The Philosophy of Total Quality Management from Kaoru Ishikawa

The Philosophy of Total Quality Management from Kaoru Ishikawa

Donna Patterson

BSOP326

Professor Lee Thompson

Submitted to Prof. Thompson on 9/18/2011

“Kaoru Ishikawa an early pioneer in the quality revolution in Japan. He was the foremost figure in Japanese quality until his death in 1989. He was instrumental in the development of the broad outlines of Japanese quality strategy, and without his leadership, the Japanese quality movement would not enjoy the worldwide acclaim and success that it has today. Dr Ishikawa was a professor of engineering at Tokyo University for many years. He influenced the development of a participative bottom-up view of quality, which became the trademark of the Japanese approach to quality management, and was also able to get the attention of top management and persuade them that a companywide approach to quality control was necessary for total success.”

Ishikawa believed that building on customer service and customer satisfaction was key to improving quality. He believed in working on customer’s complaints to improve the quality of the product. He said that if you put your focus on quality first you can set your sights on long term profits. Some of the key elements of his philosophies are: “quality begins with education and ends with education and the first step in quality is to know the requirements of the customers”.

Kaoru Ishikawa wanted managers to not to be content with only improving a product’s quality, but to know that quality improvement is an ongoing process and can always be improved. He said that customer service continued even after the customer purchased the product and would continue to receive services.

Kaoru Ishikawa is the creator of the cause-and-effect diagram which is also called the fishbone diagram or the Ishikawa. This diagram is used to detect problems and to come up with solutions as to how to solve those problems. A team is formed consisting of management, employees and usually a trained...