Quality value-chain: a meta-synthesis of frontiers of quality movement

Executive Overview As the quest for quality spreads through U.S. industry, many managers are confused by the multitude of terms used in reference to quality. In this article, I review the historical evolution of the quality movement as it spread across the world, and identify champions who periodically discovered new frontiers of quality. Each champion formulated a quality philosophy based on his own unique background and perspective. This review shows how U.S. managers, in the quest for quality, have often gone offshore, particularly to Japan, to seek additional perspectives. Foreign quality champions such as Ishikawa, Taguchi, and others have contributed as significantly as their U.S. counterparts—Deming, Juran, Crosby, and others. From an implementation viewpoint, each frontier of quality is integrated in a Quality Value-Chain framework. From this new framework it can be seen that successive frontiers of quality sought bigger challenges by attempting to integrate domains farther removed from core production or operational activities of an organization.