BIOGRAPHY: Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa

Biography: Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa

Devry University

Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa
Kaoru Ishikawa is known as “the ‘Father of Quality Circles’ and as a founder of the Japanese quality movement”. (Beckford, John. Quality: A Critical Introduction) Ishikawa was also a pioneer in Total Quality Management. He believed in working for the customer before, during, and after product and/or services were delivered. Ishikawa was a Chemist, held a doctorate in Engineering, and was Professor at Tokyo University
Key Ideas
Dr. Ishikawa believed in the customers’ needs. One of the many things he’s famous for is the “bottom up view of quality”. (Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence, p.110) He began to work the all the employees from top management to staff members. It was important to him that everyone learned how important it is to not just satisfy your customers, but how important total quality in our service and products are starting with us as management and workers all working together as a team to achieve the same goals, he referred to this as “company-wide quality control”. (Stecher, Brian M.; Camm, Frank; Damberg, Cheryl L.. Toward a Culture of Consequences: Performance Based Accountability Systems for Public Services.) There’s always room for improvement, however it was important for him to teach some fundamentals of what he believed is true ‘Total Quality’. One of these fundamentals were to know what the customers’ requirements are; how can you provide quality service and/or quality products if you don’t know what they want. This is part of listening to your customers and not just trying to make a profit or a sale by them being your customer. This could go hand in hand with education. Educate yourself on what your customers’ needs are but at the same time educate your employees and management on not just