HIDA JOURNAL 2014 SPRING No.4

16/28

14 HIDA JOURNALDate:December 4, 2013Location:HIDA Kansai Kenshu CenterSpeakers:Dr. Hideo Iwasaki, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Kinki UniversitySadao Takeda, Senior Managing Director, HIDATakeda: First, I would like to express my appreciation for the guidance and support that you have been giving us for many years as the program director in our Quality Control Training Course (QCTC). I would also like to take this opportunity to offer my congratulations to you on receiving the 2013 Deming Prize for Individuals the other day. We, at HIDA, are very glad that your long years of research on Total Quality Management (TQM) and related statistical methods have been highly appreciated.Dr. Iwasaki, you talked about the 47 years following your getting introduced to quality control in your acceptance lecture, in which you said that your encounter with the late Professor Tsutau Hanada meant so much to you. Could you share with us your memories of Professor Hanada and tell us what specific aspects of quality control appealed to you that much?Iwasaki: When I was in my senior year of the Osaka Institute of Technology, I enrolled myself in a quality control seminar, where Professor Hanada agreed to become my supervisor. Professor Hanada, who had majored in mathematics in Kyoto University, was teaching operations research in the university. In the seminar, I worked on difficult mathematical formulas every day, for example to work out the hit probabilities of anti-aircraft artillery against B29 and other bombers during the war. One day I accompanied Professor Hanada to a false teeth manufacturing plant in Kyoto. As soon as we arrived at the plant, I was given a stopwatch to measure time between processes. I ran about in the plant, collected data on worksite and developed a control chart. In those days, we still did not have the technology of PCs as we do today. So, I had to prepare the control chart by putting ink into a ruling pen and drawing on tracing paper. This means that it was impossible to make partial revisions. In fact, I remember doing it over and over again, perhaps about 200 times, using the same data. Visiting actual worksites in person like this has taught me the joy of collecting and analyzing data on the spot. I think that I have learned the most from such experiences and that is what is most intriguing about quality control.Later on I learned that Professor Hanada had been instructing quality control in India for about 10 years since around 1955 and before that he had acted as one of the first instructors for the QC Basic Course of the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers, which was launched in 1949. Given that his former students in the Basic Course include some leading figures in the field of quality control, such as the late Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa, Professor Hanada sure was the grand old man of the world of quality control. I feel privileged to have gotten to know someone with such grand accomplishments. Indeed, he was my great teacher to whom I owe what I am today.Takeda: Now may I ask you what got you involved in QCTC in the first place?Iwasaki: The first course of QCTC was held in 1979, in which the late Dr. Yoshio Kondo (Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University) acted as the program director while other lecturers included the late Dr. Teiichi Ando (Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University), the late Dr. Kunisuke Ichikawa (Professor Emeritus, Osaka University) and the late Dr. Junpei Ikeda (Professor, Osaka Electro-Communication University). However, I did not participate in the first course as a lecturer. If my memory serves me right, it was the second or third course, the curriculum of which was built upon the previous one or ones, that I took part in for the first time, to deliver lectures on statistical analysis. Then, Dr. Kondo asked me, before the implementation of the 29th QCTC, to act as the program director for the course. I have been serving this role since then.Takeda: To this day, QTCT has had over 700 participants in total. This means that an enormous number of people have learned Japanese-style quality control in the course. Region-wise, the great majority of ex-participants were from Asia, and the top three countries are India, Bangladesh and Thailand.Iwasaki: Looking back on the history of quality control in Japan reveals that 1979 and 1980 marked major milestones. The 1979 was when Japanese-style quality control was hailed as the greatest thing across the world while American-style quality control did not work very well. Then, the year 1980 was when a TV program that examined why Japanese quality control was doing better than American one was broadcasted (“If Japan Can…Why Can’t We?” by the National Broadcasting Company) and marked the beginning of the comeback of American-style quality control.The program director of QCTC, Dr. Hideo Iwasaki (Professor Emeritus, Kinki University), was awarded the 2013 Deming Prize for Individuals. In the acceptance lecture, he talked about how he had got to know his teacher Professor Tsutau Hanada and expressed his appreciation to those who had been supporting him in the world of quality control and his family members, in his modest, unpretentious way. His lecture has given us renewed respect for the importance of daily improvement efforts.[Editorial Office]2013 Deming Prize for Individuals: Acceptance Lecture, Award Ceremony and CelebrationAwarded the Deming Prize for Individuals and the Deming PrizeCelebration (Dr. Iwasaki on left and Senior Managing Director, Takeda on right)Dialogue: “Roles of the Quality Control Training Course (QCTC) and Human Resource Development in the Future”

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer9以上が必要です