At the recent ASQ conference, there was a Quality Guru Quiz available that matched up your responses to a series of questions with which guru you aligned best with. There were several life size versions of these guys where you could capture the moment with a quick photo opportunity. I took the quiz and aligned with Deming, of course. I also learned of the passing of Taguchi earlier this week and started thinking about those we call the “gurus” and their contributions to the field of quality and overall passion for continuously making things better. Below is a collection of quotes that encompasses their passion and thoughts regarding quality: Dr. W. Edwards Deming – “Quality is everyone’s responsibility.” “All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride.” “If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” “It’s not enough to do your best; you must know what to do and then do your best.” “Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.” “We are here to make another world.” Dr. Joseph M. Juran – “Without a standard, there is no logical basis for making a decision or taking action.” “Goal setting has traditionally been based on past performance. This practice as tended to perpetuate the signs of the past.” “Quality means those features of products which meet customer needs and thereby provide customer satisfaction. In this sense, the meaning of quality is oriented to income. The purpose of such higher quality is to provide greater customer satisfaction and, one hopes, to increase income. However, providing more and/or better quality features usually requires an investment and hence usually involves increases in costs. Higher quality in this sense usually “costs more”. “Quality means freedom from deficiencies-freedom from errors that require doing work over again (rework) or that results in field failures, customer dissatisfaction, customer claims and so on. In this sense, the meaning of quality is oriented to costs, and higher quality usually costs less.” Philip Crosby – “Quality is the result of a carefully crafted cultural environment. It has to be the fabric of the organization, not part of the fabric.” “If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we are planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow” Armand V. Feigenbaum – “Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable production and service at the most economical levels which allow full customer satisfaction.” “Pursuing excellence, deep recognition that what you are doing is right, is the strongest motivation in any organization and is the main driver for true leadership qualities.” Dr. Genichi Taguchi – A scientific or technical study always consists of the following three steps: 1. One decides the objective. 2. One considers the method. 3. One evaluates the method in relation to the objective. An excellent review site can be found here. There’s also an interesting discussion within the ASQ LinkedIn Group talking about personal favorites. So far, Deming is in the lead…
