Page 194 - DMGT501_OPERATIONS_MANAGEMENT

Operations Management

Notes took him in this direction. “I first considered how best to get grassroots workers to understand
and practice 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).
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.
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:
1. Product quality is improved and becomes uniform. Defects are reduced.

2. Reliability of goods is improved.
3. Cost is reduced.
4. Quantity of production is increased, and it becomes possible to make rational production
schedules.
5. Wasteful work and rework are reduced.

6. Technique is established and improved.

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