The Japanese Approach to Product Quality - Sample
Contents
1. Quality Control in Japan
KAORU ISHIKAWA.
Commentary "From Shakespeare to Miss Olivia Newton-John"
NAOTO SASAKI
2. Quality Control - The Japanese Approach
HAJIME KARATSU
3. Cases of QC Circle
NAOTO SASAKI
4. How Quality Goes Round in Circles
DAVID HUTCHINS
5. Quality Control Groups at Rolls-Royce
JIM ROONEY
6. The Historical Development of Quality Control in the West
DAVID HUTCHINS
7. Establishing a Quality Control Circle Programme
ALAN FARR
8. Quality Circles - The Missing Link
DAVID HUTCHINS
9. Quality Circles Successes and Problems at Hughes Aircraft
WILLIAM E. COURTRIGHT
10. Quality Circles at Wedgwood
DICK FLETCHER
11. Organization of Company Wide Quality Control
DAVID HUTCHINS
12. Reasons Why QCCs Do Not Attain Expected Results
OLEG GRESHNER
13. QC Circles and Social Sciences
NAOTO SASAKI
Preface
In recent years the quality of Japanese products has been a focus of world attention and perhaps has been the main cause of the so-called "trade imbalance" between Japan and other countries. But no matter how good the quality or how strong the Japanese economy, it is impossible to force consumers in other countries to buy Japanese products: they have "consumers' sovereignty". Although the quality of Japanese products is good, if their price were much higher they would not sell so well. To state the matter simply, the combination of quality and price must be linked with high productivity, taking into account the fact that Japanese workers are no longer suppliers of "cheap labour".
Good quality and high productivity, however, have been thought, especially in the West, to be a contradiction in terms. In Japan these two factors have had a high correlation since 1950's "cheap and bad" products have been transformed into reliable ones, although the Japanese are not as yet impressively innovative.
What is innovative in Japan may not necessarily be found in the products themselves, but in the production process. In other words, what Japanese manufacturers have achieved so far is process innovation rather than product innovation. It is vitally important to notice that human factors have a greater influence on the former than on the latter. Product innovation can be made up of the "1 per cent inspiration" of geniuses, but process innovation can only be realized by the "99 per cent perspiration" of co-operative work forces. Put another way, it must, to a greater or lesser extent, result from innovation in the human system on the shop floor. In this respect, Japanese manufacturers seem to have made their impact.
The QC Circle is a crystallization of that style of process innovation which is a small-group activity in which workers apply basic tools of statistical quality control to their own work on the shop floor. Although the details of this will be left to future chapters, at least one thing should be clearly noted in the first place. That is the fact we have already passed the stage of discussing whether it is possible to transplant the QC Circle from Japan to other countries. We now find cases of its success across countries regardless of cultural differences.
This book is a collection of papers presented to the past four conferences of QC Circle held in London since 1979. But this is not just a mere collection. The papers have been arranged into a particular order and edited by two people, one of whom, David Hutchins, organized the conferences and the other, Naoto Sasaki, chaired them. They were edited in order to avoid too much overlap and are linked with each other by editorial commentaries. Also included are papers from Mullard and Wedgwood who have subsequently made encouraging progress with the introduction of the concept in their organizations.
Concerning the name "Quality Control Circle", there is a variety of names already in existence in the world for this concept. In most cases, it is called either QC Circle or Quality Circle. In the latter case, the word Control has been dropped because it has been thought to sound oppressive or suppressive. In this book we have respected the preference of contributors.
The editors are especially grateful to Professor Kaoru Ishikawa, who is known as the "Father of QC Circles" and who is now the President of the Musashi Institute of Technology in Tokyo, for his excellent help to the first QC Circle conference held in London in September 1979 by giving a full-day speech, and also for his kind permission for this book to include the contents of that speech.
They are also greatly indebted to the speakers at the conferences and to the contributors of the papers, as well as to the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE), the headquarters of QC Circle, for the birth of this book. But it goes without saying that the editors are responsible for any possible errors or misunderstandings in this book.
NAOTO SASAKI
DAVID HU
Chapter 1
Quality Control in Japan
KAORU ISHIKAWA President, Musashi Institute of Technology
1. Its Brief History
Before the end of World War II there was little application of statistical quality control (SQC) in Japan. Its introductory period was from 1946 to 1950. At first, it was introduced from the United States, by the U.S. Army, and particularly by Dr. W. E. Deming, and also through a number of books. In 1948, a QC Research Group was organized in the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). The members of this group were university professors in the fields of engineering and statistics; government officers, and engineers from private companies. In 1949 JUSE initiated a long QC Seminar, named the QC Basic Course.
The years 1951-1954 saw the further development of SQC, and the Deming Prize was established in 1951. In this period various QC methods developed and many good results were achieved, although there remained three major defects:
(a) There was too much tendency towards statistical methods.
(b) Standardization was promoted, but with rather too much formality.
(c) Top management lagged behind in the progress.
Around that time, in 1954, Dr. J. M. Juran was invited from the USA and he emphasized that QC should be conducted as an integral part of management control. Following this, in the years 1955-1960, the Company Wide Quality Control (CWQC) movement started. And now, when one company wants to apply CWQC, all the employees, from top management to foremen and workers, study statistical methods and participate in QC. And in 1962, publication of a magazine, Genba-To-QC (QC for the Foremen) commenced, and "QC Circles" were organized in various factories.
Over the years the quality of products and Quality Control itself have made remarkable progress in Japan…………………
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