Three Experts on Quality Management

Juran

Juran proposes a strategic and structured (i.e.,project- by-project) approach to achieving quality. Concepts he developed to support his philosophy include (1) the "Spiral of Progress in Quality," (2) the "Breakthrough Sequence," (3) the "Project-by-Project Approach," (4) the "Juran Trilogy," and (5) the principle of the "Vital Few and Trivial Many".

The "Spiral of Progress in Quality"

Juran stresses that "any organization produces and distributes its products through a series of specialized activities carried out by specialized departments". These activities (actions) are depicted by the "spiral of progress in quality". The spiral shows actions necessary before a product or service can be introduced to the market (Figure 8).

"Each specialized department in the spiral [e.g., customer service, marketing, purchasing] is given the responsibility to carry out its assigned special function. In addition, each specialized department is also assigned a share of the responsibility of carrying out certain company-wide functions such as human relations, finance, and quality". Quality results from the interrelationship of all departments within the spiral. Juran talks about "quality function" to describe activities through which the departments around the spiral can attain quality.

Quality improvement projects are carried out throughout the organization. The approach includes:

1. Identifying the activities that could meet die company's goals of fitness for use.
   
2. Assigning the activities to the various departments and organizations around the spiral.
   
3. Providing die facilities and tools needed to conduct these activities.
   
4. Conducting the assigned activities within the designated departments.
   
5. Ensuring that these activities are properly carried out
   
6. Coordinating the departmental activities.
   

"Breakthrough Sequence"

Juran's philosophy addresses improvement and innovation in terms of "breakthrough". He defines break-through as a "dynamic, decisive movement to new, higher levels of performance". His breakthrough sequence involves activities that, if carried out properly, will result in improvements in quality and will eventually result in unprecedented performance that will help the organization launch innovative products. Breakthroughs can lead to: (1) attainment of quality leadership, (2) solution to an excessive number of field problems, and (3) improvement of the organization's public image.

There are barriers that affect opportunities for break-through. As with any other change, breakthrough can be resisted by managers who traditionally concentrate on control. Through control, managers maintain the present levels of performance or prevent adverse change. Control activities, such as problem solving, have a short-term focus; they are necessary to hold on to gains, but will not lead to improvement and innovation. Breakthrough activities arc needed to achieve higher levels of performance and innovation and to exceed customer satisfaction.

According to Juran, breakthrough and control are part of a continuing cycle of gains and plateaus in performance. and he considers that all managerial activity is directed at either breakthrough or control. According to Juran, all breakthroughs follow the same sequence:

1. Policy making.
   
2. Setting objectives for breakthrough.
   
3. Breakthrough in attitudes.
4. Use of Pareto principle.
   
5. Organizing for breakthrough in knowledge.
6. Creation of steering arm.
   
7. Creation of diagnostic arm.
   
8. Diagnosis.
   
9. Breakthrough in cultural pattern.  
10. Transition to the new level.

Figure 8. The "spiral of progress in quality" (Juran & Gryna, 1988).

"Project-by-Project Approach"

The quality improvement methodology, as depicted by Juran, requires project-by-project implementation. Two kinds of teams are formed, the steering arm and the diagnostic arm, to work on analyzing problems (Figure 9). A committee of managers is formed to solicit project nominations from all employees, to select that year's projects, and to appoint teams to address each one. Typically, large numbers of project teams must be formed, depending on bow many projects have been selected. His approach requires that members of the team develop skills in team leadership and team participation and acquire knowledge of problem-solving tools. Also, all employees need to participate in the improvement process and have the skills needed to make improvements.

The main thrust of these teams is to solve problems, but Juran distinguishes between "putting patches" on problems and finding and removing the causes of problems. He calls the process of analyzing problems the "journey from symptom to cause". Examination of the symptom must be the starting point of the action team. The symptom is the evidence that something is wrong. Once the symptom has been identified, the objective of the team is to come up with a solution. However, the members will first need to discover the cause.

Juran developed two "journeys" to describe how the teams interact with each other in this process - the journey from symptom to cause, which he named the diagnostic journey, and the journey from cause to remedy, called the remedial journey. Both journeys are different in purpose and require teams of people from different levels and departments (e.g., first-line supervisors, customer service) within the organization with different skills.

The teams' outcomes are documented and presented to the rest of the organization in an annual audit The process of soliciting nominations for next year's projects is then repeated.

Figure 9. The diagnostic and remedial journeys (Juran, 1988).

The "Juran Trilogy"

The "Juran trilogy" provides a systematic approach to carrying out Juran's methodology for managing for quality. Essential to implementation, however, is active leadership, starting at the top.

This trilogy (Figure 10) states that management for quality consists of three interrelated quality-oriented processes - quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement. Quality planning involves developing a process that will achieve the established goals. People working in the planning phase are responsible for determining who their customers are and identifying customer needs and execrations. Quality control is concerned with holding onto gains and not letting waste increase. The control process addresses the sporadic spikes in variation; if necessary, the people working in this process create teams to determine the causes of any abnormal variation in die process. Those involved in the quality improvement process are concerned with lowering the cost of poor quality in existing processes, but, more importantly, are responsible for using the lessons learned for seeking innovative ways to achieve better levels of performance. In this respect, Juran's approach addresses continuous improvement.

Each process in the trilogy (planning, control, and improvement) is "universal" (inherent in organizations focusing on quality). Relevant activities include identifying customers, establishing measurements, and diagnosing causes. Juran compares the activities of the trilogy with those of financial operations. Money is the language of management and, in his terms, quality planning is analogous to budgeting, quality control to cost control, and quality improvement to cost reduction.

Figure 10. The "Juran trilogy" (Juran, 1981).

The "Vital Few and the Trivial Many"

Because Juran emphasizes prioritization of problems to be solved, the Pareto diagram is an especially useful tool to him. The diagram is based upon the principle developed in 1897 by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto conducted studies of wealth distribution. He found that the vast majority of wealth in his society was held by a remarkably small percentage of the population. In general, the Pareto principle states that a few factors account for the largest percentage of a total.

Juran applied this concept to the industrial world to classify problems of quality (Figure 11). According to Juran, most of the cost of poor quality can be attributed to a very small number of causes called "the vital few". The other defects, called the "trivial many" and, lately, the "useful many," can be ignored for a time.

The Pareto diagram depicts columns arranged in descending order. The diagram in Figure 11 illustrates causes from many sources of variation. According to this graph, one should concentrate on cause "A" first because it is responsible for most of the defects and will result in the biggest payoff (Ishikawa, 1982). It should be noted, however, that frequency should not be the only characteristic to consider when beginning a Pareto analysis. Sometimes frequently occurring defects are not the most serious, and common sense needs to prevail in those situations when selecting initial causes for improvement.

Summary

The "project-by-project" approach is at the heart of Juran's philosophy. Using the concepts of the "spiral of progress" and die "breakthrough sequence," managers are able to target and improve specific areas.

Quality is defined by fitness for use and customer requirements. As with Crosby, the monetary cost of quality is the focus of measurement He puts emphasis on company-wide goals and the deployment of specific goals. Juran targets training toward quality management practices and problem-solving techniques. His approach focuses on quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement processes as a way to manage for quality

Figure 11. The Pareto diagram.