Biography - Joseph Juran

Like W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran is a noted authority on the concept of quality(see also our guide to Deming.) . In the 1920s he worked for Western Electric and at one point was the Quality Manager at the huge Hawthorne works in Chicago. He later became a quality consultant and published, in 1951, his Quality Control Handbook. In 1979 he founded the Juran Institute, Inc. (11 River Road, P.O.Box 811, Belton, CT. 06897-4469). For additional information about the Institute and for a good biographical sketch of Juran see: http://www.juran.com. For recent interviews see: "Juran on Quality," B. Ettorre, Management Review, (Vol.83, No. 1, Jan.1994, pp.10-13) and "The Guru of Doing It Right Still Sees Much Work To Do", The New York Times, Nov. 15, 1998, pb5. A new biography of Juran has just been published and a copy is available in the Business Library.John Butman, Juran: A Lifetime of Influence. (BUS stack TS140.J87B88 1997)

See the April 2008 edition of Quality Progress for "Joseph M. Juran, 1904-2008: A Tribute to His Life and Work," by Mark Edmund, p.20. There is a useful timeline on p.23 and there are tributes from readers who had some contact with Juran. At this time, the tributes also appear on the ASQ site at:
www.asq.org/juran/comments.html

Update: March 2008 - The Death Of Joseph Juran

It was reported that Mr. Juran died on February 28, 2008 in Rye, New York at the age of 103. For your convenience we will provide references to selected obituaries along with some quotations from them.

"Joseph Juran, 103: Business Consultant- He Wrote the Book on Quality Control and Revitalized Japan," Nick Bunkley, The New York Times, March 7, 2008.
"NEW YORK -- Joseph Juran pioneered quality management and wrote the Quality Control Handbook, which taught manufacturers worldwide how to be more efficient and productive."
"His work in quality management led to the development of the widely practised business methodologies referred to as Six Sigma and lean manufacturing. He founded the Juran Institute, a training and consulting firm in Southbury, Conn....
"In 1979, at the age of 75, Mr. Juran founded the Juran Institute. “He wrote that the purpose of the institute is to improve the quality of society,” Mr. De Feo said – an attitude he thought all businesses should adopt. “He said, ‘Whatever you do, make sure it improves society. Don't just do it for the sake of profit.' ”
"Mr. Juran remained actively involved even after his official retirement in 1994. A celebration of the institute's 25th anniversary also served as his 100th birthday party, with a cake decorated to resemble a stack of books he had written..."

"The Man Who Helped Japan's Quality Revolution," by Richard Donkin, Financial Times, March 6, 2008.
"Joseph Juran, who died last week at the age of 103, was the last of the great statistical gurus who established the quality movement in business and helped to transform Japanese production after the second world war...."
"His was a more holistic view of management, which appreciated the nuances of work and the influences of human relationships. He understood that management and good work involved something more than the scores on a tick-box form..."
" One of Juran's strengths was to appreciate the human side of management. He rejected, for example, Deming's assertion that fear was an inhibitor in the workplace. Juran argued that "fear can bring out the best in people".

"Joseph Juran: Obituary, The Times, March 6, 2008.
"Thanks to Joseph Juran's work, products are systematically engineered with far fewer defects than they were when he started his career eight decades ago. He redefined quality control, persuading companies to plan for it from the very top of management, and his Quality Control Handbook, first published in 1951, became the standard reference work in the field. For decades, he was one of America's leading management consultants, lecturing, writing and teaching across the country...."
" His advice was most spectacularly applied in postwar Japan. When he arrived there in the 1950s, Japanese goods had a reputation for unreliability. His lectures and teaching on the importance of quality played a significant role in the astonishing reverse of this perception in the economic miracle that followed..."
"In 1979 he founded the Juran Institute, a consulting organisation, and in 1986 the Juran Foundation, which later became part of the University of Minnesota business school. His final speaking tour came in 1994, but he continued to write. His works including A History of Managing for Quality (1995) a fifth edition of his Handbook (2000), and a volume of autobiography, Architect of Quality (2003). A biography, Juran: A Lifetime of Influence, by John Butman, appeared in 1999. The management guru Peter Drucker once said: "Whatever advances American manufacturing has made in the last 30 to 40 years we owe to Joe Juran and to his untiring, steady, patient, self-effacing work."
Juran is survived by his wife of 81 years, Sadie, and his three sons and a daughter.

"Obituary: Joseph Juran: Business Management Guru Who Adapted Statistical Laws to Save Time and Waste," by Peter Starbuck, The Guardian, March 3, 2008.
"Joseph Juran, 103, Pioneer in Quality Control, Dies" by Nick Bunkley, The New York Times, March 3, 2008.
"In a Public Broadcasting System documentary about Mr. Juran called ''An Immigrant's Gift,'' Peter Drucker, the late author and management consultant, said Mr. Juran's influence on the nation's industrial economy could not be overstated.
''Whatever advances American manufacturing has made in the last 30 to 40 years,'' Mr. Drucker said, ''we owe to Joe Juran and to his untiring, steady, patient, self-effacing work.''

"Remembrances", by Stephen Miller, The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2008.
"Mr. Juran, who died Feb. 28 at age 103 at his home in Rye, N.Y., was the second American to bring the gospel of quality to Japan, the first being W. Edwards Deming, who started a couple years earlier. While Mr. Deming's contributions were strongest in statistical methods for quality control, Mr. Juran focused more on the management part of the equation...."
"Having noticed that a small number of problems produce most quality complaints, Mr. Juran formulated his "80-20" rule, which stated that 80% of a firm's problems stemmed from 20% of causes. Management should concentrate on the "vital few" rather than the "trivial many." He called it his "Pareto principle" after economist Vilfredo Pareto, a 19th-century Italian economist who noted that 20% of the population owned 80% of the property in Italy...."
"Raised in a tarpaper shack in Minneapolis, Mr. Juran was the son of a Romanian immigrant shoemaker who turned to bootlegging to supplement his income. In his 2004 memoir, "Architect of Quality," Mr. Juran writes that he held 16 jobs by the time of his 1924 graduation from the University of Minnesota, including chess columnist for the Minneapolis Star....

"Remembrances: Quality Pioneer's Legacy---Japan Embraced Juran's Better Ways to Make, Manage", by Stephen Miller, The Wall Street Journal Asia, March 11, 2008.

BOOKS BY JURAN:

Bureaucracy, a Challenge to Better Management: A Constructive Analysis. 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944.
BUS stack JK765.J87 & DBWSTK JK765.J87.

Case Studies in Industrial Management. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955. BUS oversize HD31.J8.

The Corporate Director. New York: American Management Association, 1966. BUS stack HD2745.J87

A History of Managing for Quality. ASQC Quality Press. BUS stack HD62.15.H57 1995

Juran on Leadership For Quality: An Executive Handbook. New York: Free Press, 1989. BUS stack TS156.J79 1989

Juran on Planning for Quality. New York: Free Press, 1988. BUS stack TS156.J85 1988

Juran on Quality by Design: The New Steps for Planning Quality into Goods and Services. New York: Free Press, 1992.
BUS stack TS156.J854 1992.

Management of Inspection and Quality Control. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945. BUS stack TS155.J8

Managerial Breakthrough: A New Concept of the Manager's Job. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964. BUS stack HD38.J8

Quality Control Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951. BUS stack HA33.J9.

Quality Planning and Analysis: From Product Development Through Usage. BUS stack TS156.J86.

Quality Wars: the triumphs and defeats of American business. (by Main, a Juran Institute work).
BUS stack HD62.15.M3465

Juran is often mentioned in books dealing with quality. See, for example, Chapter 9 of Quality Management by Bruce Brocka (BUS stack HD62.15.B73); the "Juran trilogy" in Managing for Quality by Daniel Hunt (BUS stack HD62.15.H858) and "Juran on Quality" in Managing for Total Quality, by N. Logothetis (BUS stack HD62.15.L64). For applications to education see "Models of Quality: Deming, Juran and Crosby" in Total Quality Management in Education by Edward Sallis (in the Education Library - LB2900.5.S25).

SELECTED ARTICLES BY JURAN:

Articles by and about Juran can be found by searching electronic databases such as ProQuest ABI/Inform Global Research. For more information about how to use this product and for details about other databases please ask the reference staff at the Business Library. The following is a list of a few of the articles cited in ProQuest:

"A call to action: The summit." Measuring Business Excellence, Vol.6, No.3, 2002, p.4.

"Early SQC: A historical supplement." Quality Progress, Vol.30, No.9, Sep 1997, pp.73-81.

"How top executives improve performance." Executive Excellence,Vol.12, No.5, May 1995, pp.6.

"The century of quality". Manufacturing Engineering, Vol.113, No.3, Sep 1994, pp.10

"Assessing Quality Growth in the US." Quality, Vol.32, No.10, Oct. 1993, pp.48-49.

"Made in U.S.A.: A Renaissance in Quality." Harvard Business Review, Vol.71, No.4, Jul/Aug 1993, pp.42-50.

"Why Quality Initiatives Fail." Journal of Business Strategy, Vol.14, No.4, Jul/Aug 1993, pp.35-38.

"Departmental Quality Planning." National Productivity Review, Vol.11, No.3, Summer 1992, pp.287-300.

"World War II and the Quality Movement." Quality Progress, Vol.24, No.12, Dec. 1991, pp/19-24.

"The Evolution of Japanese Leadership in Quality." Journal for Quality and Participation, Vol.14. No.4, July/Aug.1991, pp.72-77.

"Quality Advisor: Made in USA." Manufacturing Engineering, Vol.106, No.4, April 1991, pp.10,12.

"Strategies for World-Class Quality." Quality Progress, Vol.24, No.3, Mar.1991, pp.81-85.

"China's Ancient History of Managing for Quality, Part II." Quality Progress, Vol.23, No.8, Aug.1990, pp.25-30.

"China's Ancient History of Managing for Quality, Part I." Quality Progress, Vol.23, No.7, July 1990. pp.31-35.

"Managing for Quality." Journal for Quality and Participation, Vol.11, No.1, Mar.1988, pp.8-12.

"QC Circles in the West." Quality Progress, Vol.20, No.9, Sept.1987, pp.60-61.

"The Quality Trilogy: A Universal Approach to Managing for Quality." Quality Progress, Vol.19, No.8, August 1986, pp.19-24.

"Catching Up: How Is the West Doing?" Quality Progress, Vol.18, No.11, Nov.1985, pp.18-22.

"Product Quality: A Prescription for the West." The Management Review, June and July 1981; first presented at the 15th Conference of the European Organization for Quality Control, Paris, June 1981.

"Is Japan Cornering the Market on Product Quality?" International Management, Vol.36, No.1, Jan.1981, pp.22-25.

"The Taylor System and Quality Control." A series of articles in Quality Progress, May through December 1973, listed under "Management Interface."

"A Note on Economics of Quality." Industrial Quality Control, February 1959, pp.20-23.

SELECTED ARTICLES ABOUT JURAN:

"TQM: A snapshot of the experts." Measuring Business Excellence, Vol.6, No.3, 2002, pp.54-57.

"In the beginning, there were Deming and Juran." Phil Landesberg. The Journal for Quality and Participation, Vol.22, No.6, Nov/Dec 1999, pp.59-61.

"A man of quality." Jane Gaboury. IIE Solutions, Vol.31, No.3, Mar 1999, pp.28-35.

"A conversation with Joseph Juran." Thomas A Stewart. Fortune, Vol.139, No.1, Jan 11, 1999, pp.168-170.

"Juran: the Man Who Wrote the Book on Quality." John Cunniff. Journal Record, Apr 12, 1994.

"Dr. Juran." Tracy Benson Kirker, Industry Week, Vol.243, No.7, Apr.4, 1994, pp.12-16.

"Turning Points." Willy Sussland, International Management, Vol.48, No.9, Nov.1993, p.64.

"Quality's Management Guru Winds up the Road Show." Rick Mullin, Chemical Week, Vol.153, No.10, Sept.22, 1993, p.47.

"The Tools of Quality - Part VI: Pareto Charts." John T. Burr, Quality Progress, Vol.23, No.11, Nov.1990, pp.59-61.

"Talking Business - with Juran of the Juran Institute." New York Times, Feb.6, 1990, p.C2.

For a review of A History of Managing for Quality see Sloan Management Review, Winter 1996. For a review of the new biography on Juran see Juran a Lifetime of Influence in the Journal of Management Consulting, Nov. 1998.