Armand V. Feigenbaum was an American quality control expert and businessman who is considered the father of total quality management. He devised the concept of total quality control, which emphasized that quality should be managed throughout an entire organization and involved both suppliers and customers. Feigenbaum identified that costs associated with poor quality, such as rework and customer complaints, could be reduced through greater investments in prevention efforts. He is credited with establishing quality costs as a means to quantify the costs of quality-related activities and deficiencies within an organization. Feigenbaum received numerous honors for his pioneering contributions to the field of quality management.
2. Biography
Born on 6th of April1922
American quality control expert and businessman
Devised the concept of Total Quality Control, later known as Total
Quality Management(TQM)
Received a bachelor's degree from Union College
Master's degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management
Ph.D. in Economics from MIT
Director of Manufacturing Operations at General Electric (19581968)
Later the President and CEO of General Systems Company of
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an engineering firm that designs and installs
operational systems
Wrote several books and served as President of the American Society
for Quality (19611963)
Died at the age of 92 on November 13, 2014
3. Memberships
Fellow of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science, a life member of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and
a life member of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers.
Founding chairman of the board of the
International Academy for Quality, which brought
together leaders of the European Organization for
Quality, the Union of Japanese Scientists and
Engineers, and ASQ
The first recipient of ASQ's Lancaster Award, which
was established to recognize exceptional
leadership on the international scene in promoting
quality
4. Contribution to Quality
Management
Total Quality Control, first published in 1951 under the title Quality
Control: Principles, Practice, and Administration contained
Feigenbaum's ideas
His contributions to the quality body of knowledge include:
1. Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality
development, quality maintenance, and quality improvement
efforts of the various groups in an organization so as to enable
production and service at the most economical levels which allow
full customer satisfaction.
2. The concept of a "hidden" plantthe idea that so much extra work
is performed in correcting mistakes that there is effectively a hidden
plant within any factory.
3. Accountability for quality: Because quality is everybody's job, it may
become nobody's jobthe idea that quality must be actively
managed and have visibility at the highest levels of management.
5. Quality Cost
The concept of quality costs - In process
improvement efforts, quality costs or cost of
quality is a means to quantify the total cost of
quality-related efforts and deficiencies. It was first
described by Armand V. Feigenbaum in a 1956
Harvard Business Review article
Cost Area Description Examples
Costs of control (Costs
of conformance)
Prevention costs Arise from efforts to
keep defects from
occurring at all
Quality planning
Statistical process
control
Investment in
quality-related
information systems
Quality training and
workforce
development
Product-design
verification
Systems
development and
management
6. Quality Cost
Cost Area Description Examples
Costs of control
(Costs of
conformance)
Appraisal costs Arise from detecting
defects via
inspection, test,
audit
Test and
inspection of
purchased
materials
Acceptance
testing
Inspection
Testing
Checking labor
Setup for test or
inspection
Test and
inspection
equipment
Quality audits
Field testing
Costs of failure of
control (Costs of
non-conformance)
Internal failure costs Arise from defects
caught internally
and dealt with by
discarding or
repairing the
defective items
Scrap
Rework
Material
procurement
costs
External failure costs Arise from defects
that actually reach
customers
Complaints in
warranty
Complaints out of
warranty
Product service
Product liability
Product recall
Loss of reputation
7. Central theme of quality
improvement
Larger investments in prevention drive even larger
savings in quality-related failures and appraisal
efforts
Feigenbaum's categorization allows the
organization to verify this for itself
When confronted with mounting numbers of
defects, organizations typically react by throwing
more and more people into inspection roles
But inspection is never completely effective, so
appraisal costs stay high as long as the failure costs
stay high
The only way out of the predicament is to establish
the "right" amount of prevention
8. Elements of total quality to enable a
totally customer focus (internal and
external)
Quality is the customers perception of what quality is, not what a
company thinks it is
Quality and cost are the same not different
Quality is an individual and team commitment
Quality and innovation are interrelated and mutually beneficial
Managing Quality is managing the business
Quality is a principal
Quality is not a temporary or quick fix but a continuous process of
improvement
Productivity gained by cost effective demonstrably beneficial
Quality investment
Implement Quality by encompassing suppliers and customers in
the system
9. Awards and Honours
First recipient of ASQ's Lancaster Award
ASQ 1965 Edwards Medal in recognition of "his origination and
implementation of basic foundations for modern quality control"
National Security Industrial Association Award of Merit
Member of the Advisory Group of the U.S. Army
Chairman of a system-wide evaluation of quality assurance activities
of the Army Materiel Command
Consultant with the Industrial College of the Armed Forces
Union College Founders Medal
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Life member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Life member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Life member of Plymouth Society of Marine Biology