The Life and Contributions of Joseph M. Juran
Both
the life and influence of Joseph M. Juran are characterized by a remarkable
span and an extraordinary intensity. Born in 1904, Juran has been active
for the bulk of the century, and influential for nearly half that period.
Juran's major contribution to our world has been in the field of management,
particularly quality management. Astute observer, attentive listener,
brilliant synthesizer and prescient prognosticator, Juran has been called
the "father" of quality, a quality "guru" and the
man who"taught quality to the Japanese." Perhaps most important,
he is recognized as the person who added the human dimension to quality-broadening
it from its statistical origins to what we now call Total Quality Management.
Accurately defining Juran's role in the quality "movement"
is as challenging as defining quality itself. Both seem quite basic
and yet, on closer inspection, are revealed to be enormously complex.
Certainly, Juran's body of work abounds with features that have anticipated
and met the needs of his worldwide "customers." A list of
only the brightest career highlights swiftly proves that assertion.
In 1937, Juran conceptualized the Pareto principle, which millions of
managers rely on to help separate the "vital few" from the
"useful many" in their activities. He wrote the standard reference
work on quality control, the Quality Control Handbook, first published
in 1951 and now in its fourth edition. In 1954, he delivered a series
of lectures to Japanese managers, which helped set them on the path
to quality. The classic book, Managerial Breakthrough, first published
in 1964, presented a more general theory of quality management, comprising
quality control and quality improvement. It was the first book to describe
a step-by-step sequence for breakthrough improvement, a process that
has become the basis for quality initiatives worldwide. In 1979, Juran
founded the Juran Institute to create new tools and techniques for promulgating
his ideas. The first was Juran on Quality Improvement, a pioneering
series of video training programs.
The Quality Trilogy, published in 1986, identified a third aspect
to quality management-quality planning. In addition to these accomplishments,
there is Juran's seminal role as a teacher and lecturer, both at New
York University and with the American Management Association. He also
worked as a consultant to businesses and organizations in forty countries,
and has made many other contributions to the literature -in more than
twenty books and hundreds of published papers (translated into a total
of seventeen languages) as well as dozens of video training programs.
But even the most comprehensive accounting of Juran's achievements
(and the many honors and awards they have brought him) cannot express
the richness and intensity of Juran's influence. Managers who have learned
from Juran-and there is thousands and thousands of them worldwide-speak
of his ideas with a respect that transcends appreciation and approaches
reverence. Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer and NeXT, refers with
awe to Juran's "deep, deep contribution." Jungi Noguchi, Executive
Director of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers, states categorically
that, "Dr. Juran is the greatest authority on quality control in
the entire world." Peter Drucker, the writer and theorist, asserts
that, "Whatever advances American manufacturing has made in the
last thirty to forty years, we owe to Joe Juran and to his untiring,
steady, patient, self-effacing work."
Grim Beginnings
