Dr. Edward Deming's Total Quality Management

Dr. Edward Deming was an American engineer, professor, statistician, lecturer, author, and management consultant born in 1900. Deming lectured that by implementation of certain principles of the management, organizations can improve the quality of the product and simultaneously reduce costs. These cost reductions include the reduction of waste production, reducing staff attrition and litigation while concurrently increasing customer loyalty. The crucial point, in Deming’s opinion, was to practice continuous improvement, and to visualize the manufacturing process as a united process, rather than as a system made up of unrelated parts. Dr. Deming believed that quality did not have an exact definition and that the customer is the one that can

Joseph Juran was a Romanian-born American engineer and management consultant. He believed that it was most important to take the broad, organizational-level approach to quality. Total quality management begins from top management and trickles through the company all the way to the bottom. Like Dr. Deming, Dr, Juran was focused on the end product and its quality. Dr. Juran focused much on the human aspect of quality management and held that the root cause of quality issues was the struggle to change and human relations problems. He also stressed the importance of educating and training managers. Much like Dr. Crosby, Dr. Juran was much more strategic and structured in his approach to quality that Dr. Deming was. Dr Juran’s philosophyon quality are outlined in Five areas: (1) Spiral of progress in quality; (2) Breakthrough sequence; (3) Project-by-project approach; (4) The Juran trilogy; and (5) The principle of the Vital Few and the Trivial Many. Spiral of progress in quality concept puts together the importance of cross-functional teams in the production of quality. “Quality results from the interrelationships among the different spirals” (Juran and Gryna, 1988). The breakthrough sequence: According to Dr. Juran, “a breakthrough is a dynamic, decisive movement to new and higher level of performance”. The Project-by-project approach requires employees to have problem-solving skills to be able to find the signs, sources and remedies for quality problems that they come across and solve them. “He breaks the problem-solving process into two journeys: (1) Diagnostic journey (from symptom to cause), and (2) Remedial journey (from cause to remedy)” (Juran and Gryna, 1988). The Juran trilogy includes quality planning, quality control and quality improvement. Quality planning involves creating processes that will accomplish the clear goals. Quality is related to customers, so the customer’s needs, and expectations should be recognized. Quality control