Ishikawa Kaoru

Ishikawa Kaoru

Ishikawa Kaoru ( Japanese 石川 馨 ; * July 13, 1915 , Tokyo ; † April 16, 1989 ) was a Japanese chemist who developed numerous quality tools, including the Ishikawa diagram named after him ( 1943 ). He is considered the father of Japanese quality control. His father Ishikawa Ichirō was the first president of the Keidanren trade association and his younger brother Ishikawa Rokurō was the president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry .

Life

Ishikawa graduated from the University of Tokyo in chemistry in 1939 and then gained professional experience at Nissan Liquid Fuels Co., Ltd. before joining the Japanese Navy as a technical special officer. As early as 1943 he developed his first cause- and-effect diagram, also known as the herringbone diagram. In this way, problem sources of materials, methods, machines and people were identified. It forms one of the seven elementary quality tools (" Seven Tools of Quality ", also abbreviated to Q7.)

From 1949 Ishikawa became a member of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) and worked in its quality assurance research group while teaching at the University of Tokyo. Within this period was in 1962 officially developed the quality assurance circles as group-oriented concept and applied the world as quality circles became known (Quality Circle).

Ishikawa is considered to be the pioneer of quality-related activities in Japan, where he was temporarily president of the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers and advocate of activities for the benefit of Japan, especially for the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry ( MITI ).

Company-Wide Quality Control

Based on the work of William Edwards Deming , Joseph M. Juran and especially Armand V. Feigenbaum, Ishikawa set up the Company-Wide Quality Control (CWQC) as an employee-related concept that was used for company-wide quality work. It involved all employees at all hierarchical levels and all activities in the product development process aim to meet customer requirements.

The underlying quality philosophy can be summarized in the following key statements:

• Quality is more important than short-term profit
• Customer orientation of the quality policy in the entire product development process
• Establishing customer-supplier relationships throughout the company
• Use of data and facts with the help of statistical methods
• Consideration of humanitarian and social aspects
• Inclusion and participation of all employees along the management level (strategic, tactical, operational level)
• Introduction of quality circles at all levels

The concept is largely based on total quality management, with the biggest difference being the strong focus on employees and quality tasks being distributed throughout the company and not to specific departments.

Works

• What Is Total Quality Control ?: The Japanese Way. Prentice Hall, 1985, ISBN 0-13-952433-9 .
• How to operate QC Circle Activities. Amer Society for Quality, 1985.
• Guide to Quality Control. Asian Productivity Organization, 1986, ISBN 92-833-1035-7 .

See also

• Total quality management
• Quality management

literature

• Gerd F. Kamiske , Jörg-Peter Brauer: Quality Management from A-Z . 3. Edition. Hanser, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-41273-6 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Arron S. Angle: Unleash Quality: Build a Winning Strategy for a Culture of Quality that Will Unleash Your Growth and Profit Potential . Quality Press, 2019, ISBN 978-0-87389-983-3 ( google.com [accessed August 14, 2020]).

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . So Ishikawa is the family name, Kaoru the first name.