This presentation introduces the subject of Quality Management by describing the evolution of the concept of quality with a specific focus on the 20th century.

1. How To Think About Quality
From “Juran’s Quality Handbook 5th ed.”
1
Nicola Mezzetti, Ph.D.
Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science University of Trento
e-mail: nicola.mezzetti@unitn.it

2. What is Quality?
• Of the many meanings of the word quality, two
are of critical importance to managing for
quality:
• Quality means those features of products which
meet customer needs and thereby provide
customer satisfaction. In this sense, quality is
related with income.
• Quality means freedom from deficiencies that
require doing work over again (rework) or that
result in field failures, customer dissatisfaction,
customer claims, and so on. In this sense, quality
is related with costs.

3. Conformance to Specification
• For most quality departments, the long standing
definition of quality was conformance to
specification.
• Assumption: products that conform to
specifications also meet customer needs.
• Problem: Customer needs include many things
not found in product specifications!
• The importance of customer focus has caused the
definition of quality to be reviewed to include
customer needs that are not a part of the product
specification.

4. Definitions
• Product: the product of any process. To many economists, products include
both goods and services.
• Product feature: a property possessed by goods or services that is intended to
meet customer needs.
• Customer: anyone is affected by the product or by the process used to produce
the product. Customers may be external or internal.
• Customer Satisfaction: a state of affairs in which customers feel that their
expectations have been met by the product features.
• Deficiency: any fault (defect or error) that impairs a product’s fitness for use.
• e.g., office errors, factory scrap, power outages, failures to meet delivery dates, and
inoperable goods.
• Customer dissatisfaction: a state of affairs in which deficiencies (in goods or
services) result in customer annoyance, complaints, claims, and so on.

5. Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction
• Customer Satisfaction comes from those features which induce customers to
buy the product.
• Dissatisfaction has its origin in the deficiencies and is why customers complain.
• Some products give little or no dissatisfaction; they do what the producer said
they would do. Yet, they are not scalable because some competing product
has features that provide greater customer satisfaction.

6. From Little Q to Big Q (1980s)

7. From Little Q to Big Q (1980s)

8. Quality: The Financial Effects
• The effect on Income
• Whatever the source, the amount of income relates in varying degrees to the
features of the product produced by the recipient.
• In many markets, products with superior features are able to secure superior
income, whether through higher share of market or through premium prices.
Products that are not competitive in features often must be sold at below-
market prices.
• Product deficiencies also can have an effect on income.
• The customer who encounters a deficiency may take action of a cost-related
nature: file a complaint, return the product, make a claim or file a lawsuit.
• The customer also may elect instead (or in addition) to stop buying from the guilty
producer, as well as to publicise the deficiency at its source. Such actions by
multiple customers can do serious damage to a producer’s income.

9. Quality: The Financial Effects
• The effect on Costs
• The cost of poor quality consists of all costs that would disappear if there were
no deficiencies - no errors, no rework, no field failures, and so on.
• In the early 1980s, within the U.S. manufacturing industries, about a third of
the work done consisted of redoing what had already been done. Estimates
in the service industries suggest that a similar situation prevails in service
industries generally.
• Deficiencies that occur prior to sale add to producers’ costs.
• Deficiencies that occur after sale add to customers’ costs as well as to
producers’ costs.

10. How to manage for Quality
• To attain quality, it is well to begin by establishing the vision for the
organization, along with policies and goals.
• Conversion of goals into results (making quality happen) is then done through
managerial processes - sequences of activities that produce the intended results.
• Managing for quality makes extensive use of three such managerial processes
(Juran Trilogy):
• Quality planning
• Quality control
• Quality improvement

11. How to manage for Quality

12. Juran Trilogy Diagram

13. Allocating Time: Itoh Model

14. Quality in Primitive Societies
• The Family: the nuclear human organisational unit. Isolated families
were forced to create self-sufficiency.
• Division of work among family members.
• Production for self-use: design, production, and use carried out by
the same persons.
• Primitive technology while superb coordination: the same human
beings received all inputs and took all remedial actions.

15. Quality in Primitive Societies
• The Village: villages were created to serve other essential human
requirements such as mutual defence and social needs.
• Division of labor and development of specialised skills.
• By going through the same work cycle over and over again, the artisans
became intimately familiar with the materials used, the tools, the steps in
the process, and the finished product.
• The cycle included selling the product to users and receiving their
feedback on product performance; this enabled the first steps toward the
evolution of technology.

16. Quality in Primitive Societies
• The Village Marketplace: artisans (producers) and buyers (users) met
face to face with goods between them, on scheduled market days.
• The quality of the products could to a high degree be judged by the
unaided human senses.
• The seller was responsible for supplying the goods.
• The buyer became responsible for supplying the quality assurance (caveat
emptor, i.e. “let the buyer beware”).
• The importance of being recognised for competence and honesty was for
artisans a quiet yet powerful stimulus to maintain a high level of quality.

17. Quality with the Growth of Commerce
• Under trade among regions, producer and user could no longer meet face to
face in the marketplace. Marketing was now done by chains of marketers. Under
these conditions, new forms of quality assurance have been invented:
• Quality Warranties: Early warranties were in oral form then, given the difficulty to
enforce such kind of agreement, written warranties have been invented. Stimulate
producers to give priority to quality and sellers to seek reliable sources of supply.
• Quality Specifications: With written specifications, quality information could be
communicated directly between designer and producer or between seller and buyer.
Early specifications focused on defining products and the processes for producing
them; the concept was then extended to defining the materials from which the
products were made. As conflicts arose between sellers and buyers, it became
necessary to establish inspection and test specification as well.
• Measurement: the emergence of inspection and test specifications led to the
evolution of measuring instruments (e.g., length, volume, time).

18. Artisans and Guilds
• With the increase in the number of artisans, the resulting competition became
destructive and threatened the benefits derived from craftsmanship. To
perpetuate their benefits, the artisan within a trade organised trade unions -
guilds.
• The Guild Hierarchy: Each guild maintained a hierarchy of three categories of
workers: the apprentice, the journeyman, and the master.
• Guilds and Quality Planning: Guilds were active in managing for quality, including
quality planning. They established specifications for input materials, manufacturing
processes, and finished products, as well as for methods of inspection and test.
• Guilds and Quality Control: they maintained inspection and audits to ensure that
artisans followed the quality specifications; they established means of traceability
to identify the producer; some applied their mark to finished products as added
assurance to consumers that quality met guild standards. The sale of poor-quality
goods was forbidden.

19. Artisans and Guilds
• Guilds and Quality Improvement: An overriding guild policy was solidarity - to
maintain equality of opportunity among members; to this end, internal competition
among members was limited to honest competition. Quality improvement through
product or process innovation was not considered to be “honest” competition. This
limitation on quality improvement did indeed help to maintain equality among
members, but it also made the guild increasingly vulnerable to competition from
other cities that did evolve superior products and processes.
• Guilds and External Forces: the policy of solidarity became an handicap to
remaining competitive. Thus the guilds urged the authorities to restrict imports of
foreign goods. They also imposed strict rules to prevent their trade secrets from
falling into the hands of foreign competitors.

20. Inspection and Inspectors
• The concept of inspection and inspectors are of ancient origin.
• Wall paintings and reliefs in Egyptian tombs show the inspections used during
stone construction projects. The measuring instruments included the square, level,
and plumb bob for alignment control. Surface flatness of stones was checked by
boning rods and by threads stretched across the faces of the stone blocks.

21. The Government Involvement
• Governments have long involved themselves in managing for quality: to protect the safety and health
of citizens, to defend and improve the economics of the state, and to protect consumers against
frauds.
• Safety and Health of the Citizens: Early forms of protection of safety and health were after-the-fact
measures. The code of Hammurabi (c. 2000 B.C.) prescribed death penalty for any builder of a house that
later collapsed and killed the owner.
• Economics of the State:
• With the growth of trade between cities, the quality reputation of a city could be an asset or a liability.
Many cities took steps to protect their reputation by imposing quality controls on exported goods. They
appointed inspectors to inspect finished products and affix a seal to certify as to quality.
• Continued growth of commerce then created competition among nations, including competition on
quality: guilds tended to stifle quality improvement, but governments favoured improving the quality of
domestic goods to reduce imports and increase exports.
• Consumer Protection: Many states recognised that as to some domestic trade practices, the rule of caveat
emptor did not apply. The states designed official standard tools for measuring length, weight, volume, and
so on. Use of these tools was mandated, and inspectors were appointed to ensure compliance.

22. The Mark of Seal
• A mark or seal has been applied to products over the centuries to serve
multiple purposes:
• Identify the producer: for instance, such identification may serve to fix
responsibility, protect the innocent against unwarranted blame, enable buyers to
choose from among multiple makers, advertise the name of the maker.
• Provide traceability: for instance, in mass production the use of lot numbers helps
to maintain uniformity of product in subsequent processing, designate expiration
dates, make selective product recalls.
• Provide product information: such as type and quantities of ingredients used,
date when made, expiration dates, model number, ratings.
• Provide quality assurance: this was the major purpose served by the marks of the
guilds and towns. It was their way of telling buyers: “This product has been
independently inspected and has good quality”.

23. The Industrial Revolution
• The industrial revolution began in Europe during the mid-eighteenth century. It gave birth
to factories that soon outperformed the artisans and small shops.
• The Factory System: the goal of the factories was to raise productivity and reduce costs. To
reach their goals, the factories reengineered the manufacturing process: the tasks within a
craft were divided up among several or many factory workers, and special tools were designed
to simplify each task down to a short time cycle.
• Quality Control under the Factory System: the responsibility of the worker changed from
providing satisfaction to the buyer to “make it like the sample”. Moreover, products involving
assemblies of a number of components demanded interchangeability of those components.
With the growth of technology and of interstate commerce, there emerged the need for
standardisation. Given the limitations of quality planning (the master mechanics were
unschooled and had just practical experience), what emerged was an expansion of inspection
by departmental supervisors supervised by full-time inspectors.

24. The Industrial Revolution
• Quality Improvement: the industrial revolution provided a climate favourable for continuous
quality improvement through product and process development. Some companies created
internal sources of inventors - research laboratories to carry out product and process
development; some created market research departments to carry out the functions of
entrepreneurship. In contrast, the concept of continuous quality improvement to reduce chronic
waste made little headway (the priority was to increasing income than to reducing waste).
• The Taylor System of Scientific Management: separate planning from execution to increase
production and productivity. Taylor’s system was stunningly successful in raising productivity,
however it had negative side effects in human relations and on quality. The American managers
responded by taking inspectors out of the production departments and placing them in newly
create inspection departments (that have become today’s quality departments).

25. The Rise of Quality Assurance
• The anatomy of quality assurance is very similar to that of quality control:
• each evaluates actual quality;
• each compares actual quality with the quality goal;
• each stimulates corrective actions as needed;
• What differs is the prime purpose to be served.
• Under quality control, the prime purpose is to serve those who are directly
responsible for conducting operations.
• Under quality assurance, the prime purpose is to serve those who are not directly
responsible for conducting operations but who have a need to know that all is
well.

26. The Rise of Quality Assurance
• In the village marketplace, quality assurance was responsibility of the buyer. The
guilds then created a form of quality assurance by establishing product and process
standards and then auditing to ensure compliance by the artisans. In addition, some
political authorities established independent product inspections to protect their
quality reputation.
• Early during the industrial revolution, quality assurance was mainly through inspection
and test. During the twentieth century, there emerged Quality Control Systems:
systems instituted and followed by suppliers as a condition for becoming and remaining
suppliers; enforced by audits, both before and during the life of the supply contracts.
• Problems: lack of standardisation (each company had its own idea of what was a
proper quality control system) and multiple audits (each supplier was subject to being
audited by each customer)
• Solution: Introduction of standards (e.g. ISO 9001) and of certification authorities.
• Producers are now responsible of both providing the product and quality
assurance.

27. 1911: The Principles of Scientific Management
• F. Taylor identifies reasons for inefficiency:
• Belief that a material increase in the output of each man or each machine in the trade would
result in throwing a large number of men out to work.
• Defective systems of management which make it necessary for each workman to soldier, or
work slowly.
• Rule of thumb methods
• Four principles of scientific management:
1. Develop a science for each element of a man’s work, which replaces the old rule of thumb
method.
2. Scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he
chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.
3. Heartily cooperate with men so as to ensure all of the work being done in accordance with
the principles of science which has been developed.
4. Equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the
workmen.

28. 1913: Assembly Line Production (H. Ford)
• Application of Taylor’s scientific management to the production of model T.
• Allowed to break down the assembly process in 84 steps
• The chassis of the car was pulled down the line by a chain conveyor and then 140
workers applied their assigned parts to the chassis.
• Interchangeable parts were produced in mass quantities and brought directly to
the workers who were trained to work at specific assembly stations.
• Impact:
• The use of interchangeable parts allowed for continuous workflow and more time
on task by workers.
• The production time for a single car dropped from over twelve hours to 93
minutes.
• These concepts allowed Ford to increase his profit margin and lower the cost of
the vehicle to consumers ($260 in 1924).

29. 1924: Statistical Quality Control (A. Shewhart)
• SQC was pioneered by Walter Shewhart at Bell Laboratories in the early 1920s.
• Shewhart’s principle was that bringing a process into a state of statistical control
would allow the distinction between assignable and chance cause variations and
the prediction of future output
• Assignable Cause: e.g. differences in quality of raw material, differences in machines
or in operators, difference in time
• Chance Cause:
• the variation is negligible and inevitable,
• the variations appear randomly and is due to chance and not to defects in
machines or materials or to any other factor.
• The process is said to be under state of statistical control.
• Shewhart developed the control chart in 1924.

30. 1924: Statistical Quality Control (A. Shewhart)

31. 1941: Pareto’s Principle (J. Juran)
• The Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects
come from 20% of the causes

32. 1949: Deming’s Cycle (W. Deming)
• Four step model for carrying out change:
• Plan: recognise an opportunity and plan a
change.
• Do: test the change.
• Check: review the test, analyse the
results and identify what you have learned
• Act: take action based on what you
learned in the study
• If the change did work, incorporate
what you learned into wider changes
• otherwise, go through the cycle again
with a different plan

33. 1951: Total Quality Control (A. Feigenbaum)
• Quality control: an effective system for coordinating the quality maintenance and
quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organisation so as to
enable production at the most economical levels which allow for full customer
satisfaction.
• Idea of modern quality control as management-based:
• Increasing operator efficiency by educating them on quality in order to enhance overall
quality.
• Increasing quality awareness throughout the organisation.
• Involving the entire organisation in each and every quality initiative undertaken.
• Quality control as an administrative effort for continuous quality improvement:
• Providing a channel for knowledge integration and communication, thus enhancing
product quality.
• Encouraging employee participation in organisational quality control initiatives.

34. 1955: Toyota Production System (T. Ohno)
• At the end of WWII, Toyota had to compete with American manufacturers in order
to survive.
• Due to large lot production, an American worker produced approximately nine times as
much as a Japanese worker.
• Given the small demand in Japan, Toyota could not rely on the same methods.
Taiichi Ohno had the idea of making profit by cost reduction.
• Absolute elimination of waste
• Just-in-time (JIT): getting the number of parts needed, when they are needed.
• Autonomation: automating a process to include inspection.
• Multi-skilled workers: one worker assigned to more machines.
• Minimizing transportation: putting the machines of a process together.

35. • Quality is the loss imparted by the product to
society from the time the product is shipped.
• Taguchi and Wu proposed the absolute
quality conformance approach
encouraging to pay more attention to
upstream activities (i.e., product design and
planning of processes):
• any variation from the exact specifications
entails a cost or loss to the organisation.
L(y) = k(y-T)2
Where y is the observed value, k is constant and T is the target
value
1957: Quality Loss Function (G. Taguchi)

36. 1960: Zero Defects (P. Cosby)
• Quality as the conformance to the requirements which the company itself has
established for its products based upon the customers needs.
• Do It Right First Time: People are not prevented from making mistakes, but
encouraged to improve continuously.
• The ultimate goal is to train all the staff and give them the tools for quality
improvement, to apply the basic precept of Prevention Management in every area.
• Zero Defects: no allowed number of errors built into a product or process. Four
principles:
1. Quality is conformance to requirements.
2. Quality prevention is preferable to quality inspection and correction.
3. Standard of quality is always be zero defect, not close enough.
4. Quality is measure on the basis of Price, Price of Non Conformance (PONC).

37. 1964: Managerial Breakthrough (J. Juran)
• Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension to quality management.
For Juran, human relations problems are the cause of isolation and resistance to
change and thus the root cause of quality issues.
• He wrote Managerial Breakthrough (1964) outlining the issue.
• The book established the know-how about capitalising on the benefits of quality. It was
organised in two parts:
• Breakthrough: creation of beneficial change.
• Control: prevention of adverse change.

38. 1984: Total Quality Management (NASC, USA)
Umbrella methodology based on
principles and practices of:
• behavioural sciences,
• analysis of quantitative and
nonquantitative data,
• economics theories,
• process analysis
... to continually improve the quality of
all processes.
Primary Elements of TQM:
• Customer-focused
• Total employee involvement
• Process-centered
• Integrated system
• Strategic and systematic approach
• Continual improvement
• Fact-based decision making
• Communications

39. Deming’s 14 Points of TQM
1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.
2. Adopt the new philosophy.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimise total cost by working
with a single supplier.
5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Adopt and institute leadership.
8. Drive out fear.
9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
10.Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
11.Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.
12.Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or
merit system.
13.Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.
14. Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

40. 1986: Six Sigma (Motorola)
Six Sigma is:
• A strategy to improve process quality by identifying and eliminating defects and
minimising variation in process outputs.
• A data driven approach based on measurement of the process variation using Statistical
Process Control.
• A structured implementation approach based on a DMAIC cycle and certified experts.

41. 1986: Six Sigma - DMAIC

42. 1987: ISO 9000 Standard Family (ISO)
• The ISO 9000 standard family comprises:
• ISO 9000 Quality management systems: Fundamentals and vocabulary
• Eight Principles of Quality Management
• ISO 9001 Quality management systems
• Requirements of a quality management system
• ISO 9004 Managing for the sustained success of the organization - A quality
management approach
• ISO 19011 Guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing

43. ISO 9000: The Eight Principles of Quality Management
1. Customer focus
2. Leadership
3. Involvement of people
4. Process approach
5. System approach to management
6. Continual improvement
7. Factual approach to decision-making
8. Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

44. 1988: Lean Production (Krafcik)
Some Lean Building Blocks:
• Pull System
• Work Cell
• Total Productive Maintenance
• Total Quality Management
• Point-of-use storage
• Batch Size Reduction
• Visual Controls
• Concurrent Engineering
Eight Wastes:
• Overproduction
• Waiting
• Transportation
• Non Value-Added Processing
• Excess Inventory
• Defects
• Excess Motion
• Underutilised People
Lean is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous
improvement, flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.

45. ISO 9000: The Eight Principles of Quality Management
1. Performance Improvement
• Scientific Management
• Statistical Process Control
• Total Quality Control
2. Cost Reduction
• Toyota Production System
• Quality Loss Function
• Zero Defects
3. People Management
• Managerial Breakthrough
• Total Quality Management
• ISO 9000 Standard Family

46. Quality in the 20th Century
• The 20th century witnessed the emergence of some massive new forces that
required responsive action:
• An explosive growth in science an technology: the new technologies required
complex designs and precise execution that the empirical methods of earlier
centuries were not capable to provide: process yields were low and field failures
were high. Companies tried to deal with low yields by adding inspections to
separate the good from the bad. They tried to deal with field failures through
warranties and customer service. These solution were costly and they did not
reduce customer dissatisfaction: the need was to prevent defects and field failures
from happening in the first place.
• Threats to human safety and health and to the environment: the advancements
of technology implies changes in lifestyle, which made quality of life dependent on
continuity of service. However, many products were failure-prone, resulting in many
service interruptions. Thus the critical need became quality. Continuity of service, as
well as the frequency and severity of the deficiencies, depends on quality.

47. Quality in the 20th Century
• Expansion of government regulation of quality: Growth of governmental
regulation was a response to twentieth-century forces as well as a force in its own
right. The rise of technology placed complex and dangerous product in the hands
of the public. Government regulation then demanded product designs that avoided
these dangers. To companies, this intervention became a force to be reckoned
with.
• The rise of consumerism movement: Consumers welcomed the features offered
by the new products but not the associated new quality problems. When products
failed in service, consumers were frustrated by vague warranties and poor service.
“The system” seemed unable to provide recourse when things failed; individual
consumers were unable to fight the system, but collectively they were numerous
and potentially powerful, both economically and politically: a consumerism
movement emerged to make this potential a reality and to help consumers deal
more effectively with these problems. This same movement also was successful in
stimulating new government legislation for consumer protection.

48. Quality in the 20th Century
• Intensified international competition in quality: Competition between
cities and countries had intensified in twentieth-century under the pressure
of two world wars. A further stimulus to competition came from the rise of
multinational companies. Large companies had found that foreign trade
barriers were obstacles to export of their products. To get around these
barriers, many set up foreign subsidiaries that then became their bases for
competing in foreign markets, including competition in quality.
• The most spectacular twentieth-century demonstration of the power of
competition in quality came from the Japanese. Following World War II,
Japanese companies discovered that the West was unwilling to buy their
products - Japan had acquired a reputation for making and exporting low quality
goods. The inability to sell became an alarm signal and a stimulus for launching
the Japanese quality revolution during 1950s. Within a few decades, that
revolution propelled Japan into a position of world leadership in quality; this
quality leadership in turn enabled Japan to become an economic superpower.

49. 1980s: Quality to Center Stage
• The cumulative effect of the evolution of quality has been to move quality to
center stage.
• Such a massive move should have stimulated a revolution in managing for
quality. However, it was difficult for companies to recognise the need for such
a revolution.
• Except for Japan, the needed quality revolution did not start until very late in
the twentieth century. The 1980s witnessed quality initiatives being taken by
large numbers of companies. Most of these fell far short of their goals while
few of them were stunningly successful.

50. Lessons Learned
• Companies that were successful in their quality initiatives made use of numerous
strategies. Despite differences among the companies, a list of strategies was
common to most of the successful companies:
• Customer Focus: customer satisfaction becomes the chief operating goal.
• Quality has top priority: quality management is included into corporate policies.
• Strategic quality planning: the business plan includes planning for quality.
• Benchmarking: set goals based on superior results already achieved by others.
• Continuous improvement: the business plan includes quality improvement.
• Training in managing for quality: training extended to all functions and levels,
including upper managers.

51. Lessons Learned
• Big Q to replace Little Q
• Partnering: through cross-functional teams, partnering can be adopted to give priority
to company results rather than to functional goals. Partnering can be extended to
include suppliers and customers.
• Employee empowerment: train and empower the workforce to participate in planning
and improvement.
• Motivation: use recognition and reward for responding to the changes demanded by
quality management
• Measurements: to enable upper managers to follow progress toward providing
customer satisfaction, meeting competition, improving quality, and so on.
• Leadership: upper managers take charge of managing for quality by recognising that
certain responsibilities are not delegable.

52. Responsibilities of the upper management
• The responsibilities of the upper management include
• Serve on the quality council
• Establish the quality goals
• Provide the needed resources
• Provide quality-oriented training
• Stimulate quality improvement
• Review progress
• Give recognition
• Revise the reward system