Quality Circles
The term quality circles refers to small groups of line employees (usually ten or fewer) who meet periodically outside of regular work hours to discuss ways to improve the quality of products they produce and the efficiency and effectiveness of the production processes they oversee. Although nominally voluntary, supervisors typically initiate quality circles, and attendance is considered by employees as a required part of their jobs. Proponents consider quality circles an effective way to foster a sense of involvement and to effectively harness the knowledge and expertise of lower-ranking workers. According to a 1994 Japanese Ministry of Labor report, 70 percent of Japanese firms with over five thousand workers and 61 percent of firms with one to five thousand employees have established groups of this kind.
The inspiration for the development of quality circles is attributed to American advisers W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, who were brought to Japan under U.S. sponsorship in the early 1950s to help Japanese industry address rampant quality problems. The American statistical quality control techniques that were introduced at this time were then adapted to the Japanese context during the late 1950s and early 1960s as part of the Total Quality Control (TQC) movement promoted throughout Japanese industry by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) with government backing. What was distinctive about the JUSE's effort was its emphasis on moving responsibility for quality control out of the exclusive ken of specialized staff employees to include rank-and-file line workers. Quality circles first emerged in the early 1960s as study groups devoted to discussing JUSE publications. The JUSE subsequently established regional quality circle promotion offices and held quality circle conventions and other gatherings. A primary motivation on the part of Japanese managers in encouraging quality circles was the fear that Japanese manufacturers would lose out to foreign competition as Japanese trade rules were liberalized. There was also a concern about radicalism and alienation among younger workers.
Quality circles were considered one of the secrets of Japanese industrial success during the 1980s boom in foreign interest in Japanese management techniques. Japanese firms introduced quality circles in their overseas subsidiaries, and they have been an important component in the Japanese government's international technical cooperation programs. The Singaporean government has gone so far as to establish an award for the country's most outstanding quality circles.
Further Reading
Cole, Robert E. (1992) "Some Cultural and Social Bases of Japanese Innovation: Small-Group Activities in Comparative Perspective." In The Political Economy of Japan, vol. 3: Cultural and Social Dynamics, edited by Shumpei Kumon and Henry Rosovsky. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 292–318.
Tsutsui, William M. (1998) Manufacturing Ideology: Scientific Management in Twentieth-Century Japan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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