ABSTRACT
Quality was first implemented in the late 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s in Japan by William Edwards Deming* but the theoretical basics were established around 1923 by another American, Walter Shewhart.† Deming didn’t have a role in shaping the ideas, but adopted Shewhart’s theory and developed and implemented it in practice, after which it had a tremendous impact on Japanese industry. His ideas were not accepted in the United States at that time, but after the Japanese “economic explosion” he returned to the United States and continued with his work of spreading the science of quality. He produced 14 key principles of managing quality, and although they are still valid today, many managers dealing with quality are not aware of them.
