Quality Improvement: Definition by Armand V. Feigenbaum!

Armand V. Feigenbaum is the founder and president of General Systems

Company that designs, implements and installs total quality control
systems.
He has written a very good book entitled Total Quality Control, in 1961.
He stressed in his book that quality of products and services is directly
influenced by Nine Ms viz.; Markets, Money, Management, Men,
Motivation, Materials, Machines and Mechanization, Modern
information methods and Mounting product requirements.
Armand V. Feigenbaum was the first to consider that quality should be
considered at all the different stages of the process and not just within
the manufacturing function. In his words, The underlying principle of
the total quality view and its basic difference from all other concepts is
that it provides genuine effectiveness.
Control must start with identification of customer quality requirements
and end only when the product has been placed in the hands of a
customer who remains satisfied. Total quality control guides the
coordinated action of people, machines and information to achieve this
goal. The first principle to recognise is that quality is every bodys job.
Feigenbaums philosophy is explained in his Three steps to quality.
These are explained as under:
(i) Quality Leadership:
Management should take the lead in enforcing quality efforts. It should
be based on sound planning.

(ii) Management Quality Technology:

The traditional quality programmes should be replaced by the latest
quality technology for satisfying the customers in future.
(iii) Organisational Commitment:
Motivation and continuous training of the total work force tells about
the organisational commitment towards the improvement of the quality
of the product and the services.

Kaoru Ishikawa:
Kaoru Ishikawa is considered to be as Japans leading contributor in the
area of TQM. He attached importance to total quality control. He
developed Ishikawa cause and effect diagram, known as fish bone
diagram for solving the problems relating to quality.
He also introduced quality control circles for the first time and used
them very successfully. He also emphasised that 90-95 percent of the
problems relating to quality can be solved by using the elementary
statistical techniques which do not need specialised knowledge.
He suggests seven basic tools of quality management, viz.,
(a) Process flow charts
(b) Tally charts,
c) Histograms,
(d) Paresto analysis,
(e) Cause and effect analysis,

(f) Scatter diagrams

(g) Control charts.