Walter A.

Shewhart (1891-1967)
The Grandfather of Total Quality Management

Walter Andrew Shewhart was an American physicist engineer and statistician,

sometimes known as the father of statistical quality control. Most of Shewhart's
professional career was spent as an engineer at Western Electric from 1918 to 1924,
and at Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he served in several capacities as a member
of the technical staff from 1925 until his retirement in 1956. He also lectured on quality
control and applied statistics at the University of London, Stevens Institute of
Technology, the graduate school of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and in India.

Walter Andrew Shewhart was a giant among giants in the quality movement
during the first half of the 20th century. His mentoring of other engineers at Western
Electric and his groundbreaking work with control charts arguably led a quality
revolution and launched the quality profession.

Achievements
 1924: Inventing the Control Chart
 Early 1920’s: Statistical Process Control
 1950: Shewhart Cycle
 William Edwards Deming (1900-1993)

William Edwards Deming is widely acknowledged as the leading management

thinker in the field of quality. He was a statistician and business consultant whose
methods helped hasten Japan’s recovery after the Second World War and beyond. He
derived the first philosophy and method that allowed individuals and organisations to
plan and continually improve themselves, their relationships, processes, products and
services. His philosophy is one of cooperation and continual improvement; it avoids
blame and redefines mistakes as opportunities for improvement.

Achievements

1951: The Deming Prize was established.

1956:  Deming was awarded the Shewhart medal by the American Society for Quality
Control (ASQC - Now ASQ)

1960: Deming was honored by the Japanese Emperor with the Second Order of the
Sacred Treasure for his teachings.
 Joseph M. Duran (1904-2008)
The Father of Quality

Joseph Moses Juran was a management consultant specializing in managing for

quality. He has authored hundreds of papers and 12 books, including Juran's Quality
control handbook, Quality Planning and Analysis, and Juran on Leadership for Quality.
Dr. Joseph Moses Juran whose teaching and consulting career spanned more than
seventy years, was also one of the foremost experts on quality in the world.

Achievements

1941: Pareto Principle

1951: Quality Control Handbook

1951: Cost of Quality

1954: 10 Steps of Quality Improvement

1896: Juran’s Trilogy - Juran's trilogy consists of Quality Planning, Quality Control, and
Quality Improvement.
 Philip B. Crosby (1926-2001)

The Fun Uncle of the Quality Revolution

Philip Bayard "Phil" Crosby was a businessman and author who contributed to
management theory and quality management practices. Philip Crosby was an influential
author, consultant and philosopher who developed practical concepts to define and
communicate quality and quality improvement practices. His influence was extensive
and global. He wrote the best-seller Quality is free in 1979, at a time when the quality
movement was a rising, innovative force in business and manufacturing. In the 1980s
his consultancy company was advising 40% of the Fortune 500 companies on quality
management.

Achievements

1979: Quality is Free (His first book that made him famous.)

1979: The Fourteen Steps of Quality Improvement

1980’s: The Four Absolutes of Quality

 Kaoru Ishikawa (1915-1989)

Kaoru Ishikawa  was a Japanese organizational theorist and a professor in the

engineering faculty at the University of Tokyo noted for his quality management
innovations. He is considered a key figure in the development of quality initiatives in
Japan, particularly the quality circle.[1] He is best known outside Japan for
the Ishikawa or cause and effect diagram (also known as the fishbone diagram), often
used in the analysis of industrial processes.

Achievements
1960’s: Ishikawa Diagram

1962: Quality Circles

1968: Seven Basic Quality Tools

 Genichi Taguchi (1924-2012)

Genichi Taguchi was an engineer and statistician. From the 1950s onwards,

Taguchi developed a methodology for applying statistics to improve the quality of
manufactured goods. Taguchi methods have been controversial among some
conventional Western statisticians, but others have accepted many of the concepts
introduced by him as valid extensions to the body of knowledge. He was the executive
director of the American Supplier Institute, the director of the Japan Industrial Technolgy
Institute, and an honorary professor at Nanjing Institute of Technology in China. Genichi
Taguchi is well known for developing a methodology to improve quality and reduce
costs, which, in the United States, is referred to as the Taguchi Methods. he also
developed the quality loss function.

Achievements

1950’s: Taguchi Method

1950’s: Robust Design

1981: Taguchi Loss Function

References:
https://www.scribd.com/document/452068033/TQM-Gurus-and-Their-Contributions-pdf
https://www.qualitymag.com/articles/85973-remembering-walter-a-shewharts-
contribution-to-the-quality-world
https://ceopedia.org/index.php/Walter_A._Shewhart
https://www.qualitygurus.com/walter-a-shewhart/
https://www.bl.uk/people/w-edwards-deming
https://www.qualitygurus.com/w-edwards-deming/
https://www.qualitygurus.com/joseph-juran/
https://www.bl.uk/people/philip-crosby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaoru_Ishikawa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genichi_Taguchi