CQI BOQK

A Brief History of Quality Control (up to the 1970s)

Introduction ................................................................................................. 2
First thoughts ............................................................................................... 2
Measurement ............................................................................................... 3
Legal ........................................................................................................... 3
Ancient China – division of labour................................................................... 3
Mediaeval..................................................................................................... 5
Venetian Arsenal ....................................................................................... 6
Interchangeable parts................................................................................ 6
The Royal Mint – Isaac Newton .................................................................. 6
Industrial Revolution ..................................................................................... 7
F W Taylor – Scientific Management............................................................ 7
Standardization............................................................................................. 8
Statistical Methods ........................................................................................ 9
Experimental design – Ronald Fisher ........................................................... 9
Karl Pearson.............................................................................................. 9
Walter Shewhart – Statistical quality control .............................................. 10
Japan ........................................................................................................ 11
W Edwards Deming – 1950 lectures in Japan ............................................. 11
Joseph M Juran – Managing for quality...................................................... 11
Japanese home grown developments ........................................................ 12
References ................................................................................................. 14

Page 1 of 14
CQI BOQK

Introduction

It is difficult to try to pin down the origins of quality control or quality assurance
– mainly because you first have to identify the start of what we might call
“Quality” before deciding when it progressed to organized systems for ensuring
this quality was maintained – the control element. Similarly with quality
assurance the next steps of designing quality into manufacturing processes and
support processes to deliver products “right first time” had individual
breakthroughs through the course of history.

In practice quality control has been around ever since man has been making
things, there is even a school of thought that evolution itself is a form of quality
control. One favoured term is “survival of the fittest.”

Charles Darwin summarized what might be a mantra for the CQI’s quality
professionals:

“As natural selection works solely by and for the good of each being, all
corporeal and mental endowments will tend to progress towards perfection.”
Charles Darwin 1809-1882

Another difficulty in charting the course of quality control over the years is to
separate developments in quality control from changes in production efficiency
driven by market need for more or cheaper product.

Quality control has evolved as the need for increased quantities of goods,
reductions in cost to satisfy a new market or the market expectation for quality
has increased.

For the purpose of this element we will not attempt to identify the point of the
big bang for the respective births of quality control and quality assurance.
Instead confine ourselves to presenting some edited highlights of organized
control and management of quality in action through history. These will be
presented in approximately chronological order.

First thoughts

One example of evidence of quality control is the result of excavation of a mine

for producing flints in Denmark (believed to date from around 3500 BC) – to be
used in the production of Viking boats. The excavation work uncovered evidence
of discarded part finished tools rejected at the mine and before they were sold to
the travelling merchants. The reason for rejection was to prevent unsuitable
flints being transported to Sweden, only to be rejected at point of use. An early

Page 2 of 14
CQI BOQK

example, perhaps, of a move to reduce the cost of non-quality by finding rejects

in house.

Measurement
In around 3000 BC the Egyptians came up with a measure of length – the Royal
Egyptian cubit, it was deemed to be “equal to the length of the forearm from the
bent elbow to the tip of the extended middle finger plus the width of the palm of
the hand of the Pharaoh or King ruling at that time.”

The “master” of this measure was carved onto granite and workers were given
“transfer standards” in the form of wooden or granite copies. The calibration
frequency was defined by the full moon and failure to bring their cubits back was
punishable by death.

These length measures together with other measuring equipment (including set
squares and plumb bobs) were used to set up precise right angles to establish
the orientation of the great pyramid at Giza built for King Cheops (whose reign
was between 2551 – 2528 BC).

Legal
One of the earliest examples of legal invoking of control of quality was the code
of Hammurabi (c2000 BC) in Ancient Mesopotamia. One of the many laws in the
code calls for the death penalty for the builder of a house that later collapsed
and killed the owner.

Ancient China – division of labour

Control over quality for handicraft industries was evolved during the Shang
Dynasty – from the 16th to the 11th Century BC. The handicrafts involved
included metallurgy, bamboo, woodworking and textile industries. The process of
control was exercised by division of labour (predating the work of Frederick W
Taylor in the 19th Century AD), material selection, excellent techniques and strict
control by management. So the quality was ensured by dividing manufacturing
operations into the main departments for:
• Collection, processing, storage, distribution of raw materials and work in
progress
• Manufacture of product
• Storage and distribution of product
• Establishing standards for quality (among other things)
• Inspection and testing

These arrangements were mirrored around the time of the industrial revolution
as factories divided their labour forces into similar departments in order to
produce quantities required.

Page 3 of 14
CQI BOQK

One example of an item produced using this system is a square bronze cooking
vessel of Simu Wu over a metre high and weighing around 875 Kg. produced
around the 12th Century BC. Its production apparently required between 200 and
300 workers and complicated processes including casting, reworking / repairs,
and measurement – including use of equipment such as compasses and squares.

At the same time and leading into the Zhou dynasty (11th – 8th Century BC) a
system of standardization of measuring equipment was set up including a twice
yearly calibration by the state through an official organization – parallels then
with trading standards / accredited calibration laboratories of current time.

Control of quality in the Zhou dynasty was further developed. The state
produced and enforced rules for quality – these rules were documented in the
“Records of etiquette” – typical specifications included “utensils under standard
are not to be sold on the market” – requirements for product before they can be
sold. This process has parallels with work carried out by the EU under the Treaty
of Rome and Directives specifying (largely) safety requirements.

In around the 4th Century BC in India the Arthashastra of Kautilya was produced
for supervising the working of gold and control of its quality. These became the
regulations by which (among other things) roles and responsibilities were
defined. One example is specifying the work of the “Superintendent of gold in
the workshop” and aspects of gold production including requirements
specifications for gold workshops, test procedures and quality standards.

In China regulations and controls over production methods were further

developed until the time of the Qin dynasty (221 BC) when the law:
• standardized shape and dimensions for groups of products
• specified guarantees for products such as city walls
• outlined punishment for officials and craftsmen when product is found
not to comply
Control of measuring equipment was developed in parallel to include acceptable
tolerances for the (now) annual calibration and corrective action in the event of a
tolerance being exceeded – again normally by punishing an official – perhaps
4.11 (g) of BS 5750.1979 and the new calibration follow up requirements in ISO
9001 are not quite as onerous as some believe! During the Qin dynasty the state
went further by producing large batches of standard measuring tools (transfer
standards) distributed to all corners of the empire.

Later in the Tang dynasty (618 – 907 AD) laws required traceability of
manufacture to the original craftsman by inscribing bows, arrows and other
items with the worker’s full name, a forerunner of hallmarking systems in the
Middle Ages.

Page 4 of 14
CQI BOQK

Developments in calibration requirements at this time included an annual

calibration in August and a seal to identify calibration status – again with
penalties if procedures were not followed.

In Ancient Greece quality control of building work included use of a straight flat
surface to control the quality of joints. The kanon stone was used with vermillion
– a bright red pigment – to identify poor fit between blocks. The worker was
then required to improve the mating surface. Specifications were drawn up for
contractors to clearly specify requirements.

The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties. This exercise must
occupy a complete lifetime. One swallow does not make a spring, nor does one
fine day. Excellence is a habit, not an event.
—Aristotle

Mediaeval
Although organizations of craftsmen are reported to have been in existence in
India during the Veda-period from 2000 - 500 BC the next major development in
Europe (mirroring much of what had already taken place in China above) was
development of mediaeval guilds for control of product quality.

At this time the majority of wealth and power was in the hands of a few kings
and noblemen. They could afford the best and employed master craftsmen to
produce their wares. Weapons, including armour and swords, were made by
these men and guilds were formed to provide training for apprentices. The
training was long and demanding under the watchful eye of the master and the
apprentice had to show evidence of their ability to create high quality products
before they could join the guild and become the next generation of craftsmen.

By around 1100 AD these guilds (or livery companies) began to look very similar
in structure to the organizations / institutes we see today. The guilds were built
on “instructional capital” – or the process for transferring knowledge from master
to apprentice.

At around the same time product marking as evidence of quality was further
developed. In 1300 AD Edward I of England instituted legislation for assaying
(testing) by officers of the Goldsmiths' Guild in London and subsequent
hallmarking of precious metals to allow it to be offered for sale. The hallmark
design adopted was a Leopard's Head.
http://www.theassayoffice.co.uk/hallmarking_history.html

Page 5 of 14
CQI BOQK

The principle behind product marking remains the same today; protection of the
consumer for the quality of goods purchased and of the trader from unfair (or
inferior) competition.

Venetian Arsenal

Shipbuilding had existed in Venice for many years. In 1320 a new (much larger)
shipyard – the Arsenal – was built to allow the state's navy and merchant ships
to be constructed and maintained.

In the Arsenal they developed methods of mass-producing warships, including

the frame-first system (to replace the Roman hull-first practice). The Arsenal’s
workforce grew from around 3,000 to 16,000 people at its peak and they were
able to produce nearly one ship each day.

The key to this productivity was standardized parts and work methods that
enabled a consistent product – remarkable similarities with lean manufacturing
developed in Japan up to the 1970s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Arsenal

Interchangeable parts
This idea of interchangeable parts, key to the Arsenal’s productivity, developed
over the years and moved from an industry where one a day was an
achievement to industries producing much higher volumes – examples here are
printing and armaments industries.

Gutenberg's invention of movable type relied on interchangeability. He lived

around the turn of the 15th Century and invented a process for making printing
type in quantity and with precision to enable a practical system for printing
books.

For manufacture of arms Americans like to credit Eli Whitney with perfecting
interchangeable parts for muskets in 1803. In practice this was first used by
Frenchman Honoré Blanc in around 1778. In a demonstration Blanc had made
parts for a thousand muskets and placed them in separate bins. He called
together a group of academics, politicians, and military men and proceeded to
assemble muskets from parts drawn at random from the bins.

The Royal Mint – Isaac Newton

Another individual credited for optical and physics research but not renowned for
quality control was Sir Isaac Newton. He became Master of the Mint in 1699.
Around this time there were huge problems with counterfeiting. One practice
was for so called “clippers” to trim the edges of coins and melt down the

Page 6 of 14
CQI BOQK

precious metal clippings for sale while still passing on the coins as whole. To
counter this under Newton’s direction the Mint introduced milling on coin edges
and engraving of "Ducus et tutamen" (Latin for "An ornament and a safeguard”)
in the milled edges. This would enable recipients to readily see if someone had
clipped the edges.

One of the hardest tasks at the Mint was control of coin quality. Each coin had to
have the same weight and material composition. Newton developed special
ladles for taking molten metal samples to his office for testing.

Industrial Revolution
The modern era of quality control developed in three stages of Industrial
Revolution starting in Britain. The first wave occurred in the 18th century with
the advent of steam power to drive machines in large factories; the second stage
in around 1850 with steam powered ships and railways opening up new markets
for goods produced by these large factories and thirdly the introduction of
machine tools for producing components for assembly – in the early 1900s.

There is a lot of disagreement about when each phase started, even whether
there were three phases at all. Some say it was less of a three phase revolution
– more of an evolution over time.

What is evident is that moves to a factory system (and away from traditional
craftsman production of goods) led to more division of labour and specialist
trades where the roles of worker, foreman and inspector came to the fore.

F W Taylor – Scientific Management

In the late 19th century Frederick Winslow Taylor further developed the concept
of division of labour (first discussed in this article in the section on Ancient China
above) and assigned specific tasks to engineers for analysing and designing work
and involving people in its delivery. This has been largely denigrated as “Time
and Motion” and the term “Taylorism” is used by many current writers as the
means by which a ruthless employer might exploit an unwilling workforce, a far
cry from his aim to find “One best way” to do a job.

Gary Hamel – famous as co-author of “Competing for the future” a seminal work
on re-engineering – credits Taylor with developing a re-engineering process at
the time of his main works. Quoted in 1995 (at the end of the 20th Century) in
the Toronto Globe and Mail he said:

"If you read Frederick Winslow Taylor from the beginning of the century, there
are three fundamental things he taught:
1. Find the best practice wherever it exists. Today we call it benchmarking.

Page 7 of 14
CQI BOQK

2. Decompose the task into its constituent elements. We call it business process
re-design.
3. Get rid of things that don't add value. Work out, we call it now.”

Of one thing there is no doubt, pressure for efficiency and production led to less
of an emphasis on individual quality – leading indirectly to formation of
inspection departments with responsibility for filtering out bad products.

http://www.eldritchpress.org/fwt/taylor.html

Standardization
With all these developments in products, production methods and arrangements
for control of quality through the industrial revolution it became apparent that
proliferation of sizes and shapes of components and materials would cause
problems with production and maintenance of machines and infrastructure. The
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) was one of the first
standardising bodies, established in 1880 in an attempt to address a toll of
50,000 fatalities a year caused by pressures systems explosions. ASME is still a
leading organisation for pressure systems with ASME codes for pressure vessels.

In 1901 Sir John Wolfe-Barry asked the Institution of Civil Engineers to form
a committee to consider standardizing iron and steel sections. This became
the Engineering Standards Committee (ESC). Their work quickly reduced the
variety of sizes of structural steel sections from 175 to 113. For tramways the
reduction was much more spectacular – from 75 varieties to 5.

The British Standard Mark (later to become the Kitemark) was introduced as an
indication (or hallmark) that goods were 'up to standard.'

Internationally in 1906 the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) was

formed following a meeting in 1904 of leading scientists and industrialists. IEC is
responsible for development of world standards in electrical and electronics
areas.
The development of standards continued through World War 1 and use of
standards spread to Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

Interest was also developing in the USA and Germany, in 1916 the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers joined with the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers , American Institute of Mining and
Metallurgical Engineers and the American Society for Testing Materials to
establish a national body to coordinate standards development.

In 1917 the German body Deutsches Institut fur Normung e.V. (DIN was formed)
with a very similar mission.

Page 8 of 14
CQI BOQK

In 1918 the ESC in the UK became the British Engineering Standards Association
and was granted a Royal Charter in 1929. In 1931 under a supplemental charter
it changed its name to The British Standards Institution.

In 1946 the first Commonwealth Standards Conference was held in London

which led to the establishment of the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO).

http://www.bsi-global.com/en/About-BSI/About-BSI-Group/BSI-History/

Statistical Methods
Experimental design had been around for a long time. One example was of a
ship’s surgeon, James Lind in 1747 he was attempting to discover a cure for the
onboard illness, scurvy. He divided a group of 12 sailors ill with the disease into
smaller groups and carried out controlled experiments with their treatment
before coming up with the conclusion that the answer was treatment with citrus
fruit – and so “Limeys” were born.

Experimental design – Ronald Fisher

Ronald Fisher was a Cambridge University educated mathematician. In 1919 he
accepted a post as a statistician at the Rothamsted Agricultural Experiment
Station where they study the effects of nutrition and soil types on plant fertility.
At the station he developed design of experiments (DoE) whereby he arranged
an experiment as a set of sub-experiments with a planned arrangement of
variables to enable statistical analysis of the sub experiments and an overall
assessment.

This was a significant advance on varying only one factor in an experiment at a

time, a relatively inefficient process. This work was to become the foundation of
all modern DoE.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Fisher.html

Karl Pearson
At around the same time another Cambridge educated mathematician, Karl
Pearson was developing theories related to population distribution that underpin
many statistical methods in common use today. Some of his main contributions:

1. Linear regression and correlation.

2. Classification of distributions.

Much of this work was used by later statisticians, in particular for development of
sampling methods and process controls.

Page 9 of 14
CQI BOQK

http://www.economics.soton.ac.uk/staff/aldrich/kpreader.htm

A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated
with a bad one.
—Henry Ford

Walter Shewhart – Statistical quality control

When Dr. Shewhart joined the Western Electric Company Inspection Engineering
Department at Hawthorne in 1918, industrial quality control was limited to
inspecting finished products and removing defective items.

In 1924 he transformed quality control by introducing the control chart. Using

this chart a process could be monitored and, where required, action taken to
prevent quality problems through reduction of process variation.

The problem of variation was also developed into terms of “assignable cause”
and “natural variation,” control charts could be used as the tool for distinguishing
between the two. This differed significantly from traditional views of normal
distribution where all variation was considered “natural”.

He also developed and first published (in 1939) the PDCA cycle – sometimes
known as the Shewhart cycle but more commonly referred to as the Deming
cycle after the man who made it famous. The idea is that it is a continuous
process of:
• Plan
• Do
• Check
• Act
as a cycle of improvement activity until a process is continuously delivering
product as required.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_A._Shewhart

Sampling plans produced at the Bell laboratories by Harold F Dodge and Harry
Romig were developed into MIL – STD – 105 to have a significant impact in
development of processes for sampling during WW II (when need for an assured
supply of arms and equipment in far higher volumes than in peacetime led to the
need for different ways of sampling batches and ultimately of the supplier
“assuring” quality of production).

Page 10 of 14
CQI BOQK

They considered sampling on a risk based approach and suggested sampling of

batches and taking decisions on the whole batch based on results of the sample.
The concept of acceptable quality level was introduced as a result of this
approach. These tables were included in contracts so suppliers could understand
exactly what was expected of them. The military also helped suppliers by
supporting their training in statistical quality control courses as developed and
delivered by Walter Shewhart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_F._Dodge

Another tool for assurance and control of quality was Failure Mode and Effect
Analysis (FMEA) – developed in the late 1940s by the US military to anticipate
and design out potential failures (hence it is often known as PFMEA – for
Potential FMEA). It was adopted in the 1960s in aerospace and space industries
and later used in automotive and other industries.

Japan
W Edwards Deming – 1950 lectures in Japan
William Edwards Deming was a mathematician and statistician who worked for
the US Department of Agriculture and the US Census Bureau. He learnt from
Walter Shewhart and, as part of the war effort lectured on statistical process
control.

With his related experience Deming was asked to go to Japan to support their
census. His experience of statistical quality methods led to invitations to lecture
to members of the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). In 1950
he trained hundreds of engineers in these methods.

Japanese manufacturers took his lectures to heart and, with his encouragement
to improve quality to help them reduce costs, improve productivity and market
share; they developed their systems around his principles.

He returned home and practised as a consultant – largely ignored in his native

country while feted in Japan. Deming’s works were further developed until they
were rediscovered back in the US in the 1980s – outside the scope of this
element.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

Joseph M Juran – Managing for quality

Shewhart and Dodge were part of a team from Bell Laboratories that visited
Western Bell’s Hawthorne factory in 1926 (famous for the Hawthorne Effect –

Page 11 of 14
CQI BOQK

when experimental studies on factory lighting and its effect on productivity

indicated that the mere act of taking an interest in employees at work would
affect their behaviour). The aim was to apply some of the laboratory’s tools and
techniques. They put in place a training programme at the factory and one of the
trainees was Joseph Juran. He went on to join the company’s Inspection
Statistical Department, one of the first in the country. The rest, as they say, is
history.
In December of 1941, seconded as part of the war effort, Juran led a team that
successfully redesigned a shipping process thereby resolving a paperwork logjam
responsible for keeping critical shipments stuck in the dock.

In 1945, Juran left the war effort and Western Electric to work as an
independent consultant. In 1951, he published the Quality Control Handbook
which was quickly to become the reference document of choice in US industry.

On the back of the handbook and the reputation he had earned, Juran was
invited out to Japan by JUSE to lecture about managing for quality. His lecturing
work earned great respect from a grateful nation and he was rewarded with the
highest honours by the emprorer.

Without a standard there is no logical basis for making a decision or taking

action.
—Joseph M. Juran

A good rule in organizational analysis is that no meeting of the minds is really

reached until we talk of specific actions or decisions. We can talk of who is
responsible for budgets, or inventory, or quality, but little is settled. It is only
when we get down to the action words—measure, compute, prepare, check,
endorse, recommend, approve—that we can make clear who is to do what.
—Joseph M. Juran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_M._Juran
Japanese home grown developments
Later the teachings of Juran and Deming were adopted and adapted to produce
Japanese quality control systems, developed into Total Quality Control (TQC).
The working of key individuals like Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo captured a
series of tools and techniques directed at reducing waste and improving
efficiency. These tools were collected into what came to be known as the Toyota
Production System (TPS) or sometimes Lean Manufacturing. Ohno, starting in a
machining shop, developed ways of producing parts as and when needed – a
forerunner of “Just in Time” he captured good ideas from other industries
including the US supermarket industry and these ideas were developed to the
market / pull approach that underpins TPS.

Page 12 of 14
CQI BOQK

TPS is focused on highlighting waste where it occurs and uses kaizen

(continuous improvement) and teamwork to find ways to eliminate it. Waste is
classified into several categories to ease identification:

• overproduction

• inventory

• waiting time

• needless conveyance

• over processing

• needless motion

• rework

Quality circles formed a significant part of the Japanese movement. Starting in

1962 companies involved their employees in small groups discussing and
resolving quality issues from their everyday work. Kaoru Ishikawa an exponent
has defined six key features for the TQC movement in Japan:

1. Company wide TQC with all employees participating

2. Emphasis on education and training

3. Quality Circle activities

4. TQC audits

5. Application of statistical methods

6. Nationwide TQC promotion

Quality control is applicable to any kind of enterprise. In fact, it must be applied

in every enterprise.
—Kaoru Ishikawa

All of management's efforts for Kaizen boil down to two words: customer
satisfaction.
—Masaaki Imai

The ideas of control and improvement are often confused with one another. This
is because the quality control and quality improvement are inseparable.
—Kaoru Ishikawa

Page 13 of 14
CQI BOQK

References
A history of managing for quality: the evolution, trends, and future direction of
managing for quality.
J. M. Juran, editor-in-chief (1995) ASQC Quality Press, Milwaukee

Out of the crisis.

William Edwards Deming(1986) Massechusetts Institute of Technology Center for
Advanced Engineering Study, Cambridge (Mass)

Kaizen, the key to Japan’s competitive success.

Imai, Masaaki (1986) McGraw-Hill

Wikipedia – the online encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Page 14 of 14