World 'Quality Month' to boost productivity

By Sunil G Wijesinha

Japan was the first to declare a nationwide 'Quality Month' in November in the 1960s as part of its drive to excel in quality. The initiative was taken by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE). It is commonly known that World War II destroyed much of Japan's productive capacity, and to emerge from the devastation, the primary focus at the time was production quantity rather than its quality, and companies were asked to focus on zero breakdowns.

Poor quality gave Japanese products a bad name. Products from Japan were commonly referred to in the West as 'cheap and shoddy'. Japan quickly put in place many initiatives to correct this. Quality Circles, the Deming award for Quality, and Quality Month were some of the significant initiatives. Japan also introduced radio and TV programs on quality, giving step-by-step instructions on how to identify, analyse and remedy quality problems, all in the Japanese language, and how to reach higher standards of quality. The role of two American consultants, Dr Edward Deming and Joseph Juran who triggered a quality revolution in Japan is also legendary.

Quality improvement

Dr Deming was invited to Japan by General McArthur who was the effective ruler of occupied Japan soon after the war, and later was invited by JUSE to work on quality improvement, while Juran was invited by JUSE after seeing his publication in the US 'Quality Control Handbook'.

Deming introduced more techniques, particularly Statistical Quality Control, and the famous PDCA cycle, while Juran focused more on the human dimension of quality and used the Pareto principle for quality analysis to focus on the "vital few rather than the useful many" as he called it.

Front line workers

The Japanese, however, gave their own twist to the western quality initiatives, giving more prominence to front line workers rather than to quality experts, and involving the front line workers by tapping their brains in addition to their hands. Japan also had a philosophy that quality cannot be improved by mere inspection, but requires quality at every stage, for which the education and involvement of the worker was a sine qua non.

With the declaration of November every year as Quality month, Japanese companies and organisations were expected to fly the Q flag, which is now registered by JUSE, and to have several activities to create an interest in quality, create more awareness of quality techniques, to convince everyone of the importance of quality, take pride in quality and so on.

Many organisations, therefore, conducted lectures, competitions, and many other events. Japanese workers were encouraged to get together with their foremen and supervisors and study quality improvement techniques from manuals and books.

It was quite natural, therefore, for Japanese goods to earn a reputation for high quality in a short time span. High quality became an obsession with the Japanese. With the influx of high quality Japanese goods into other countries and taking market share away from their own industries, many governments took action to improve the quality of their enterprises when their manufacturers were protesting about the influx of Japanese goods.

When Dr Deming first went to Japan and saw the keenness of the Japanese people to learn and apply quality control and quality improvement techniques, he predicted that within twenty years other countries would be screaming for protection against high quality Japanese goods.

Few believed him then, but the prediction came true. The US launched a similar Quality Month in the 1980s, with the American Society for Quality (ASQ) declaring a Quality Month in October to focus on quality. For some years there were Presidential proclamations declaring October as the Quality Month. Europe too launched Quality Month around the same time.

In 2010, November was declared as World Quality Month to unite global quality activities, and to focus on quality techniques, research, training and awareness.

The idea was that if quality improves throughout the world, mankind as a whole would benefit. While October 14 each year is the International Standards Day, and some countries celebrate Quality in October, many countries now follow November as the Quality Month.

The writer is the President, Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Quality and Productivity.