Historical Background of Total Quality Management

In the Middle Ages, quality was controlled by long periods of training required by the guilds.

The concept of specialization of wprk was introduced during the Industrial Revolution. As a result, a worker no longer made the whole product; instead he made a part only

1924
W.A. Shewart of Bell Telephone Laboratories developed a statistical chart for the control of product variables. Later in the same decade H. F. Dogde and H.G. Roming developed the area of acceptance sampling as a substitute for 100% inspection.

1942
Recognition of the value of SCC (Statistical Control Chart)

1946
American Society for quality (ASQ) formed

1950
E. Deming and Joseph M. Juran made their valuable lectures and sharing on SCC to Japanese engineers and managements response to achieve quality. Joseph Juran made his first trip to Japan in 1954 and further emphasized managements responsibility to achieve quality. He began his cost of quality approach, emphasizing accurate and complete identification and measurement of costs of quality.

1960
The concept of Zero defects gained favor. Philip Crosby, who was the champion of Zero defects concept focused on employees motivation and awareness. The first quality control circles were formed in Japan for the purpose of quality improvement. Simple statistical techniques were learned and applied by Japanese workers.

1970 early 1980

U.S. managers were frequent troops to Japan to learn the Japanese miracles. A quality success began to occur in U.S. products and services.

Middle 1980s
The concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) were being publicized.

Late 1980s
The automotive industries began to emphasize statistical process control (SPC) The Malcom Baldrige National Quality Award was organized and became the means to measure TQM. Genechi Taguchi introduced his concepts of Parameter and Tolerance Design and brought about the resurgence of design of experiments (DOE) as a valuable quality improvement tool.

1990
Emphasis on quality control in the auto industries

1990
Saturn Automobile ranked first in customer satisfaction. In addition, ISO 9000 became the model for a quality management system worldwide, ISO 14000 was approved as the worldwide model for Environment Management System. Quality assurance begins as a priority for engineers and managers.

1996 - 2000
Transmission to open economy, domestic and international competitions starts. TQM is the ultimatum for continuous improvement and sustainable growth.

2001 - 2007
High growth of economy the new millennium brought about increased emphasis on worldwide quality and the Internet.

Overview of Subtopics