- The Jurian Trilogy Diagram
- Quality Planning
- Quality Control
- Quality Improvement
Dr. Juran’s writings and teachings were an inspiration to organization leaders, quality professionals, and others in many nations. Included in his many important contributions, were principles like the Pareto Principle and tools like Pareto Analysis.
Dr. Juran emphasized that we must balance the attention we give to the importance of the tools we use, in order to manage for Quality. He wrote about the need to understand and practice the “Managerial Tools”, as well as how to use the graphical and statistical tools in the context of achieving quality leadership. In his early teachings in Japan to executives and managers he emphasized the use of the managerial tools to achieve quality leadership.
The Juran Trilogy is made up of three important managerial tools that work together to help organizations realize the full benefits of Quality Management in the pursuit of Quality Leadership. Juran Trilogy represents the concepts of Quality Planning, Quality Control, and Quality Improvement. In the Six Sigma language, the Quality Planning and Quality Improvement processes are called DMADV and DMAIC. Juran reffered to these processes as “universal”. These processes represent the sequences of events to effectively Plan, Control, and Improve Quality. These processes have been used widely in all industries around the world for many years.
1. Quality Planning: As per Juran Triology quality planning is a concurrent exercise which involves all the affected parties related to the product and services, so that they can provide inputs and give early warnings during the planning processes.
The seps of the quality planning exercise are:
- Definition of the project
- Identification of the customers – those who will be impacted by the actions that are taken to complete the project
- Discovery of customer needs
- Development of the product and processes to meet the customer’s needs
- Establishment of the quality objectives
- Development of the plans for meeting these objectives.
2. Quality Control: According to Juran Triology Quality control involves the developing and maintaining of operational methods in order to assure that the processes work as they are designed to work and that the target levels of performance being are being achieved. Quality control does not concern itself with improving a process, but rather with the execution of plans. It is primarily to control that occasional spike in error in the process. Quality control is a short term process to check that spike.
Quality control entails the following steps:
- Clear definitions of quality
- Knowledge of the expected performance or targets
- Evaluation of the actual operating performance
- Comparison of the actual performance to goals
- Action of the difference
3. Quality Improvement: A s per Juran Triology, quality improvement is a disciplined approach that improves the level of performance of the process. This is achieved by a breakthrough improvement in performance; when a new innovation or a completely fresh idea is brought into improve the current performance levels. This ensures that the new levels of performance are achieved, and then quality control mechanisms are in place to sustain that effectively.
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Strengths and Weaknesses of Juran Trilogy
Strengths:
- The methodology searches a continuous improvement of quality in every aspects of the organization, because if the implementation of the methodology does not give the desire results it is possible to start all over again.
- The methodology allows the use different quality tools to cover the steps of Juran’s Trilogy. It allows a better understanding of the relationships of every stage of the company.
- The methodology is well structured and allows the companies that implement it, an easy understanding and application.
Weaknesses:
- To have quality control it is necessary to have a trained person with knowledge in statistical processes or train a special person to be in charge of quality.
- The program is focus in the company process and not in labor force.
- Analyzing the requirements of the program we found that the companies who apply the program have a complex level of organization.
- This kind of methodologies show results in a long term; this represents a risk for the company because the implementation of the quality program can be a waste of time, money and resources.
In the Trilogy, the journey towards quality leadership is not over until the trilogy of process is completely integrated within the organization. This is where many organizations fail in their pursuit of quality leadership.
This requires the organization to learn and use the Quality Planning process. Quality Planning is applied to product and service design and development, as well as process design. The process starts with a design project, to design something new. It then flows from identifying customers and their needs, defining the product/service design features, creating the process designs, and the process control plans. Poor quality planning is the source of costs of poor quality. If the sources of poor planning are not addressed, the organization will continue to produce quality problems in the future and the goal of quality leadership cannot be recognized.
So whether your organization is at the beginning of its quality journey or has only partially integrated the Juran Trilogy of quality processes, learn about the importance of how these three processes work together so that the benefits of quality leadership can be realized.
Conclusion
The Juran Trilogy—comprising Quality Planning, Quality Control, and Quality Improvement—offers a comprehensive framework for managing and enhancing quality within organizations. By systematically addressing these three core processes, businesses can effectively meet customer needs, reduce variability, and drive continuous improvement. This approach not only ensures consistent product and service quality but also fosters a culture of excellence and adaptability in an ever-evolving market landscape.
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