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Juran: |
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Editor's note: The following excerpt is presented with permission from Quality Digest magazine. The entire article is available at http://http://www.qualitydigest.com/aug02/articles/01_article.shtml. Joseph M. Juran is considered by many to be the greatest quality thinker of the last century. His humble beginnings as an impoverished immigrant fueled his drive for quality and led to countless accolades, honors, and medals. He began his career at Bell System's Western Electric in the early 1920s and developed statistical tools still widely used today. While at Western Electric, he worked with other quality luminaries such as W. Edwards Deming and Walter Shewhart. During World War II, Juran served as an assistant administrator for the Lend Lease Administration. But following the War, he decided that big bureaucracies weren't for him. Instead, he became a freelance management consultant. He spent much of his time lecturing, researching, writing, and consulting about quality. He also made numerous trips to Japan to help rebuild its shattered economy. In the years that followed, Juran wrote numerous books, including Juran's Quality Handbook, commonly considered to be the international quality reference book, now in its fifth edition. He also founded the Juran Institute and the Juran Foundation (now the Juran Center at the University of Minnesota) and was instrumental in starting the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Although Juran retired from public life in 1993, he still occasionally speaks, writes and is hard at work on his memoirs. In June, I interviewed Juran at his home in Rye, New York. Despite his 97 years, he's still physically strong and mentally sharp. Although sometimes careful with his answers, he didn't fail to speak his mind. As with the previous interviews I've conducted with him, Juran was polite, considerate, and humorous. |
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About the Author: Scott M. Paton is Quality Digest's editor in chief. Visit http://http://www.qualitydigest.com/aug02/articles/01_article.shtml to continue reading Scott's interview with Juran. |