Re: What is quality?

[Bob Clements <clementz@kos.net>]

Myron,

Drucker's books may not have indexed Quality but he certainly gave the
Deming his due. Much of Drucker's work published in scholary journals,
the Wall Street Journal, the NY Times, and so on, is now being reprinted
in collections. Another visit to a book store would yield a different
conclusion today.

Drucker references Deming and Juran on a first name basis, as if they
were intimates. From "Management as a Liberal Art," in Connections, The
magazine of the Claremont Graduate School (1985):

"Three foreigners--all Americans--are thought by the Japanese to be
mainly responsible for the economic recovery of their country after
World War II and for its emergence as a leading economic power. Edwards
Deming taught the Japanese statistical process control and introduced
the "quality circle." Joseph M. Juran taught them how to organize
production in the factory and how to train and manage people at work.
What is now the "latest" import from Japan and the "hottest management
discovery"--the just-in-timentory delivery system (the Japanese word for
it is Kanban)--was introduced to Japan by Juran, who had been
instrumental in developing it for Americas World War II production
effort.

"I am the third of these American teachers. My contribution, or so the
Japanese see it, was to educate them about management and marketing....

"These were the things which, almost thirty years ago, Ed Deming, Joe
Juran, and I tried to teach the Japanese. Even then, every American
management text preached them. The Japanese, however, have been
practicing them ever since. "


In another article, "The Emerging Theory of Manufacturing," HBR (1990),
Drucker has captured some of the elements of SoPK. I think it a safe bet
that Drucker has both read and understook TNE. Here is a description of
the article from the HBR catalogue:

"Four concepts--statistical quality control, the new manufacturing
accounting, the "flotilla" organization of the manufacturing process,
and systems design--are transforming manufacturing theory. This new
theory sees the factory as little more than a wide place in the stream
of producing value, rather than as a collection of machines isolated
from the rest of the business. Manufacturing and business decisions are
one and the same. Though these concepts represent different
constituencies with different agendas, together they are reconciling
classic conflicts of twentieth century mass production. "
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