Kaoru Ishikawa: Biography Of This Expert In Management Sciences
Kaoru Ishikawa was a great Japanese scientist, an industrial chemist by profession and famous for his way of managing companies following the style typical of Japanese culture.
His main contribution to the business world is related to quality control, an area in which he applied his cause-effect model, also called Ishikawa diagram, which aims to identify the problems that a company may encounter.
Next We will see the life of this researcher through a biography of Kaoru Ishikawa in which we will learn about his life path and, above all, what his main contributions are to the business world and quality control.
Kaoru Ishikawa’s personality could be defined as that of a person very hard-working and, at the same time, very concerned about the quality of life of the workers He considered that a company should not treat its workers “in the Western way” if what it wants is for its services and products to always present the best quality. It is necessary for workers to feel motivated and comfortable with what they do, in addition to feeling an essential part of the process.
Early years
Kaoru Ishikawa (Ishikawa Kaoru in traditional Japanese order) was born on July 13, 1915 in Tokyo, Japan. He grew up in a family related to the industrial field and with good heritage. His father was an important industrialist, a fact that was a great influence on young Kaoru’s professional future. Thanks to the good economic situation of his family, Ishikawa was able to receive a very good education, attending the best centers in Tokyo.
Second World War
In 1939 he graduated in applied chemistry from the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University, although it would not be until 1960 that he could obtain a doctorate at that same center, presenting a doctoral thesis on coal sampling. At the beginning of World War II, between 1939 and 1941, Ishikawa helped his country by serving in the Japanese navy. He would later work at the Nissan Liquid Fuel Company.
In 1945 he made his first major contribution to business administration by introducing the fishbone diagram, which would give him a lot of popularity over time. Although he had already tried it years before, working with engineers in a war context, it would not be until the end of the conflict that he would fully develop it. His main objective with this tool was to find solutions to the main problems of a company by searching and understanding their causes.
In 1945 comes the end of the Second World War in which the Land of the Rising Sun ends up losing. The country had put all its efforts into the manufacture of weapons during the conflict and, now that he had just lost, it was a matter of time before he was punished for it. In fact, he was on the verge of being divided into several pieces, as happened to his ally Germany. Finally, the United States occupies the country to ensure that the Japanese military industry would pay for what was done.
The Japanese panorama is bleak. The empire is in a strong economic depression and is facing a terribly harsh post-war period However, the North American invaders are not limited to preventing the country from reactivating its imperialist pretensions but also intend to help it recover economically and scientifically. It is not only the military who set foot on the archipelago, but also scientists who have come from the United States to help civilians rebuild their country.
Within this context, in 1947 Ishikawa accepts a position as a professor at the University of Tokyo Furthermore, he decides to join the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE), an organization that was conducting research on quality control and its delimitation. It is thanks to the North American scientific “invasion” that Ishikawa has the opportunity to meet two American theorists, William Deming and Joseph Duran. With them he would develop new management concepts that would be used in Japanese industry.
After the postwar and last years
In 1960, having already obtained his doctorate, Ishikawa began to work as a professor in the area of engineering and received awards for his work, such as the Deming Prize and recognition from the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC). That same year Japan joined the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which is responsible for establishing quality standards for products and companies Ishikawa would be part of this organization until 1977 and would become the president of its delegation in Japan.
He would later be named president of the Musashi Institute of Technology in Japan and would continue to provide solutions to improve the implementation of quality systems. With them he intended to streamline and improve processes within companies, and it would be at this time that he would develop his great theory of the quality system. Kaoru Ishikawa was always a great worker, and the only thing that stopped him from continuing was suffering from a stroke. After several months he would die in his native Tokyo on April 16, 1989 at the age of 73
Kaoru Ishikawa’s quality principles are significantly influenced by Japanese culture, especially the philosophy of learning kanji Written Japanese is characterized by three writing systems; the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, in which each symbol represents one or two phonemes, and the kanji, a logographic system, that is, in which each symbol represents ideas. These characters can mean different things when isolated or accompanied by other kanji.
The kanji system has its origins in China and has practically infinite characters. To be able to read a Japanese newspaper without difficulties, it is necessary to have learned about 2,000 basic kanji, knowing how to read and write each of its strokes correctly and in the proper order. Since you never stop learning this system, since it is made up of thousands of symbols, Ishikawa considered that the difficulty of learning the kanji system encourages the reinforcement of precise work habits.
But his philosophy is not only linked to this characteristic aspect of Japanese culture. Ishikawa had a conception of the human being that was very related to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idea that man is good by nature, getting positively involved in what affects and interests you. Ishikawa criticized the Western production model which, apparently, completely ignored Rousseau’s thought and treated the worker with little respect.
The Western production model is based above all on the thought of Frederick Winslow Taylor and Henry Ford. Their conception was related to the idea that man was bad by nature and they reduced the worker to a disposable object, a simple link in the chain that if broken can be replaced by another. On the assembly line it had to be squeezed to the maximum and every action it carried out had to be controlled to the millimeter to economize the production process.
Ishikawa didn’t think like that at all. He considered that workers were more than just parts of the assembly line and that, to guarantee the quality of the product, the commitment of the workers had to be achieved by treating them as what they are, people. Only then will workers have an interest in improving product quality and increasing production. At the moment in which the worker’s rights are recognized, he or she will have greater interest and commitment to the company.
To ensure good quality of products in an organization, Ishikawa established a series of quality principles, which were focused on increasing control of the entire system If you are successful in implementing them, the company will progressively improve and the customer will receive a product of the best quality. Among these principles we have the following:
Contributions to the world of organizations
Ishikawa’s main written work is his book What is total quality control?: the Japanese modality (1986). This is a book in which he explains that quality control in Japanese society is characterized by the participation of all components of the company. It is not just a matter of the top bosses and other bosses; Also the rest of the organizational structure, including the lowest part of the hierarchy, must be involved in quality control so that the product is optimal.
In 1943, in the middle of World War II, Ishikawa presented the first diagram intended to help Japanese industry engineers find, document and select the causes that caused the quality of the same product to vary This is the moment in which his well-known cause-effect diagram was born, later renamed the Ishikawa diagram and extensively developed at the end of the conflict.
Ishikawa Diagram
The Ishikawa diagram aims to present the possible causes of problems that affect quality in a company by trying to categorize them. It is also called the fishbone because it resembles one in its graphic representation.
First, a horizontal line is drawn, which symbolizes the problem being analyzed, and then, members of the organization identify its causes and possible effects by brainstorming In his book, Ishikawa considers it the first tool to solve problems in the production chain.
Quality circles
Another of Kaoru Ishikawa’s most important contributions are quality circles, intended to manage organizations. They are created as work groups made up of personnel who carry out similar activities within the organization and each of them is led by a supervisor.
All its members analyze the problems that arise within their circle, and provide possible solutions. The main objective of this system is to identify the origin of the problem that affects the company and eliminate it at its roots.
In order to carry out this task, quality circles use Ishikawa’s seven tools, which he himself explained in his book What is total quality control?: the Japanese modality.
