History of Quality
The quality movement can trace its roots back to medieval Europe, where craftsmen began organizing
into unions called guilds in the late 13th century.
Until the early 19th century, manufacturing in the industrialized world tended to follow this
craftsmanship model. The factory system, with its emphasis on product inspection, started in Great
Britain in the mid-1750s and grew into the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s.
In the early 20th century, manufacturers began to include quality processes in quality practices.
After the United States entered World War II, quality became a critical component of the war effort:
Bullets manufactured in one state, for example, had to work consistently in rifles made in another. The
armed forces initially inspected virtually every unit of product; then to simplify and speed up this
process without compromising safety, the military began to use sampling techniques for inspection,
aided by the publication of military-specification standards and training courses in Walter
Shewhart’s statistical process control techniques.
The birth of total quality in the United States came as a direct response to the quality revolution in Japan
following World War II. The Japanese welcomed the input of Americans Joseph M. Juran and W.
Edwards Deming and rather than concentrating on inspection, focused on improving all organizational
processes through the people who used them.
By the 1970s, U.S. industrial sectors such as automobiles and electronics had been broadsided by
Japan’s high-quality competition. The U.S. response, emphasizing not only statistics but approaches that
embraced the entire organization, became known as total quality management (TQM).
By the last decade of the 20th century, TQM was considered a fad by many business leaders. But while
the use of the term TQM has faded somewhat, particularly in the United States, its practices continue.
In the few years since the turn of the century, the quality movement seems to have matured beyond
Total Quality. New quality systems have evolved from the foundations of Deming, Juran and the early
Japanese practitioners of quality, and quality has moved beyond manufacturing into service, healthcare,
education and government sectors.
1|Page
Guilds of Medieval Europe
From the end of the 13th century to the early 19th century, craftsmen across medieval Europe were
organized into unions called guilds. These guilds were responsible for developing strict rules for product
and service quality. Inspection committees enforced the rules by marking flawless goods with a special
mark or symbol.
Craftsmen themselves often placed a second mark on the goods they produced. At first this mark was
used to track the origin of faulty items. But over time the mark came to represent a craftsman’s good
reputation. For example, stonemasons’ marks symbolized each guild member’s obligation to satisfy his
customers and enhance the trade’s reputation.
Inspection marks and master-craftsmen marks served as proof of quality for customers throughout
medieval Europe. This approach to manufacturing quality was dominant until the Industrial
Revolution in the early 19th century.
The Industrial Revolution
American quality practices evolved in the 1800s as they were shaped by changes in predominant
production methods:
Craftsmanship
The factory system
The Taylor system
Craftsmanship
In the early 19th century, manufacturing in the United States tended to follow the craftsmanship model
used in the European countries. In this model, young boys learned a skilled trade while serving as an
apprentice to a master, often for many years.
Since most craftsmen sold their goods locally, each had a tremendous personal stake in meeting
customers’ needs for quality. If quality needs weren’t met, the craftsman ran the risk of losing
customers not easily replaced. Therefore, masters maintained a form of quality control by inspecting
goods before sale.
The Factory System
The factory system, a product of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, began to divide the craftsmen’s
trades into specialized tasks. This forced craftsmen to become factory workers and forced shop owners
to become production supervisors, and marked an initial decline in employees’ sense of empowerment
and autonomy in the workplace.
2|Page
Quality in the factory system was ensured through the skill of laborers supplemented by audits and/or
inspections. Defective products were either reworked or scrapped.
The Taylor System
Late in the 19th century the United States broke further from European tradition and adopted a new
management approach developed by Frederick W. Taylor. Taylor’s goal was to increase productivity
without increasing the number of skilled craftsmen. He achieved this by assigning factory planning to
specialized engineers and by using craftsmen and supervisors, who had been displaced by the growth of
factories, as inspectors and managers who executed the engineers’ plans.
Taylor’s approach led to remarkable rises in productivity, but it had significant drawbacks: Workers were
once again stripped of their dwindling power, and the new emphasis on productivity had a negative
effect on quality.
To remedy the quality decline, factory managers created inspection departments to keep defective
products from reaching customers. If defective product did reach the customer, it was more common
for upper managers to ask the inspector, “Why did we let this get out?” than to ask the production
manager, “Why did we make it this way to begin with?”
The Early 20th Century
The beginning of the 20th century marked the inclusion of “processes” in quality practices.
A “process” is defined as a group of activities that takes an input, adds value to it and provides an
output, such as when a chef transforms a pile of ingredients into a meal.
Walter Shewhart, a statistician for Bell Laboratories, began to focus on controlling processes in the mid–
1920s, making quality relevant not only for the finished product but for the processes that created it.
Shewhart recognized that industrial processes yield data. For example, a process in which metal is cut
into sheets yields certain measurements, such as each sheet’s length, height and weight. Shewhart
determined this data could be analyzed using statistical techniques to see whether a process is stable
and in control, or if it is being affected by special causes that should be fixed. In doing so, Shewhart laid
the foundation for control charts, a modern–day quality tool.
Shewhart’s concepts are referred to as statistical quality control (SQC). They differ from product
orientation in that they make quality relevant not only for the finished product but also for the process
that created it.
W Edwards Deming, a statistician with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Census Bureau, became a
proponent of Shewhart’s SQC methods and later became a leader of the quality movement in both
Japan and the United States.
3|Page
World War II
After entering World War II in December 1941, the United States enacted legislation to help gear the
civilian economy to military production. At that time, military contracts were typically awarded to the
manufacturer that submitted the lowest bid. Products were inspected on delivery to ensure
conformance to requirements.
During this period, quality became an important safety issue. Unsafe military equipment was clearly
unacceptable, and the U.S. armed forces inspected virtually every unit produced to ensure that it was
safe for operation. This practice required huge inspection forces and caused problems in recruiting and
retaining competent inspection personnel.
To ease the problems without compromising product safety, the armed forces began to use sampling
inspection to replace unit-by-unit inspection. With the aid of industry consultants, particularly from Bell
Laboratories, they adapted sampling tables and published them in a military standard, known as Mil-Std-
105. These tables were incorporated into the military contracts so suppliers clearly understood what
they were expected to produce.
The armed forces also helped suppliers improve quality by sponsoring training courses in Walter
Shewhart’s statistical quality control (SQC) techniques.
But while the training led to some quality improvement in some organizations, most companies had
little motivation to truly integrate the techniques. As long as government contracts paid the bills,
organizations’ top priority remained meeting production deadlines. What’s more, most SQC programs
were terminated once the government contracts came to an end.
Total Quality
The birth of total quality in the United States was in direct response to a quality revolution in Japan
following World War II, as major Japanese manufacturers converted from producing military goods for
internal use to producing civilian goods for trade.
At first, Japan had a widely held reputation for shoddy exports, and their goods were shunned by
international markets. This led Japanese organizations to explore new ways of thinking about quality.
Deming, Juran, and Japan
The Japanese welcomed input from foreign companies and lecturers, including two American quality
experts:
W. Edwards Deming, who had become frustrated with American managers when most programs
for statistical quality control were terminated once the war and government contracts came to
and end.
4|Page
Joseph M. Juran, who predicted the quality of Japanese goods would overtake the quality of
goods produced in the United States by the mid-1970s because of Japan’s revolutionary rate of
quality improvement.
Japan’s strategies represented the new “total quality” approach. Rather than relying purely on product
inspection, Japanese manufacturers focused on improving all organizational processes through the
people who used them. As a result, Japan was able to produce higher-quality exports at lower prices,
benefiting consumers throughout the world.
American managers were generally unaware of this trend, assuming any competition from the Japanese
would ultimately come in the form of price, not quality. In the meantime, Japanese manufacturers
began increasing their share in American markets, causing widespread economic effects in the United
States: Manufacturers began losing market share, organizations began shipping jobs overseas, and the
economy suffered unfavorable trade balances. Overall, the impact on American business jolted the
United States into action.
The American Response
At first, U.S. manufacturers held onto to their assumption that Japanese success was price-related, and
thus responded to Japanese competition with strategies aimed at reducing domestic production costs
and restricting imports. This, of course, did nothing to improve American competitiveness in quality.
As years passed, price competition declined while quality competition continued to increase. By the end
of the 1970s, the American quality crisis reached major proportions, attracting attention from national
legislators, administrators and the media. A 1980 NBC-TV News special report, “If Japan Can… Why Can’t
We?” highlighted how Japan had captured the world auto and electronics markets. Finally, U.S.
organizations began to listen.
The chief executive officers of major U.S. corporations stepped forward to provide personal leadership
in the quality movement. The U.S. response, emphasizing not only statistics but approaches that
embraced the entire organization, became known as Total Quality Management (TQM).
Several other quality initiatives followed. The ISO 9000 series of quality-management standards, for
example, were published in 1987. The Baldrige National Quality Program and Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award were established by the U.S. Congress the same year. American companies were at first
slow to adopt the standards but eventually came on board.
5|Page
Beyond Total Quality
By the end of the 1990s Total Quality Management (TQM) was considered little more than a fad by
many American business leaders (although it still retained its prominence in Europe).
While use of the term TQM has faded somewhat, particularly in the United States, quality expert Nancy
Tague says: “Enough organizations have used it with success that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the
reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated.” (see The Quality Toolbox, ASQ Quality Press, 2005).
As the 21st century begins, the quality movement has matured. Tague says new quality systems have
evolved beyond the foundations laid by Deming, Juran and the early Japanese practitioners of quality.
Some examples of this maturation:
In 2000 the ISO 9000 series of quality management standards was revised to increase emphasis
on customer satisfaction.
Beginning in 1995, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award added a business results
criterion to its measures of applicant success.
Six Sigma, a methodology developed by Motorola to improve its business processes by
minimizing defects, evolved into an organizational approach that achieved breakthroughs – and
significant bottom-line results. When Motorola received a Baldrige Award in 1988, it shared its
quality practices with others.
Quality function deployment was developed by Yoji Akao as a process for focusing on customer
wants or needs in the design or redesign of a product or service.
Sector-specific versions of the ISO 9000 series of quality management standards were
developed for such industries as automotive (QS-9000 and ISO/TS 16949), aerospace (AS9000)
and telecommunications (TL 9000) and for environmental management (ISO 14000).
Quality has moved beyond the manufacturing sector into such areas
as service, healthcare, education and government.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award has added education and healthcare to its original
categories: manufacturing, small business and service. Many advocates are pressing for the
adoption of a “nonprofit organization” category as well.
6|Page
