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The Ghost of Quality Future

Most people are confused about what quality means. Hopefully, better education in the coming decades will correct this.

Looking back. Moving ahead.

The Ghost of Quality Future

Most people are confused about what quality means. Hopefully, better education in the coming decades will correct this.

Looking back. Moving ahead.
Dr T Burns
Thu, 01/13/2022 - 11:55
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All articles in this series
Quality Digest Celebrates a Scrappy 40 Years
40 Years of Quality Digest
Deming Speech 1978: ‘Quick Review of Some New Principles of Administration’
Stepping Off the Cliff of Success
Quality 2022: Two Big Changes Ahead
Happy 40th, QD!
You Can’t Improve a Process If You Can’t Measure It
A 40-Year-Old Bone of Contention
The Ghost of Quality Future
What Advice Would You Give a Quality Rookie? Readers Respond.
Body

I’m a chemical engineer. The fundamentals of the chemical engineering profession were laid down 150 years ago by Osborne Reynolds. Although chemical engineering has seen many advances, such as digital process control and evolutionary process optimization, every engineer understands and uses Reynold’s work. Most people have heard of the Reynolds number, which plays a key role in calculating air and liquid fluid flows. There are no fads. Engineers use the fundamentals of the profession.

Fads, fads, fads

By contrast, in the past 70 years, “quality” has seen more than 20 fads. The fundamentals have been forgotten and corrupted. Quality has been lost. Quality managers engage in an endless pursuit of magic pudding that will fix all their problems.

Alarmingly, the latest “quality” fad, Agile, has nothing to do with quality. It’s a software development fad that evolved from James Martin’s rapid application development (RAD) fad of the 1980s. This in turn grew into the rapid iterative processing (RIP) fad. When it comes to quality today, anything will do, no matter how unrelated.

 …

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Comments

Submitted by Sergey Grigoryev on Sat, 01/15/2022 - 07:44

Great article. Thanks!

Thank you, dear Anthony!

I want to believe that your persistence in explaining the value and sufficiency of the quality tools proposed by Shewhart, Deming, Ishikawa, and Wheeler will really enable people in companies to focus on quality.

  • Reply

Submitted by Tom K (not verified) on Mon, 01/17/2022 - 08:07

In reply to Great article. Thanks! by Sergey Grigoryev

KISS - Yes!

The problem is six-sigma is so engrained and forced onto Tier 1 by Ford and others. It's kinda like COVID-19; it won't go away. 

  • Reply

Submitted by Sergey Grigoryev on Mon, 01/17/2022 - 19:33

In reply to KISS - Yes! by Tom K (not verified)

It's a pity if it turns out

It's a pity if it turns out the way you think.

  • Reply

Submitted by Steve65 on Mon, 01/17/2022 - 10:25

Excellent Article

Dear Dr. Burns,

An excellent article.  It should be required reading for every quality practitioner and educator.  Far too many "hacks" are out there selling unnecessary complexity, and causing chaos and continued problems as a result.

Dr. Wheeler and a few others have taught me a great deal over the years once I was introduced to their work.  I was amazed by how much of what I once knew that just wasn't so!

Kind regards,

Steve

  • Reply

Submitted by Atiq (not verified) on Tue, 01/18/2022 - 22:49

Quality Tools

The approach is somewhat right as every evolution in quality tools proved the applicable validity. It should be the user's decision how intellegently he or she is using it.

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Submitted by Robert Lehman (not verified) on Fri, 01/21/2022 - 15:31

The method on how to help people better nderstand Deming is here

https://ur.booksc.eu/book/29439978/539fc5 by Dr. Paul Stepanovich 

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