several of Kaoru Ishikawa’s accomplishments and critically evaluate their impact on the quality management movement
In the quality management movement, there have been many great people who have, in various ways, contributed significantly. One of the most notable and among these contributors is Kaoru Ishikawa, a Japanese organizational theorist who worked as a professor of engineering at the University of Tokyo (LLC, 2010). He was a revered scholar with monumental contributions, particularly innovation in quality management. This essay will delve into the life accomplishments of Kaoru Ishikawa, with particular focus on his numerous contributions to quality management and his influence as a respected scholar. Through a detailed assessment, this essay will briefly mention several of Kaoru Ishikawa’s accomplishments and critically evaluate their impact on the quality management movement.
Contributions to Quality Management
Through innovative thinking, which means coming up with ideas that are original, unique, or can create new outcomes out of old methods, Kaoru Ishikawa transformed how people thought about work and total quality management (TQM). This transformation was by making TQM more inclusive of processes and techniques, leading to better results. Kaoru’s notion regarding comprehensive TQM recommended offering continued customer services (Watson, 2004). This action was an essential aspect of his ideology, most likely based on the Japanese culture of service to others. The outcome of this was the delivery of services beyond the customer’s expectations so that even after they received their products, they would continue getting support services. The quality circle was Ishikawa’s first quality control initiative that exemplified his notion of top to bottom approach in organizational quality management. APA reports that the quality circle spread far and wide across the globe and is still crucial for the modern organization.
Apart from the quality circle, Kaoru Ishikawa was most famous internationally for his conception of the effect diagram, better known as the fishbone diagram (LLC, 2010). The impact of this idea was widespread and highly influential to the world of quality management. For example, today, managers use the fishbone diagram to track the disparities, flaws, and failures of processes towards establishing their causes. Ishikawa’s other innovative conceptions, such as the Shared Vision and User-Friendly Quality Control, showed great importance to quality management education with future scholars using his materials to teach. Notably, Ishikawa’s influence impacted not only managers’ quality management practices but also critical principles of other quality gurus such as Edwards Deming, whose ideas Ishikawa further enhanced (Sallis, 2015). His thoughts were highlighted in several novelty conceptions that elevated the standards of quality management with future managers adopting quality enhancement programs because of his contributions.
Conclusion
Kaoru Ishikawa’s innovative thinking led to numerous achievements in quality management, with the most notable being the quality circle and fishbone diagram. However, it is arguably his broadening of a quality management application to include more comprehensiveness through total quality management that is his most influential contribution. The outcome of this better resulted not only in product quality but also the involved processes leading up to the result. Today, quality management is at its peak performance because of the innovative ideas of great thinkers like Kaoru Ishikawa.