When discussing Japanese TQM, we often say that Kaoru Ishikawa is its father. Ishikawa's contribution and thinking are enormous and must be respected, but we should also know that several others contributed.
One of those is Eizaburou Nishihori.
Understanding his contribution is somewhat complex. This is due to his fame for expeditions to the South Pole and mountain climbing. When we Google him, his contributions to those fields appear first. However, his impact on TQM is significant. He believes that mountain climbing, expeditions, and quality management are interconnected, as they all involve managing people.
Nishibori was born in 1903 into a family of crepe wholesalers. This family had an interesting problem. Nishibori’s oldest brother didn’t like the traditional business model. He traveled to the USA to study Taylor’s scientific management. The traditional model involved individual families in the region operating a loom, which Nishibori’s family collected and sold to the market. Instead, the brother started a concentrated factory where specialists directed the workers. A disaster hit the area. When Nishibori visited each family, they asked if there was a way to start working. The only option was to work at his brother’s factory. His brother resisted but eventually allowed these workers to work by themselves. After a month, Nishibori and his brother were surprised. This group of new workers outperformed those working in the factory for a long time in every aspect—quality, output, efficiency.
Nishibori was asked to investigate why. He discovered that these rookies knew they did not have the skills to operate, so they held their study group every night. Someone who learned something new was shared immediately among the group. Such cross-learning has never happened before. When a machine went down, this group pulled the maintenance person to fix it and thanked them after it was recovered. Eventually, the maintenance crew favored this group over the traditional since their work was appreciated. Not only that, the traditional group thought machine downtime was a bonus break, and they had no reason to rush to report the problem.
Quality was the same. When a defect occurred, it was immediately reported to the process. Both the inspector and the operator worked to understand the mistake and improve. In a traditional environment, the defect was reported to the supervisor, Forman, the quality manager, and by the time the problem was investigated, nobody knew what had happened. This experience became the foundation of Nishibori. He criticizes Taylor’s scientific management, not complete denial. His criticism is that it lacks Respect for Humanity.
This “Respect for Humanity” is the center of Nishibori’s thinking on Quality management. He has said that “the source of quality management is human quality management.” And mentioned that humanity is creativity.
His work to develop Japanese quality management was direct and practical. At the end of WWII, Nishibori was working for Toshiba. Toshiba supplied to the GHQ, and Nishibori communicated with them. One day, Nishibori was asked to submit the “Control chart.” Nishibori didn’t know and asked the GHQ to explain. Since Nishibori was unsatisfied with the explanation, he searched for someone to explain it better. Eventually, Nishibori met Dr. Deming, who was visiting Japan to help conduct the census. Nishibori also belonged to a group of scientists interested in statistics—Kaoru Ishikawa and Shigeru Mizuno, who contributed to the development of Japanese TQM, were also members. It is this group that eventually hosted Dr. Deming’s lecture. Nishibori also supported inviting Dr. Juran to conduct additional training in Japan.
After inviting Dr. Deming and Dr. Juran, Nishibori organized activities to spread Japanese Quality Management. One such organization is the Central Japan Quality Control Association (CQCA). This organization started as a study group within the Central Japan Industries Association, which also contributed to spreading the Toyota Production System by hosting Taiichi Ohno and many Toyota people. Nishibori was the honorable chairman of CQCA, while Shoichiro Toyoda was vice president. Under CQCA, Genichi Taguchi conducted training about the design of experiments from 1954 onwards. Taguchi was close to Nishibori regarding quality management (meaning slightly different from Ishikawa and Mizuno).
Here are some of his thoughts (It’s too much to put in one article.);
1️⃣ Self Inspection
One of the core thinking is “Self Inspection.” Nishibori is very critical of inspectors based on Taylor’s function-oriented organization. Instead, he thinks allowing workers to self-inspect what they have produced is necessary. He calls this principle “Total responsibility,” in which the worker is responsible for safety, quality, output, and Kaizen. This is because “safety can’t be the responsibility of the safety department because the worker is the one who will be hurt when the safety principle is violated.” This thinking applies to other functions.
To achieve such “Total responsibility,” Nishibori suggests limiting the scope of work and gradually increasing it, such as having the team leader responsible for multiple processes, the group leader responsible for various teams, and the plant manager responsible for the entire plant. This applies to the time of responsibility. While workers will be focused on the work in front of them, the managers need to think about a week or month ahead. Plant managers will think a few years ahead, while the president must consider ten years to extend the time ahead. Such scope allows people to develop.
Nishibori does not mean eliminating functional departments, such as quality, but enhancing their capabilities. These functional departments do not possess the right to command the workers. They must understand that they serve the “total responsible workers" who perform basic functionalities. Since the workers perform the foundational functions, specialists must perform at a higher level.
Applying these philosophies not just to individuals but also to organizations is Nishibori’s thinking.
There are many similarities to the Toyota Production System. Concepts like Jidou-ka or Jikoutei-Kanketsu overlap with what Nishibori’s philosophy is.
2️⃣ Standard with “room” to improve
One interesting thought about Nishibori is how to create a work standard.
Nishibori does not think describing the specific tool and technique is correct. Instead, he would describe the proper inspection method. In other words, as long as the worker can accomplish the appropriate quality outcome, the worker is free to select the tool and technique. The best tool and method will be provided as a reference. This way, the standard has room to generate the worker's creativity.
As a TPS practitioner, his thinking is multifaceted. First, we will provide the best tool and technique within the work standard. This must be trained and followed all the time so that we can achieve good quality. However, the “Standard with room to improve” should be considered as we develop the standardized work. Although the tool and technique are defined, there is still “room” to apply our creativity to other topics—for example, the tool's location and orientation and the method of picking and returning the tool. As we develop the standardized work, what we can Kaizen should also be clear.
Nishibori’s philosophy makes me think. At Toyota, people are familiar with the fact that “Standardized work” is frequently improved, and they know where to apply their creativity. On the other hand, in a traditional environment, standards never improve, and improving them might be seen as a violation. As we implement standardized work, we must consider explaining the “room” where people can apply their creativity.
3️⃣ Technology
Nishibori studied chemistry, and much of his work concerns new product development. He has left 15 principles for those who take part in technology;
Those who participate in technology should recognize that we can't do anything against the law of nature.
Those who participate in technology should gratefully receive the blessings of nature.
Those who participate in technology should never participate in an objective against human morality.
Those who participate in technology should develop their conscience.
Those who participate in technology should always be customer-focused.
Those who participate in technology should always be cautious and never ignore slight changes or variations.
Those who participate in technology should respect creativity, especially originality, and pay attention to all fields of science and technology.
Those who participate in technology should be cautious about the tendency to become too logical or materialistic and work on moral improvement.
Those who participate in technology should, in the spirit of humanity, respect and mutually support others who work in technology.
Those who participate in technology should possess a love of work, not hesitate to make an effort, not have unnecessary anxiety, and enjoy overcoming difficulties.
Those who participate in technology should never allow buck‐passing.
Those who participate in technology should understand how it is essential for business development and consider its economic impact.
Those who participate in technology should never be afraid of mistakes and always be optimistic about the future.
Those who participate in technology should have insight and predictions about its impact on future society and generations based on the environment, safety, and resources.
Those who participate in technology should have courage and continuously work on developing new technology.
Nishibori regrets that he originally overfocused on complicated statistics and mathematical aspects of quality management. He claims that those are secondary compared to human self-improvement. In comparison, Ishikawa mentioned that quality management is about education and training. Both focus on people, but the nuances are slightly different. There is no need to decide which is better. Instead, we need to understand that such different approaches exist and apply the better aspects of both methods.
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