Lean Quote: Create Efficient Operations without Costly Inspection

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Goal setting has traditionally been based on past performance. This practice has tended to perpetuate the sins of the past."   —  Joseph M. Juran

In his focus on people and how they work in processes, Juran took a different approach than others working in the growing quality improvement field. In doing so, he completely changed how companies looked at reducing inefficiencies.

Juran found the hidden costs in how companies tended to deal with defects. In the early 20th century, that often meant dealing with the issue after it had occurred rather than focusing time and money on making quality improvements to keep defects from happening.

He also felt that the resulting poor product quality cost companies more than they fully accounted for, including damage to a company’s reputation that led to a loss of customers.

He also advocated for creating operations that ran efficiently without the need for costly inspections.

He developed the Juran Trilogy, which involved three principal areas:

Quality planning – This involves identifying your customers, determining their needs and developing products that respond to their needs.

Quality improvement – Develop a process to create the product and then optimize that process.

Quality control – Create a process that can operate under minimal inspection.

The Juran Trilogy was formally published in 1986 and quickly became established as a must-read for those involved with quality improvement around the world.