Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa
Rise to fame
Professor Ishikawa was born in 1915 and graduated in 1939 from the Engineering
Department of Tokyo University having majored in applied chemistry.
In 1947 he was made an Assistant Professor at the University. He obtained
his Doctorate of Engineering and was promoted to Professor in 1960.
He has been awarded the Deming Prize and the Nihon Keizai Press Prize,
the Industrial Standardization Prize for his writings on Quality Control,
and the Grant Award in 1971 from the American Society for Quality Control
for his education programme on Quality Control. He died in April 1989.
Whilst, perhaps ironically, the early origins of the now famous Quality
Circles can be traced to the United States in the 1950s, Professor Ishikawa
is best known as a pioneer of the Quality Circle movement in Japan in
the early 1960s, which has now been re-exported to the West. In a speech
to mark the 1000th quality circle convention in Japan in 1981, he described
how his work took him in this direction.
'I first considered how best to get grassroots workers to understand
and practise Quality Control. The idea was to educate all people working
at factories throughout the country but this was asking too much.
Therefore I thought of educating factory foremen or on-the-spot leaders
in the first place.'
In 1968, in his role as Chairman of the Editorial Committee of Genba-To-QC
(Quality Control for the Foreman) magazine, Dr Ishikawa built upon quality
control articles and exercises written by the editorial committee for
the magazine, to produce a 'non-sophisticated' quality analysis textbook
for quality circle members. The book Guide to Quality Control was subsequently
translated into English in 1971, the most recent (2nd) edition being
published by the Asian Productivity Organization in 1986. Amongst other
books, he subsequently published What is Total Quality Control? The
Japanese Way, which was again translated into English (Prentice Hall,
1985).
Ishikawa's message-techniques
As with the other Japanese quality gurus, such as Genichi Taguchi,
Kaoru Ishikawa has paid particular attention to making technical statistical
techniques used in quality attainment accessible to those in industry.
At the simplest technical level, his work has emphasized good data collection
and presentation, the use of Pareto
Diagrams to prioritize quality improvements and Cause-and-Effect
(or Ishikawa or Fishbone) Diagrams.
Ishikawa sees the cause-and-effect diagram, like other tools, as a
device to assist groups or quality circles in quality improvement. As
such, he emphasizes open group communication as critical to the construction
of the diagrams. Ishikawa diagrams are useful as systematic tools for
finding, sorting out and documenting the causes of variation of quality
in production and organizing mutual relationships between them.
Other techniques Ishikawa has emphasized include Control
Charts, Scatter Diagrams, Binomial
probability paper and sampling inspection.
Company-wide quality
Turning to organizational, rather than technical contributions to
quality, Ishikawa is associated with the Company-wide Quality Control
movement that started in Japan in the years 1955-1960 following the
visits of Deming and Juran.
Under this, quality control in Japan is characterized by company-wide
participation from top management to the lower-ranking employees. Further,
all study statistical methods, as well as participation by the engineering,
design, research and manufacturing departments, also sales, materials
and clerical or management departments (such as planning, accounting,
business and personnel) are involved.
Quality control concepts and methods are used for problem solving in
the production process, for incoming material control and new product
design control, and also for analysis to help top management decide
policy, to verify policy is being carried out and for solving problems
in sales, personnel, labor management and in clerical departments. Quality
Control Audits, internal as well as external, form part of this activity.
To quote Ishikawa:
'The results of these company-wide Quality Control activities
are remarkable, not only in ensuring the quality of industrial products
but also in their great contribution to the company's overall business.
'
Thus, Ishikawa sees the Company-wide Quality Control movement as implying
that quality does not only mean the quality of product, but also of
after sales service, quality of management, the company itself and the
human being. This has the effect that:
- Product quality is improved and becomes uniform. Defects are reduced.
- Reliability of goods is improved.
- Cost is reduced.
- Quantity of production is increased, and it becomes possible to
make rational production schedules.
- Wasteful work and rework are reduced.
- Technique is established and improved.
- Expenses for inspection and testing are reduced.
- Contracts between vendor and vendee are rationalized.
- The sales market is enlarged.
- Better relationships are established between departments.
- False data and reports are reduced.
- Discussions are carried out more freely and democratically.
- Meetings are operated more smoothly.
- Repairs and installation of equipment and facilities are done more
rationally.
- Human relations are improved.
One Step Further
(http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/ishikawa.asp)
Kaoru Ishikawa wanted to change the way people think about work. He
urged managers to resist becoming content with merely improving a product's
quality, insisting that quality improvement can always go one step further.
His notion of company-wide quality control called for continued customer
service. This meant that a customer would continue receiving service
even after receiving the product. This service would extend across the
company itself in all levels of management, and even beyond the company
to the everyday lives of those involved. According to Ishikawa, quality
improvement is a continuous process, and it can always be taken one
step further.
With his cause and effect diagram (also
called the "Ishikawa" or "fishbone" diagram)
this management leader made significant and specific advancements in
quality improvement. With the use of this new diagram, the user can
see all possible causes of a result, and hopefully find the root of
process imperfections. By pinpointing root problems, this diagram provides
quality improvement from the "bottom up." Dr. W. Edwards Deming
--one of Isikawa's colleagues -- adopted this diagram and used it to
teach Total Quality Control in Japan as early as World War II. Both
Ishikawa and Deming use this diagram as one the first tools in the quality
management process.
Ishikawa also showed the importance of the seven quality tools: control
chart, run
chart, histogram, scatter
diagram, Pareto
chart, run chart and flowchart.
Additionally, Ishikawa explored the concept of quality circles-- a Japanese
philosophy which he drew from obscurity into worldwide acceptance. Ishikawa
believed in the importance of support and leadership from top level
management. He continually urged top level executives to take quality
control courses, knowing that without the support of the management,
these programs would ultimately fail. He stressed that it would take
firm commitment from the entire hierarchy of employees to reach the
company's potential for success.
Another area of quality improvement that Ishikawa emphasized is quality
throughout a product's life cycle -- not just during production. Although
he believed strongly in creating standards, he felt that standards were
like continuous quality improvement programs -- they too should be constantly
evaluated and changed. Standards are not the ultimate source of decision
making; customer satisfaction is. He wanted managers to consistently
meet consumer needs; from these needs, all other decisions should stem.
Besides his own developments, Ishikawa drew and expounded on principles
from other quality gurus, including those of one man in particular:
W. Edwards Deming, creator of
the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model. Ishikawa
expanded Deming's four steps into the following six:
- Determine goals and targets
- Determine methods of reaching goals
- Engage in education and training
- Implement work
- Check the effects of implementation
- Take appropriate action
|
 |
Source: http://dtiinfo1.dti.gov.uk/mbp/bpgt/m9ja00001/m9ja0000110.html#ishikawa
