The man who changed the way we make things

Joseph Juran, who died aged 103, was a pioneer of the concept of quality control. Thanks to his work products across the world are systematically engineered with far fewer defects than they wei when he started his career eight decades ago.

Joseph Moses Juran was born in Romania in 1904, the son of a Jewish cobbler. When he wa a child his family emigrated to America and Joseph won a place at university to study electrical engineering. His first job was in the inspections department of the telecoms company AT&T and it was here that he saw at first hand the kind of problems he would devote his life to solving: machines malfunctioning, machine operators complaining, and no one to sort things but. In an earlier age, he noted, the craftsman himself, in, say, barrel-making, performed every step of the process, so he could see and correct whatever mistakes he made along the way. But the complex division of labour in 19th century capitalism meant that workers were no longer concerned about quality – that being the responsibility of some inspector further down the line.

Juran was one of the first to note the huge inefficiency of this approach and to promote in its
place a system of total quality, with concern for good workmanship inculcated at every stage of the production process. During the War, as head of a team shipping supplies to the Allies, he put some of his ideas into practice and went on to develop them in seminal books such as Juran’s Quality Handbook.

In 1954 he was invited to lecture in Japan, where managers embraced his ideas with enthusiasm. So much so, in fact, that he came to be recognised as one of the architects of Japan’s economic miracle: in 1981 Hirohito expressed the nation’s gratitude by awarding him the Order of the Sacred Treasure.

ne of Juran’s key ideas, which he imparted at the Juran Institute he founded in Connecticut, was the “80:20 principle”, that being the ratio he felt was central to many aspects of economic life. (He named this the “Pareto principle”, after the Italian economist who had noted that 20% of people control 80% of wealth.) Juran himself held, inter alia, that 80% of malfunctions stem from 20% of causes and 80% of profits from 20% of clients. He continued writing well into his nineties -”he never really made a distinction between work and leisure”, in the words of his grandson.

He is survived by his wife of 81 years, three sons and a daughter.

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Comments

By Conrad on March 25th, 2008 at 7:17 am

The legacy of Juran and Deming will be with us for a long time. Part of Juran’s work was to recruit top thinkers in the Quality field to work together and contribute to the field. The Juran Institute will continue to promote the Quality field. The Quality field will continue to grow and the next generation of Quality thought leaders are sure to be inspired by Juran. For more comments on Juran, visit my site at http://www.discretetalk.com.

By Conrad on March 25th, 2008 at 2:17 am

The legacy of Juran and Deming will be with us for a long time. Part of Juran’s work was to recruit top thinkers in the Quality field to work together and contribute to the field. The Juran Institute will continue to promote the Quality field. The Quality field will continue to grow and the next generation of Quality thought leaders are sure to be inspired by Juran. For more comments on Juran, visit my site at http://www.discretetalk.com.