A quality circle or quality control circle is a group of
workers who do the same or similar work, who meet regularly to identify, analyze and solve work-related problems. It consists of minimum three and maximum twelve members in number. Normally small in size, the group is usually led by a supervisor or manager and presents its solutions to
management
Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business.
Management includes the activities o ...
; where possible, workers implement the solutions themselves in order to improve the performance of the organization and motivate employees. Quality circles were at their most popular during the 1980s, but continue to exist in the form of
Kaizen
is concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. ''Kaizen'' also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organ ...
groups and similar worker participation schemes.
Typical topics for the attention of quality circles are improving
occupational safety and health
Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at wor ...
, improving
product design
Product design as a verb is to create a new product to be sold by a business to its customers. A very broad coefficient and effective generation and development of ideas through a process that leads to new products. Thus, it is a major aspect of n ...
, and improvement in the workplace and
manufacturing processes
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a rang ...
. The term ''quality circles'' was most accessibly defined by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa in his 1985 handbook, "What is Total Quality Control? The Japanese Way" and circulated throughout Japanese industry by the
Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers
The Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) ( ja, 日本科学技術連盟), was established in May 1946 by the Science and Technology Agency (now known as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) of the Govern ...
in 1960. The first company in Japan to introduce Quality Circles was the Nippon Wireless and Telegraph Company in 1962. By the end of that year there were 36 companies registered with JUSE by 1978 the movement had grown to an estimated 1 million Circles involving some 10 million Japanese workers. The movement built on work by Dr.
W. Edwards Deming
William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical ...
during the Allied
Occupation of Japan
Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the
Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States wi ...
, for which the
Deming Prize
The Deming Prize is the longest-running and one of the highest awards on TQM (Total Quality Management) in the world. It recognizes both individuals for their contributions to the field of Total Quality Management (TQM) and businesses that have s ...
was established in 1950, as well as work by
Joseph M. Juran
Joseph Moses Juran (December 24, 1904 – February 28, 2008) was a Romanian-born American engineer and management consultant. He was an evangelist for quality and quality management, having written several books on those subjects. He was the brot ...
in 1954.
Quality circles are typically more formal groups. They meet regularly on company time and are trained by competent persons (usually designated as facilitators) who may be personnel and industrial relations specialists trained in human factors and the basic skills of problem identification, information gathering and analysis, basic statistics, and solution generation. Quality circles are generally free to select any topic they wish (other than those related to salary and terms and conditions of work, as there are other channels through which these issues are usually considered).
Quality circles have the advantage of continuity; the circle remains intact from project to project. (For a comparison to Quality Improvement Teams, see Juran's ''
Quality by Design.'').
History
Quality circles were originally described by
W. Edwards Deming
William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant. Educated initially as an electrical engineer and later specializing in mathematical ...
in the 1950s, Deming praised
Toyota
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
as an example of the practice. The idea was later formalized across
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
in 1962 and expanded by others such as
Kaoru Ishikawa
was a Japanese organizational theorist and a professor in the engineering faculty at the University of Tokyo noted for his quality management innovations. He is considered a key figure in the development of quality initiatives in Japan, particul ...
. The Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) coordinated the movement in Japan. The first circles started at the Nippon Wireless and Telegraph Company; the idea then spread to more than 35 other companies in the first year. By 1978 it was claimed by JUSE in their publication Gemba to QC Circles, that there were more than one million quality circles involving some 10 million Japanese workers. they operate in most East Asian countries; it was recently claimed by the President of the Chinese Quality Circles Society at the ICSQCC Conference in Beijing 30 August 1997 that there were more than 20 million quality circles in China.
Quality circles have been implemented even in educational sectors in India, and QCFI (Quality Circle Forum of India) is promoting such activities. However this was not successful in the United States, as the idea was not properly understood and implementation turned into a fault-finding exercise – although some circles do still exist. Don Dewar together with Wayne Ryker and Jeff Beardsley established quality circles in 1972 at the
Lockheed Space Missile factory in California.
Empirical studies
In a structures-fabrication and assembly plant in the south-eastern US, some quality circles (QCs) were established by the management (management-initiated); whereas others were formed based on requests of employees (self-initiated). Based on 47 QCs over a three-year period, research showed that management-initiated QCs have fewer members, solve more work-related QC problems, and solve their problems much faster than self-initiated QCS. However, the effect of QC initiation (management- vs. self-initiated) on problem-solving performance disappears after controlling QC size. A high attendance of QC meetings is related to lower number of projects completed and slow speed of performance in management-initiated QCS QCs with high upper-management support (high attendance of QC meetings) solve significantly more problems than those without. Active QCs had lower rate of problem-solving failure, higher attendance rate at QC meetings, and higher net savings of QC projects than inactive QCs. QC membership tends to decrease over the three-year period. Larger QCs have a better chance of survival than smaller QCs. A significant drop in QC membership is a precursor of QC failure. The sudden decline in QC membership represents the final and irreversible stage of the QC's demise. Attributions of quality circles' problem-solving failure vary across participants of QCs: Management, supporting staff, and QC members.
There are
seven basic quality improvement tools that circles use:
*
Cause-and-effect diagram
Ishikawa diagrams (also called fishbone diagrams, herringbone diagrams, cause-and-effect diagrams) are causal diagrams created by Kaoru Ishikawa that show the potential causes of a specific event.
Common uses of the Ishikawa diagram are product ...
s (sometimes called Ishikawa or "fishbone" diagrams)
*
Pareto chart
A Pareto chart is a type of chart that contains both bars and a line graph, where individual values are represented in descending order by bars, and the cumulative total is represented by the line. The chart is named for the Pareto principle, w ...
s
*Process mapping, data gathering tools such as
check sheet
The check sheet is a form (document) used to collect data in real time at the location where the data is generated. The data it captures can be quantitative or qualitative. When the information is quantitative, the check sheet is sometimes call ...
s
*Graphical tools such as
histogram
A histogram is an approximate representation of the distribution of numerical data. The term was first introduced by Karl Pearson. To construct a histogram, the first step is to " bin" (or "bucket") the range of values—that is, divide the ent ...
s, frequency diagrams, spot charts and pie charts
*
Run chart
A run chart, also known as a run-sequence plot is a graph that displays observed data in a time sequence. Often, the data displayed represent some aspect of the output or performance of a manufacturing or other business process. It is therefore ...
s and
control chart
Control charts is a graph used in production control to determine whether quality and manufacturing processes are being controlled under stable conditions. (ISO 7870-1)
The hourly status is arranged on the graph, and the occurrence of abnormalit ...
s
*
Scatter plot
A scatter plot (also called a scatterplot, scatter graph, scatter chart, scattergram, or scatter diagram) is a type of plot or mathematical diagram using Cartesian coordinates to display values for typically two variables for a set of data. ...
s and correlation analysis
*
Flowchart
A flowchart is a type of diagram that represents a workflow or process. A flowchart can also be defined as a diagrammatic representation of an algorithm, a step-by-step approach to solving a task.
The flowchart shows the steps as boxes of va ...
s
Student quality circles
Student quality circles work on the original philosophy of
total quality management.
[Terra Stern]
Change Management - Adopting A Continuous Improvement Program
/ref> The idea of SQCs was presented by City Montessori School
City Montessori School (CMS) is a co-educational English medium private school that offers education from Pre-school up to K-12 (Grade 12) level in Lucknow, India. The school was founded in 1959 by Dr. Bharti Gandhi and Jagdish Gandhi, Dr. Jagdi ...
(CMS) Lucknow India at a conference in Hong Kong in October 1994. It was developed and mentored by two engineers of Indian Railways PC, Bihari and Swami Das, in association with Principal Dr. Kamran of CMS Lucknow India. They were inspired and facilitated by Jagdish Gandhi, who founded CMS after his visit to Japan, where he learned about Kaizen
is concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. ''Kaizen'' also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organ ...
. CMS has continued to conduct international conventions on student quality circles every two years. After seeing its utility, educators from many countries started such circles. The World Council for Total Quality & Excellence in Education was established in 1999 with its Corporate Office in Lucknow and head office in Singapore. It monitors and facilitates student quality circle activities in its member countries, which number more than a dozen. SQC's are considered to be a co-curricular activity. They have been established in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Mauritius, Iran, UK (Kingston University and started in University of Leicester), and USA. In Nepal, Prof. Dinesh P. Chapagain has been promoting the approach through QUEST-Nepal since 1999. He has written a book entitled ''A Guide Book on Students' Quality Circle: An Approach to prepare Total Quality People'', which is considered a standard guide to promote SQC's in academia for students' personality development.
See also
*Kaizen
is concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. ''Kaizen'' also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organ ...
*Participatory management Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management ...
References
{{Authority control
Quality management