Total Quality Management Guru's

One of the foremost and well known philosophers of Total Quality Management is W. E. Deming. Deming attended Yale University and received his PhD in Physics in 1928 and was a well trained statistician. In 1950 he was invited to Japan by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE), where he preformed several lectures for executive, managers and researchers. This was a difficult time for Japan, the war had just ended and the county was struggling to keep its ' people employed. Through Deming 's training, flailing Japanese industry was able to compete on a global level and became one of the countries best known for quality products. Deming is credited with establishing the axiom, "work smarter, not harder." His teachings promoted continued quality control, and as testament to his teaching the JUSE established the Deming Prize to promote the continued development of quality control in Japan. In 1953 Deming began working with American Industry by using his Total Quality Management principles. The main points of his philosophy were simple yet not quite understood. He believe that management must recognize and define continuous improvements and work with subordinates to improve the system; to improve quality it must be measure; and one must tell others about the lessons learned and the benefits to mankind. (Schultz, n.d.) Demining was responsible for creating or at least popularizing several quality control principles; one of his first and still best know is the Deming Cycle also called the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) cycle. Using this principle the cycle can show how a product can related to a customers need. The steps can be repeated over and over to continuously improve the product. First, Plan a change to the process, predict the effect this change will have and plan how the effects will be measured Second, Do, implement the change on small things and measure its effects. Third, check, study the effects and learn what effects it had if any. Lastly,