By David Hutchins
Anyone in business who is still alive and active who remembers the 1970’s, and 1980’s will recall it having been a golden age for anyone concerned with Business Performance improvement. Hotels and conference centres across the whole of the Western World were saturated with courses on Quality related subjects many of them on the Japanese business revolutionary topic Total Quality Management (TQM).
There had never been a time in history where there was so much energy being devoted to this subject. At the time it seemed it would go on and on indefinitely as everyone was trying to be better than anyone else.
Suddenly and without warning, by the end of 1992, it was as if it had never happened. So, what transpired?
With little warning there was a huge global recession. It seems the major factors included the 1990 Oil price shock in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the end of the Cold War and subsequent decrease in Defence spending, also, a slump in office building due to over building in the 1980s. In Japan, real estate and stock market prices were over inflated and this bubble burst. In the UK, it became common knowledge that the miracle Japanese economy was in trouble and the fascination with Japanese management practices virtually stopped overnight. The confusion caused by this slump never went away. The impression of business leaders and politicians was ‘we tried it once and it did not work’. The sad thing is that it did work and those organisations that were diligent about how they went about implementing the methods were still reaping a reward but this was not attractive to the media, and most of it went unnoticed despite some amazing business results. For example, in the Belfast local newspaper in the early 1990s the headline featuring the company read ‘From Millstone to Miracle’!
In the meantime, the mistaken loss of confidence in TQM was not lost on an almost unlimited number of mavericks attempting to fill the void and fill it they did, by cherry picking some of the easier to understand tools included in TQM. These were easy to teach but their impact when separated from the remainder of TQM was minimal. . With lucky timing for the authors, the book ‘The Machine that Changed the World’. happened to hit the market just when everyone was in shock and not knowing which way to turn. This was soon followed by Jack Welch jumping on or creating the Six Sigma bandwagon and these events kept managements occupied for two more decades. Just as real markets were beginning to recover, there followed another shock in 2008 when the subprime mortgage market was dealt a savage blow by the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers Bank in the USA causing yet another global upheaval.
So, what effect did all of this have on Japan and on TQM? Interestingly, if you consider the leading exporting companies such as Canon, Brother, Yuasa Batteries, Komatsu, Toyota, Honda, Daikin etc, they carried on developing their TQM regardless of the Global financial situation, but some did not. Unlike many Western Companies that sought loans to cover the hole in their balance sheets these companies did not do that. Instead, they attempted to resolve their problems by tightening their belts severely, clamp down on everything and attempt to remain solvent and ride out the storm. In contrast, many Western companies borrowed, factored their debts and in many cases, lost control, became insolvent, and disappeared. This did not happen on any scale in Japan.
So, what is the situation today? Well, it has not gone unnoticed that the companies that I have mentioned who continued to base their management systems on TQM, have ridden the storm the best. Toyota still dominates the Automotive Market. Komatsu is still a giant, Yuasa Batteries can still claim to be the largest Battery manufacturer in the world. Canon sis still best in class in its markets. Visit Japan to today and it is hard to see they ever had a problem. There are some people sleeping in shop doorways in the major cities but sadly the poor, it seems, will always be there. Apart from that, everyone looks prosperous, well dressed, everywhere is spotlessly clean and to see anything anywhere that looks to be having problems, you would have to look very hard indeed!
So, what is happening today? It seems that whilst Covid was yet another very unwelcome surprise, it finally receded into the shadows in 2023. Cautiously, Japanese companies came out of their shells and now in just two years confidence is flowing back. Last year and again in 2025 we visited Axial Retail, a Supermarket Chain. As soon as you walk through the doors of one of their stores you are stunned by the obvious attention to Quality everywhere and practiced by everyone. Behind the scenes in large writing in different areas you will find PDCA. The staff are engaged in Quality Circles and the pride that is evident everywhere is stunning. We visited another company that stalled its TQM programme during the economic crisis, but it is now being developed with more energy than ever.
Also, not lost on the Japanese industrial mind, is the impact on the economy of TATA Steel in India since it first won the Japanese Deming Grand Prize, the highest Quality Award in the World, in 2012. In 2024 their turnover was $26 billion! This performance achievement is not lost on China either where it is claimed that they have approximately 1 million new Quality Circles a year! I was informed in 1997 at an International Quality Conference in Beijing that they had 35 million then!
Just three weeks ago, JUSE in Japan hosted the International Congress for Quality, ICQ’25. There were 150 papers from all over the world. Over 700 delegates and representatives from IAQ (International Academy for Quality) , ASQ in the USA, CQI from the UK, EOQ representing Europe generally, and many other national and international Quality Professional Bodies. It is the first of a revival of this event which was last run in 2014 and previously every three years since just after WW2. The numbers present at this revival event speak for themselves. The Quality Movement is literally on the move again and in good hands.
Get on the bus whilst you can!
Check out my bio notes in my profile on LinkedIn or a range of specifics by using Google UK and going to David Hutchins Quality. Beware there are other non related David Hutchins's in different fields