David Hutchins presented the Lifetime Outstanding Contribution Award by the International Lean Six Sigma Institute

April 21st 2021, David Hutchins has been presented with the Lifetime Outstanding Contribution Award by the International Lean Six Sigma Institute. Announcing the award last week, the ILSSi said, “ILSSI is honoured to be able to present this award to David Hutchins for over 60 years of service to the advancement of Quality Management. David is acknowledged to be one of the worlds leading authorities in the Quality Sciences and Quality Management. David had worked with many global leaders of industry as well as representing Dr Joseph Juran from 1983 until he retired from international travel in 1993. David also worked with Professor Kaoru Ishikawa and had meetings with W. Edwards Deming and Dr Armand Feigenbaum on many occasions at international conventions. Congratulations David from everyone at ILSSI and around the world. We wish you many more good years”.

Overwhelmed to receive the award, David Hutchins commented “to all of you who made the decision to make this award, I cannot thank you enough. Recognition is always one of the greatest pleasures in life but recognition by ones own peers, is one of the greatest and most respected. Of all my treasured memories of the gurus you have mentioned, and so many more wonderful quality practitioners from around the World, one memory that particularly comes to mind now, I learned from working with Dr Juran, who both lived and worked to age 103, is that he claimed not to distinguish between work and pleasure. With friends such as all of you, why would I ever want to give up. Thank you so much. This award will be greatly treasured”.

David Hutchins Innovation telephone: + 44 (0) 1458 224040 website: www.dhiqc.com

Lifetime outstanding contribution award - quality management

Quality Circles or Gemba Kaizen? What is in a name?

1979 was a long time ago which is when the conference illustrated took place. Since then, Quality Circles in the West generally have had a long and bumpy history. Where they have been implemented properly, they delivered everything that could have been expected of them. Sadly, such cases were very much in the minority. The main reason? The appalling ignorance on the part of those who claimed to be experts and the gullibility of those who believed them. Fortunately, after all of these years, there are strong indications that the UK is once again beginning to take an interest in Quality Circles or could it be Kaizen? 

What is in a name? It comes down entirely to personal preference because the two concepts are identical. What is really more important is to get good and sound advice before doing anything

One indicator of increased popularity is the fact that David Hutchins now long out of print book ‘The Quality Circles Handbook’ is currently changing hands on Amazon at £95.00 per copy!

The confusion over the name derives from the fact that the name Quality Circles was coined by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa who at that time was President of Tokyo University. Tokyo and Kyoto Universities are great rivals as are Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. For this reason, Kyoto University began promoting the same idea conceptually but rather than use the same label as Tokyo, used the term Gemba Kaizen. The term is a good one because ‘Gemba (also spelt Genba) literally means ‘on the spot’ and ‘Kaizen’ literally means ‘Improvement’ hence, ‘on the spot improvement’. Since this is also what quality Circles do, the two terms are interchangeable.

The term Gemba Kaizen was then further promoted by another rivalry, that between Toyota and Nissan. Nissan has a history of attempting to avoid the use of any term for management concepts known to have been popularized by Toyota. For example, the term ‘Just in Time’ is linked to Toyota. Therefore, if you ask a Nissan executive ‘do you use Just in Time’, the unwary might be surprised at the readiness of the negative answer. ‘No we do not’. What do you do in its place? ‘We have a concept called ‘stockless production’.

In Japan this presents no problem at all because everyone is familiar with the situation but to foreigners not familiar with the language it is very confusing.

Unfortunately, in the mid 1980s, this confusion was cleverly exploited by a sharp Japanese professor who saw an opportunity in Western ignorance. At that time, many Western companies had for a variety of reasons, made a serious mess of Quality Circles. Even though many companies such as Brintons Carpets, Wedgwood, Perkins Diesels, and Michelin Tyres etc. were proving the immense value of properly designed Quality Circle activities, the media became overwhelmed with reports of the failures. Consequently, they were reluctant to start again using the same label but instead chose to adopt the term Gemba Kaizen (frequently the ‘gemba’ was dropped) to give the impression that this was something different.

Provided that this fact is known, the name that is used is irrelevant. What is more important is the principles behind it. If these are understood and applied then Quality Circles, Gemba Kaizen or any other name used for self directing work teams will suffice. It just depends on what turns you on!

Quality Circles

November is 'Quality Month', how will you be promoting it in your organisation?

The concept of ‘Quality Month’ originated in Japan in the late 1950’s but remained there until the late 1970s when the world woke up to the role of ‘Quality’ in Japan’s post war transformation from being labelled as ‘junk merchants' to the world to almost global domination in market after market through the production of superior quality products at competitive prices. After that, the world began copying concepts which originated in post war Japan and this included the concept of National Quality Month which is staged every year in November. All of the in-company employee awards, awareness programmes, National and International Quality Awards are made during this month and companies across the country display quality banners and flags to demonstrate their commitment to quality.  

DHI and Quality Month

David Hutchins Innovation have backed this campaign to draw attention to quality education and focus the importance of making quality an essential part of the organisation.  Throughout the month of November our organisation will support the management and quality personnel of organisations who participate in our initiative by providing downloadable materials and tools to promote ‘Quality Month’ within their organisation.     For free downloadables such as posters, quizzes, promotion ideas please visit the Quality Month page on our website: https://www.dhiqc.com/quality-month-2018/