces inspected virtually every unit produced to ensure that it was safe for operation. This practice required huge inspection forces and caused problems in recruiting and retaining competent inspection personal.

To ease the problems without compromising product safety, the armed forces began to use sampling inspection to replace unit-by-unit inspection. With the aid of industry consultants, particularly from Bell Laboratories, they adapted sampling tables and published them in a military standard, known as Mil-Std-105. These tables were incorporated into the military contracts so suppliers clearly understood what they were expected to produce. The armed forces also helped suppliers improve quality by sponsoring training courses in Walter Shewhart’s statistical quality control (SQC) techniques.

But while the training led to some quality improvement in some organizations, most companies had little motivation to truly integrate the techniques. As long as government contracts paid the bills, organizations’ top priority remained meeting production deadlines. What’s more, most SQC programs were terminated once the government contracts came to an end.

History of Quality

Now a days Quality plays a predominant role in any Industry. World around us is demanding for more and more quality products in fact we aim at Zero defect Product. Sometimes we wonder how this quality initiated and it made us to lead a perfect living.

Ok, till where can I find its roots?

Here is the answer…

 Actually the quality movement started somewhere in 13^th century, can trace its roots back to medieval Europe, where craftsmen began organizing into unions called guilds. These guilds were responsible for developing strict rules for product and service quality. Inspection committees enforced the rules by marking flawless goods with a special mark or symbol. Since most craftsmen sold their goods locally, each had a tremendous personal stake in meeting customers’ needs for quality. If quality needs weren’t met, the craftsman ran the risk of losing customers not easily replaced. Therefore, masters maintained a form of quality control by inspecting goods before sale. They Developed a Strict Quality standards based on the customer requirement. Oh my God Quality Standards in those days!!!

Until the early 19th century, manufacturing in the industrialized world tended to follow this craftsmanship model.

Europe, from mid-1750s to early 1800s grew into the Industrial Revolution.  In 19^th Century they have developed Factory System where craftsmen’s trades are divided into specialized tasks. This forced craftsmen to become factory workers and forced shop owners to become production supervisors. Quality in the factory system was ensured through the skill of laborers supplemented by audits and/or inspections. Defective products were either reworked or scrapped.

This is about Quality’s genesis. Till here Quality is confined to customer desired product development.

Interesting??

Will continue posting on when mankind realized the importance of Quality