Architect of Quality

Architect of Quality : The Autobiography of Dr. Joseph M. Juran

Book Reviews (Source: Amazon.com)

This is an excellent autobiography by one of the most renowned quality gurus in the world. His contributions to the field of quality management in his over 70 active working years is outstanding. Dr. Juran was the first to incorporate the human aspect of quality management which is referred to as Total Quality Management.

Among the quality management ideas and concepts for which Juran is well known include top management involvement, the Pareto principle, the need for widespread training in quality, the definition of quality as fitness for use, the project-by-project approach to quality improvement.

Juran was born in 1904 in Rumania. The family immigrated to the USA some few years later in search of the American dream and to escape poverty in their country. Young Juran was a gifted scholar with special aptitudes for mathematic and science. In 1920, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota. By 1925, he had received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering. He worked at the Western Electric Company in the Inspection Department of the famous Hawthorne Works in Chicago. This was a huge and complex factory, manned by 40,000 workers. This presented Juran with his first challenge in management.

Juran was one of two engineers for the Inspection Statistical Department, one of the first of such divisions created in American industry.

By 1937, Juran was the chief of Industrial Engineering at Western Electric in New York. His work involved visiting other companies and discussing methods of quality management. During WWII, Juran served in Washington, D.C. as an assistant administrator for the Lend-Lease Administration. He and his team improved the efficiency of the process, eliminating excessive paperwork and thus hastening the arrival of supplies to the USA allies. Juran finally left Washington in 1945 and chose to devote the remainder of his life to the study of quality management.

Juran became Chairman of the Department of Administrative Engineering at New York University (NYU), where he taught for many years. He also created a thriving consulting practice, and wrote books and delivered lectures for American Management Association (AMA). It was his time with NYU and the AMA which allowed for the development of his management philosophies which are now embedded in the foundation of American and Japanese management. His classic book, the Quality Control Handbook, first released in 1951, is widely used reference work for quality managers.

This is an excellent book that is highly recommended for managers as well as quality specialists.

Juran's Quality Handbook

Juran's Quality Handbook (McGraw-Hill International Editions: Industrial Engineering Series)

The newest methods in planning, control, and results, for successful quality engineering and management, written by an international group of recognized experts.

Book Review: QA bible for quality engineers

For decades Joseph Juran has been a famous name in the quality movement. He formed his own institute for quality and has for many years edited an extensive volume on methods for improving quality in manufacturing processes. This Quality Handbook, now in its fifth edition has long been the basic reference for quality engineers and statistician alike. To honor Juran, the fifth edition is titled Juran's Quality Handbook. The volume is now over 900 pages and consists of 48 chapters and 5 appendices. There are 53 authors including Juran himself and his colleague and co-editor Blanton Godfrey. Many other well-known persons have contributed. It includes a chapter on government services by Vice President Al Gore. Prominent statisticians who have contributed include Don Marquardt, Stu Hunter, Bill Meeker, Luis Escobar, Gerry Hahn, Ed Schilling, Ed Dudewicz and Necip Doganaksoy.

As a statistician, I particularly like having a wealth of practical statistical information and tables in one source. Dudewicz provides the introductory statistical material necessary to understand the four other statistical chapters that follow it (SPC by Wadsworth, Acceptance Sampling by Schilling, Design and Analysis of Experiments by Hunter and Reliability Concepts and Data Analysis by Meeker, Escobar, Doganaksoy and Hahn). These are all distinguished authors who are excellent writers and several have written whole text books on these subjects. This edition is up-to-date with the latest advances in quality techniques. Statistical advances in robust design (Taguchi methods), bootstrap methods, process control and capability are all included. Juran and Deming had major practical impact on the quality movement because they both emphasized the need for proper process management. This can be seen in many of the non-statistical chapters that deal with successful management techniques such as six sigma.

This edition is even better than the previous editions and is indeed worthy of the title of bible. Despite the high cost this book is prominent on my bookshelf. I recommend it to anyone heavily involved in product reliability, even if they own copies of previous editions!

"Juran's Quality Handbook" is an excellent book on Quality by one of the most well known quality gurus. The book gives a comprehensive coverage of the subject of quality management. It includes the latest techniques on quality as well as quality theories.

This is a very useful book for those who are interested in producing quality goods and services in a customer focused organization. This huge tome is of immense value to all those involved with the quality profession and is an excellent reference book that covers the wide range of topics and subjects pertaining to quality.

This is a well written book that is very useful for all businesses where quality matters (that is, all businesses). This should be essential reading for quality specialists such as control and quality assurance personnel.

Juran on Quality by Design

The New Steps for Planning Quality into Goods and Services

Juran on Quality by Design: The New Steps for Planning Quality into Goods and Services

Book Reviews (Source: Amazon.com)

Juran on Quality by Design offers a look into the thinking by members of the Juran Institute on the means to deliver quality products and services through a customer focused planning process. This latest Juran book is actually a replacement and expansion of one of its predecessors, Juran on Planning for Quality (Free Press, 1988). The similarities between the two books is significant enough that this new book should have been promoted as the second edition of the first. The new title is much better aligned with the intent of the discussion contained, since the earlier title made the line management audience less obvious than required for the use of the procedures contained throughout the volume.

In Planning for Quality, Juran laid out a ten-step road map for the planning of new products to meet the explicit and known needs of the customer. Using a chapter-by-chapter approach that followed the road map step-by-step, Juran explained the overall process of designing quality into the product in a fashion that makes the work useful to both line staff chartered with implementing the processes and senior management who must provide the commitment and leadership that make it all work. As each step progressed, Juran built a spreadsheet that captured the necessary process and product data needed to provide traceability from customer needs through process controls and product quality control tests.

In Quality by Design, Juran has kept to the style and organization of the former work, but the process itself has matured during the four year gap. The revised process includes only six sequential steps: establish quality goals, identify those impacted (the customers), determine customers' needs, develop product features, develop process features, and establish process controls (transfer to operations).

A seventh step, apply measurement, now appears throughout the process and affects all six of the sequential steps. In Planning for Quality, measurement was the fifth of the ten sequential steps. Ongoing measurement is an important part of the maturation that Quality by Design has gone through.

Juran's spreadsheet has also matured from one very complicated spreadsheet, that actually became quite unmanageable, to a collection of four simpler spreadsheets that each coordinate a different view of the data collected, making the planning results easier to tie back to the process. The spreadsheets constitute the raw data output of the process. Juran describes the four spreadsheets as "the interlocking input-output chain, in which the output for any step becomes the input for the next step."

The first planning spreadsheet list customers down the rows, and customer needs across the columns. The second transfers those needs to the rows and adds product features as columns. The third moves product features to the rows and adds process features as columns. The fourth spreadsheet adds process control features as columns providing full traceability from the process controls implemented back to the original customers that drove the quality planning cycle. Those comfortable with matrices will recognize that these four spreadsheets represent a five dimensional structure of information about the customer and processes. In Planning for Quality, Juran had implemented these five dimensions in a single two dimensional spreadsheet and the result was unmanageable, making Quality by Design a significant improvement.

In addition to revising the earlier work, Quality by Design expands on many issues raised earlier with an additional 200 pages of discussions that affect the implementation of the planning process throughout the organization, and several major case studies that highlight the application of the process.

The chapter on "Strategic Quality Planning" offers insights on the application of the planning process to senior management and the creation of a quality culture within the organization. The chapters on "Departmental Quality Planning" and "Multifunctional Quality Planning" highlight the use of the process within the organization for inter-departmental or intra- departmental quality action. These closing chapters offer guidance on the application of Juran's planning process, making Quality by Design less theoretical sounding than its predecessor, Planning for Quality.

Professionals with my field of information technology should read Quality by Design. Even those individuals who have already read the previous Planning for Quality will find enough incremental value to justify the overlap. The question remains: How can the process described be applied within the IT function?

To start, the planning spreadsheets can be used to map out the requirements for any methodology and standards already in place within the department. To the extent that quality control is often difficult to sell within the development methodology, the spreadsheets help illustrate how the process controls inherent in the IT process support the requirements of IT customers. Likewise, the spreadsheets will point out any existing omissions in current IT practices that may result in dissatisfied customers. This self-assessment and diagnostic use of Juran's work can be done with relatively little effort and at low cost.

Second, and requiring more resource and commitment, Juran's process can be rolled into the current IT requirements definition process to improve the level of requirements being defined by IT projects. The deliverables may have to be mapped against Juran's spreadsheets, but the result will be an increased project focus on, not just data and processes, but also the controls that need to be built into the IT system to assure that the application can be validated and monitored over the long-term. The result will be the implementation not just of new application processes, but of processes that embed the concept of continuous improvement through control of the key variables directly traceable back to customer satisfaction.

That's what Juran on Quality by Design is all about!

Quality Management Evolution

Quality management is a recent phenomenon. Advanced civilizations that supported the arts and crafts allowed clients to choose goods meeting higher quality standards than normal goods. In societies where art and craft (and craftsmanship) were valued, one of the responsibilities of a master craftsman (and similarly for artists) was to lead their studio, train and supervise the work of their craftsmen and apprentices. The master craftsman set standards, reviewed the work of others and ordered rework and revision as necessary. One of the limitations of the craft approach was that relatively few goods could be produced, on the other hand an advantage was that each item produced could be individually shaped to suit the client. This craft based approach to quality and the practices used were major inputs when quality management was created as a management science.
During the industrial revolution, the importance of craftsmen was diminished as mass production and repetitive work practices were instituted. The aim was to produce large numbers of the same goods. The first proponent in the US for this approach was Eli Whitney who proposed (interchangeable) parts manufacture for muskets, hence producing the identical components and creating a musket assembly line. The next step forward was promoted by several people including Frederick Winslow Taylor a mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He is sometimes called "the father of scientific management." He was one of the intellectual leaders of the Efficiency Movement and part of his approach laid a further foundation for quality management, including aspects like standardization and adopting improved practices. Henry Ford also was important in bringing process and quality management practices into operation in his assembly lines. In Germany, Karl Friedrich Benz, often called the inventor of the motor car, was pursuing similar assembly and production practices, although real mass production was properly initiated in Volkswagen after world war two. From this period onwards, North American companies focused predominantly upon production against lower cost with increased efficiency.
Walter A. Shewhart made a major step in the evolution towards quality management by creating a method for quality control for production, using statistical methods, first proposed in 1924. This became the foundation for his ongoing work on statistical quality control. W. Edwards Deming later applied statistical process control methods in the United States during World War II, thereby successfully improving quality in the manufacture of munitions and other strategically important products.
Quality leadership from a national perspective has changed over the past five to six decades. After the second world war, Japan decided to make quality improvement a national imperative as part of rebuilding their economy, and sought the help of Shewhart, Deming and Juran, amongst others. W. Edwards Deming championed Shewhart's ideas in Japan from 1950 onwards. He is probably best known for his management philosophy establishing quality, productivity, and competitive position. He has formulated 14 points of attention for managers, which are a high level abstraction of many of his deep insights. They should be interpreted by learning and understanding the deeper insights and include:
Break down barriers between departments
Management should learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership
Improve constantly
Institute a programme of education and self-improvement
In the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese goods were synonymous with cheapness and low quality, but over time their quality initiatives began to be successful, with Japan achieving very high levels of quality in products from the 1970s onward. For example, Japanese cars regularly top the J.D. Power customer satisfaction ratings. In the 1980s Deming was asked by Ford Motor Company to start a quality initiative after they realized that they were falling behind Japanese manufacturers. A number of highly successful quality initiatives have been invented by the Japanese (see for example on this page: Taguchi, QFD, Toyota Production System. Many of the methods not only provide techniques but also have associated quality culture (i.e. people factors). These methods are now adopted by the same western countries that decades earlier derided Japanese methods.
Customers recognize that quality is an important attribute in products and services. Suppliers recognize that quality can be an important differentiator between their own offerings and those of competitors (quality differentiation is also called the quality gap). In the past two decades this quality gap has been greatly reduced between competitive products and services. This is partly due to the contracting (also called outsourcing) of manufacture to countries like India and China, as well internationalization of trade and competition. These countries amongst many others have raised their own standards of quality in order to meet International standards and customer demands. The ISO 9000 series of standards are probably the best known International standards for quality management.
There are a huge number of books available on quality. In recent times some themes have become more significant including quality culture, the importance of knowledge management, and the role of leadership in promoting and achieving high quality. Disciplines like systems thinking are bringing more holistic approaches to quality so that people, process and products are considered together rather than independent factors in quality management.
The influence of quality thinking has spread to non-traditional applications outside of walls of manufacturing, extending into service sectors and into areas such as sales, marketing and customer service[1].

Juran's Trilogy

Juran's Trilogy
He also developed the "Juran's trilogy," an approach to cross-functional management that is composed of three managerial processes: quality planning, quality control and quality improvement.

“The Juran Trilogy” requires management to understand the following three key methodologies:
1. The Planning Methodology:

This methodology develops and puts in place the strategic and tactical goals that must be achieved in order to attain financial, operational, and quality results. Setting organizational goals is called strategic planning. Next, there is the planning of new goods and services, which must take into account customer needs to achieve customer satisfaction. We refer to this as the quality planning (product and process design) process. The umbrella term “planning” is used to refer to the activities carried out in preparation to do something. Quality Planning establishes, among other things, specific standards/specifications for specific products and processes. Financial planning sets out the financial goals and the means to achieve them.

2. The Control Methodology:

The second management methodology is utilized to prevent or correct unwanted or unexpected change. This process is known as control. More precisely, control consists of measuring actual performance, comparing it to the target or standard, and taking necessary action to correct the (bad) difference. Control maintains the standards/requirements defined during the planning stage. Its goal is stability and consistency.

3. The Improvement Methodology:

The third methodology constructs a breakthrough system to create planned, predictable, and managed change. This process is called breakthrough. Breakthrough is a deliberate change; a dynamic and decisive movement to unprecedented levels of organizational performance than are presently active in the plan and maintained by current controls. Breakthrough results in achieving higher targets, meeting competitive standards and specifications, reducing waste, reducing cost, and offering better products and services to customers.

Management Theory

Management theory
When he began his career in the 1920s the principal focus in quality management was on the quality of the end, or finished, product. The tools used were from the Bell system of acceptance sampling, inspection plans, and control charts. The ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor dominated.
Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension to quality management. He pushed for the education and training of managers. For Juran, human relations problems were the ones to isolate. Resistance to change—or, in his terms, cultural resistance—was the root cause of quality issues. Juran credits Margaret Mead's book Cultural Patterns and Technical Change for illuminating the core problem in reforming business quality.[8] He wrote Managerial Breakthrough, which was published in 1964, outlining the issue.
Juran's vision of quality management extended well outside the walls of the factory to encompass non-manufacturing processes, especially those that might be thought of as service related. For example, in an interview published in 1997[9] he observed:
The key issues facing managers in sales are no different than those faced by managers in other disciplines. Sales managers say they face problems such as "It takes us too long...we need to reduce the error rate." They want to know, "How do customers perceive us?" These issues are no different than those facing managers trying to improve in other fields. The systematic approaches to improvement are identical. ... There should be no reason our familiar principles of quality and process engineering would not work in the sales process.

Pareto Principle

Pareto principle
It was in 1941 that Juran discovered the work of Vilfredo Pareto. Juran expanded the Pareto principle applying it to quality issues (for example, 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes). This is also known as "the vital few and the trivial many". In later years Juran has preferred "the vital few and the useful many" to signal that the remaining 80% of the causes should not be totally ignored.

The Architect of Quality

The Architect of Quality
Joseph M. Juran1904 - 2008
by Mark Edmund, associate editor
Pioneer. Teacher. Consultant. Guru. Each of these words describes Joseph M. Juran, the man who became a giant in the world of quality management and changed how companies do business.

Juran wrote hundreds of books and articles, and he served as a contributing editor for QP from 1968-79
His lofty goal: to make things better. He wanted to improve everything he touched. Whatever he discovered along the way, he wanted to share. For Juran, there was always an idea to develop and build on.
"He always told me, 'Never be without a project,'" Juran's son, Donald, said days after his 103-year-old father died Feb. 28. "And he never was."
Over the course of Juran's remarkable 75-year career—during which, at age 24, he headed a corporation's large inspection division, traveled millions of miles to share his message on quality, and founded a quality consulting organization at 75-he never let his age dictate the projects he tackled:
The elder statesman of total quality control consulted, lectured and wrote well into his 90s.
Up until his death, he was working to complete another textbook, this time collaborating with one of his grandsons, David Juran. David Juran, along with Joseph De Feo, the Juran Institute's chief executive, said they plan to finish the book.
"His belief was that you always have a project to keep your mind going," De Feo said. "He always had something to do."
Maintain focus. Keep active. Never stop exploring—all in the name of quality.
"A typical trait of Dr. Juran (was) that whatever the age, he remained young because he never stopped listening," Tito Conti, president of the International Academy for Quality, wrote in a tribute to Juran.
Conti went on to describe an encounter with Juran in the 1990s at a standards forum in Europe. Juran sat in the front row for Conti's presentation, hungry for data and details.
"He did not want to engage his clear mind in the 'diagnostic journey' before getting a firsthand description of the facts and the environment in which they were emerging," Conti wrote.

Juran after a lecture at a 1985 conference in Portugal
Early years
Juran's thirst for discovery was something he could never seem to quench. Born Joseph Moses Juran on Dec. 24, 1904, in Romania, Juran immigrated to Minneapolis with his family eight years later to escape poverty and the threat of violence against Jews.
Nothing came easily, and his family struggled to improve its situation. As a young boy, Juran and his siblings worked hard to add to the family's income. Laborer, newspaper boy, grocery clerk and bookkeeper are just a few of the many jobs Juran held to help his family survive.
When he wasn't working, he stayed committed to earning a formal education. Again, it seemed his appetite for knowledge could not be satisfied. Teachers kept moving him ahead to challenge and motivate him. In 1920, he began his studies at the University of Minnesota, majoring in electrical engineering.
But college proved a bit more challenging and, amazingly, maintaining a C average was sometimes a struggle. Juran had never really needed to study to make the grade, but now subjects required more effort. Of course, he continued to work jobs outside the classroom to make ends meet, which pulled time away from his studies.

Juran speaking at an ASQ event
Juran graduated in 1924 and started his career in Cicero, IL, accepting a job as an engineer at the Hawthorne manufacturing plant of Western Electric, the former manufacturing arm of AT&T. It was there he began his career in quality.
The journey begins
At the time, Juran never realized that what he would be doing had anything to do with quality. A week into the job at Hawthorne, he was assigned (perhaps randomly) to the inspection branch of the plant. Two years later, he joined Western Electric's new inspection statistical department, one of the first in industrial history. Still in his early 20s, he was promoted to a managerial position, then to division chief.
From there, Juran's career evolved to include earning a law degree (as a backup employment alternative during the Depression) and moving to Western Electric/AT&T's headquarters in New York to work in corporate engineering.
Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was granted a temporary leave of absence from Western Electric to work for the Lend Lease Administration, which procured and leased arms, equipment and supplies to World War II allies. Juran's job in Washington, DC, involved finding ways to improve purchasing and budgeting activities and breaking up paperwork logjams in the government program. The temporary leave from Western Electric eventually was extended from the original six-week absence to four years.
A consultant like no other
Juran left Washington, DC, in 1945 to start a new chapter in his career, teaching industrial engineering at New York University as a professor and department chair. Four years later, he started his own freelance consultancy, devoting his time and energy to quality management, looking beyond just statistics to encompass the human side of quality.

Juran with just a handful of the estimated 20,000 people he taught in 34 countries during his career
Quality to Juran was also about management, human beings and human interaction. "SQC (statistical quality control) applies only to technicians," explained Jungi Noguchi, a former executive director of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). "Juran applied quality to everybody, from managers to clerical staff."
Essentially, all problems had one root cause: resistance to change or, as Juran called it, cultural resistance.
"Already a man of high professional standing and of major business and governmental experience, the very fact of Joseph Juran's placing his personal emphasis upon quality brought enormous attention and meaning to the subject of quality, which previously had been thought of as a technical factor in inspection," Armand V. Feigenbaum, president and CEO of General Systems Co., wrote in a remembrance of Juran.
In 1951, the first edition of the Quality Control Handbook was published, establishing Juran's reputation as the authority on quality. During this decade, his standing in the business world reached new heights as he became a respected consultant, lecturer, author and leader in quality management.
At that point in history, the business world included postwar Japan. In the early 1950s, JUSE had invited W. Edwards Deming to talk on statistical quality methods. A short time later, the group invited Juran to lecture on quality control.
From that point, there was no stopping the quality movement. Combined, the Deming and Juran lectures and courses helped propel Japan toward becoming a quality and economic powerhouse in the late 20th century.
After building a loyal following in Japan, the quality movement began spreading throughout the world.
"The more than half-century of the growth and evolution of quality into the importance of its global recognition and high effectiveness throughout the world owes a very great deal to the contribution of Joseph Juran," Feigenbaum wrote.
Key contributions
Adding the human element to quality will always be considered one of Juran's greatest accomplishments.
"I contributed to a new science: managing for quality," Juran said during his last interview with QP four years ago. "At the time, I didn't realize I was contributing to it, but in retrospect, I believe that's what I'll be remembered for after I'm gone."

Here's a modest sampling of other contributions the quality community will remember as Juran's greatest accomplishments:
The Pareto principle, or 80-20 rule, which Juran applied to quality, stating that 80% of problems come from 20% of causes, and that management should concentrate on the 20% (what he called the "vital few and the useful many").
The Juran trilogy, the philosophy that outlined three components of managing for quality: planning, control and improvement.
Juran's Quality Control Handbook, considered the standard quality reference.
Hundreds of papers, articles and speeches, as well as more than 30 books, some of which have been translated into at least 12 languages.
"Dr. Juran made a huge difference in the world by his promoting, teaching, writing books, and lecturing on quality for all walks of life," wrote Mickey Christensen, president of TQM Systems. "He was truly one of the major players in the movement to go from planned obsolescence or early failure to one of quality first."
Juran knew the movement could never—and should never—end. Perhaps this realization fueled his drive to maintain focus, remain active and never stop exploring.
"My job of contributing to the welfare of my fellow man is the great unfinished business," he wrote in his 2003 memoir, Architect of Quality.
"Dr. Juran has inspired all of us as quality professionals," wrote Mohamed Zairi, a professor at the University of Bradford in England and the Juran chair in total quality management from the Juran Foundation. "He has helped pave the way for an exciting future for our profession, and we owe it to him to continue his work by helping his 'unfinished (business)' to make an even bigger leap in the 21st century."

Juran at an ASQ Annual Quality Congress
Bibliography
The Associated Press, March 2, 2008.
Bunkley, Nick, "Joseph Juran, 103, Pioneer in Quality Control, Dies," The NewYork Times, March 3, 2008.
"The Life and Contributions of Joseph M. Juran," Joseph M. Juran Center, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Adapted from the PBS documentary, "An Immigrant's Gift: The Life of Quality Pioneer JosephM. Juran," produced by Howland Blackiston, 1996.
Phillips-Donaldson, Debbie, "100 Years of Juran," Quality Progress, May 2004.
Port, Otis, "Dueling Pioneers," Business Week, Oct. 25, 1991.
Juran in his own words
Joseph M. Juran's take on different quality related subjects.
On the cost of poor quality:
"In the U.S.A., about a third of what we do consists of redoing work previously 'done.'"
On the definition of quality:
"Quality is fitness for use."
On quality control:
"For quality in the sense of freedom from deficiencies, the long-range goal is perfection."
On innovation:
"Improvement means the organized creation of beneficial change; the attainment of unprecedented levels of performance. A synonym is 'breakthrough.'"
"To achieve improvement at a revolutionary pace requires that improvement be made mandatory—that it become a part of a regular job, written into the job description."
On standards/standardization:
"Without a standard, there is no logical basis for making a decision or taking action."
On top management commitment:
"Observing many companies in action, I am unable to point to a single instance in which stunning results were gotten without the active and personal leadership of the upper managers."
On total quality management (TQM) implementation:
"The recipe for action should consist of 90% substance and 10% exhortation."
On TQM leaders and managers:
"All managerial activity is directed at either breakthrough or control. Managers are busy doing both of these things, and nothing else."
"Had Deming and I never gone there, the Japanese quality revolution would have taken place without us … the unsung heroes of the Japanese quality revolution were the Japanese managers."
Source: Hélio Gomes, Quality Quotes, ASQ Quality Press, 1996.
Juran: Long Life, Lasting Contributions
Dec. 24,1904Born in Braila, Romania.
1912Immigrated with family to Minneapolis. Got first job (of 16 held before age 20) selling Minneapolis Tribune at streetcar stop.
1917Became naturalized U.S. citizen.
1925Served as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Signal Corps Reserve, Signal Intelligence Division, performing cryptanalysis; later promoted to captain.
1926Joined Western Electric's new inspection statistical department, one of the first in industrial history. Married Sadie Shapiro. The couple eventually had four children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
1928Promoted to first managerial job, chief of quality inspections (new Western Electric department of 40 inspectors who randomly checked work of product inspectors).
1929Promoted at 24 years old to chief of Western Electric's inspection results division, overseeing five departments.
1937Moved to New York to become corporate industrial engineer at Western Electric/AT&T headquarters; also became active in professional organizations such as the Society for the Advancement for Management, American Management Assn. and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
1941Discovered work of Vilfredo Pareto (on the distribution of wealth among a few families) during benchmarking visit to General Motors' headquarters.
Began work in the statistics division of the Lend Lease Administration; on loan to the World War II effort originally for only six weeks, starting on Christmas Day (just after the attack on Pearl Harbor).
1942Appointed assistant administrator in charge of the reports and records division of Lend Lease, which asked Western Electric to extend Juran's leave of absence then and each year thereafter during remainder of war.
1945-49Began management consulting on a per project basis with Wallace Clark's consulting company, assisting clients such as Gillette, the Hamilton Watch Co. and a division of BorgWarner.
1946Became founding member of the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) and of the editorial board of Industrial Quality Control, the society's publication.
1949-79Started his own freelance consultancy with about 40 clients, including International Latex Co., Bausch and Lomb Optical Co. and General Foods Corp.; over four decades, client list grew to include dozens of North American and international organizations, such as Armour & Co., Otis Elevator Co., Xerox Corp. and the U.S. Navy.
1950-91Took 178 trips abroad to lecture, consult, teach courses and attend quality conferences in 34 countries, addressing more than 20,000 managers and specialists and logging more than 5 million air miles.
1951Published first edition of Quality Control Handbook, based on knowledge gained from consulting work on managing for quality (became Juran's Quality Handbook by its fifth edition).
1968-79Served as contributing editor to Quality Progress from its launch as ASQC's flagship publication; also published the first of many articles in QP, "Operator Errors—Time for a New Look," on what he called the "zero defects fad" of the 1960s.
1979Incorporated the Juran Institute, at first to invest in transferring his store of quality knowledge into a set of 16 videotapes, which became part of a "Juran on Quality Improvement" package that also included 50 workbooks, two leaders' manuals and three books. The institute eventually expanded to offer consulting services, workshops, papers and additional books and tapes.
1981Received Japanese emperor's award of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class (highest award available to a non-Japanese), for the "development of quality control in Japan and the facilitation of the U.S. and Japanese friendship." Named honorary member of ASQC.
1987Became chairman emeritus of the Juran Institute, stepping down from position of chairman and CEO.
1988-91Served as founding member of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Overseers.
2003Published memoirs, Architect of Quality.
Feb. 28, 2008Died of natural causes in Rye, NY, at the age of 103. Survived by wife of 81 years, Sadie, along with many children and grandchildren.
CONNECTING WITH JURAN
Joseph M. Juran touched everyone in the quality community with his theories and writings. But the ivory tower was never his home. He connected with so many people on a personal level.
Shortly after his death, QP invited readers to share their thoughts on Juran. Here are some excerpts from those who had the good fortune of knowing or meeting the quality legend.
Encouraging
"He told me to remain focused and keep on chugging until I reach 100 years in age just like him. I smiled back at him. We both had a big smile looking at each other for several seconds.
He then turned toward me and shook my hand one more time ... His departing comment—'You cannot teach quality unless you live quality'—is still ringing in my head."
-Madhav Sinha
"At a time when the field of quality was often contentious and our new Baldrige effort was still fragile, Dr. Juran was a steadying influence, bringing credibility and confidence to our work.
His services and leadership within the first Board of Overseers were a key foundation for our early work, enhancing the award's stature in the U.S. and around the world."
-Curt Reimann,first director of the Baldrige National Quality Program
Gracious
"The last time I saw him was in the White House when the first Baldrige Awards were given, and his first words to me were, 'You should be proud of what you accomplished to bring this award about.' Typical graciousness by a great man. The world and I will miss him."
-Jack Grayson, founder, American Productivity and Quality Center
Humorous
Stu Hunter visited Juran late last year, arriving unexpectedly during lunchtime.
"'If you had told me you were coming, we could have had lunch together. Now you'll have to watch me eat mine,'" Hunter recalls Juran saying.
He was obviously working hard, his desk covered with papers. It was the first time I had seen Joe in several years and although he was slower afoot there was nothing, literally nothing, lacking in his mental agility. I departed amazed at the man's vitality.
Rare events, wonderful rare events, do occur."
-J. Stuart Hunter, professoremeritus, Princeton University
Committed
"Dr. Juran wrote that the purpose of the (Juran) Institute is to improve the quality of society. He said, 'Whatever you do make sure it improves society. Don't just do it for the sake of profit.'
A true leader is not just there to lead a company. They must have a purpose. I hope to continue to build upon the foundation of true leadership which Dr. Juran embodied."
-Joseph A. De Feo, president and CEO, the Juran Institute
Towering presence
In a letter written to Juran, Tom Pyzdek recalls listening to Juran at an ASQ conference.
"I was surprised by how small you were, physically. On the dais, however, you were a giant as you told those of us assembled there that we had a big responsibility to help America recover her position as the world's quality leader. By the way, you looked great in your tux!"
-Tom Pyzdek
Uplifting
"Dr. Juran changed many lives. He did so through his books, videos, recordings, papers and public addresses. He did so by simply striking up a conversation with a stranger at a conference. He changed lives by setting an extraordinary example. Through his deeds. His generosity. His wisdom. His unselfish focus on humanity. And his unrelenting goal to pay back a debt to society for the opportunities presented to him over the years. Everything he said or did represented the kind of human qualities we would all like to emulate."
-Howland Blackiston, Juran's grandson-in-law and producer of the Juran documentary, "An Immigrant's Gift"
Upon hearing the news of Juran's passing, Joaquim Donizetti Donda, an ASQ member, simply wrote:"Heaven will get better."
To view the full text of these tributes and more contributions, visit www.asq.org/juran/comments.html.
THE JURAN MEDAL

Joseph M. Juran Medal
The Joseph M. Juran Medal is presented by ASQ to the individual who exhibits distinguished performance in a sustained role as an organizational leader: personally practicing the key principles of quality and demonstrating breakthrough management. The first medal was awarded in 2000. The 2007 winner of the Juran Medal is Sister Mary Jean Ryan, president and CEO, SSM Healthcare, St. Louis.

Dr. Joseph M. Juran

Joseph M. Juran

Born
December 24, 1904(1904-12-24)Brăila, Romania

Died
February 28, 2008 (aged 103)Rye, New York, U.S.

Occupation
Management consultant, quality guru