Deming, Crosby and Juran
I. HYPOTHESIS
As American industry becomes increasingly more concerned about quality as a competitive advantage, the question of defining a term as inherently subjective as quality becomes more and more contentious. Many managers operate on the "I know it when I see it" principle; however, a growing awareness exists that in order to have a quality product or service or company, there must be some consensus on what quality is.1 Since the early 1980's, a not-so-quiet revolution has been occurring in American business, a revolution of ideas about doing business which has largely (but not exclusively) been spearheaded by three individuals: Phillip Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, and Joseph Juran. While many people are of the opinion that the ideas of these three men may differ, it is the purpose of this paper to show that Crosby, Deming, and Juran all define quality in the same terms, albeit from different perspectives: the user, the manufacturer, and the manager.
II. SUPPORTING DATA
THE USER’S PERSPECTIVE: DEMING The problem of defining quality is so important to Deming that he devotes an entire chapter of his landmark book, Out of the Crisis, to doing just that.2 In Deming’s view, the consumer is by necessity the most important part of the production system: without a consumer, there is no reason to produce. The question then becomes one of what the consumer needs (or what the consumer thinks he needs or wants). The consumer is not, as Deming points out, always the one who pays the final bill: one or more middlemen may exist between the producer and the person actually paying for the product or service.3 The consumer is simply the end user of whatever product or service is being supplied. Deming cites one important example of where this distinction is frequently lost in an anecdote regarding the review of elementary school readers produced by a publishing house. When one of the reviewers protested that the stories were horribly bland and
As American industry becomes increasingly more concerned about quality as a competitive advantage, the question of defining a term as inherently subjective as quality becomes more and more contentious. Many managers operate on the "I know it when I see it" principle; however, a growing awareness exists that in order to have a quality product or service or company, there must be some consensus on what quality is.1 Since the early 1980's, a not-so-quiet revolution has been occurring in American business, a revolution of ideas about doing business which has largely (but not exclusively) been spearheaded by three individuals: Phillip Crosby, W. Edwards Deming, and Joseph Juran. While many people are of the opinion that the ideas of these three men may differ, it is the purpose of this paper to show that Crosby, Deming, and Juran all define quality in the same terms, albeit from different perspectives: the user, the manufacturer, and the manager.
II. SUPPORTING DATA
THE USER’S PERSPECTIVE: DEMING The problem of defining quality is so important to Deming that he devotes an entire chapter of his landmark book, Out of the Crisis, to doing just that.2 In Deming’s view, the consumer is by necessity the most important part of the production system: without a consumer, there is no reason to produce. The question then becomes one of what the consumer needs (or what the consumer thinks he needs or wants). The consumer is not, as Deming points out, always the one who pays the final bill: one or more middlemen may exist between the producer and the person actually paying for the product or service.3 The consumer is simply the end user of whatever product or service is being supplied. Deming cites one important example of where this distinction is frequently lost in an anecdote regarding the review of elementary school readers produced by a publishing house. When one of the reviewers protested that the stories were horribly bland and
Bibliography: Crosby, Phillip B. Quality is Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain. New York: McGraw- Hill Book Company, 1979 Crosby, Phillip B. Quality is Still Free: Making Quality Certain in Uncertain Times. New York: Mc-Graw-Hill Book Company, 1996 Deming, W. Edwards. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Advanced Engineering Study, 1986 Hayes, Glenn E. Quality Assurance: Management and Technology, 3rd ed. Capistrano Beach, CA: Charger/Gallant Publications, 1987 Juran, Joseph M. Juran on Planning for Quality. New York: The Free Press, 1988. Juran and Services. New York: The Free Press, 1992.