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2015

The age of quality innovation

Sang M. Lee
University of Nebraska - Lincoln, slee1@[Link]

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Lee International Journal of Quality Innovation (2015) 1:1
DOI 10.1186/s40887-015-0002-x

EDITORIAL Open Access

The age of quality innovation

Sang M Lee

Correspondence: slee1@[Link]
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Abstract
Lincoln, USA
In this inaugural issue of International Journal of Quality Innovation, the Editor-in-Chief
reports the evolution of quality management and the need for innovative research
for creating new quality values.
Keywords: Evolution of quality concepts; Age of quality innovation; New quality values

Evolution of quality management

Quality management has been with us from the very beginning of human history. In
the hunt and gathering economy, humans worked day and night to find enough food,
shelter, and clothing to survive. They had very limited choices and often had to do with
whatever they could find. Thus, the level of quality management was almost non-
existent. As people began to accumulate knowledge about better ways to secure the
food they needed to survive, the agricultural economy was born. Humans began to
plant crops and grow livestock for sustainability. Still, the demand exceeded supply for
a comfortable living, and quality management was rudimental at best.
With the arrival of the industrial revolution, people began to produce goods in a
much more effective way and the luxury of choosing the best good to use became the
basic quality management focus among affluent people. In the 19th and 20th centuries,
a massive industrialization took place and the information economy gradually became
a reality in the later half of the 20th century. Supply began to exceed demand for most
goods and producers began to aggressively market their goods to attract customers
through advertising and marketing. One of the key strategies for attracting customers
for market expansion was quality management, offering customers what they needed
and wanted. Today, we live in the innovation and convergence economy. Several mega
trends (e.g., globalization, digitization, changing industry mix, changing demographics,
commoditization of value chain processes for products and services, the exploding
emerging economies, and the deteriorating environment) have helped open the era of
innovation and new value-creating opportunities through convergence.
Today, many innovative applications of the Internet (e.g., Internet of Things: IoT,
Internet of Everything: IoE), cloud computing, robotics, transportation technologies,
big data analytics, social network services, artificial intelligence, and convergenomics
[1] are helping organizations and individuals create new value that most people did
not even realize they were missing. This means that there are massive new opportun-
ities to develop new products and services that generate both supply and new blue
ocean markets [2]. In this new environment, the concept of quality has dramatically
© 2015 Lee; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License
([Link] which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly credited.
Lee International Journal of Quality Innovation (2015) 1:1 Page 2 of 5

changed from the conventional utilitarian focus. This broad-stroke generalization pro-
vides a glimpse that the concept of quality is subject to a changing environment and
competitive ecosystem.

(1) Early quality concepts and management systems

Quality management has been a major concern of people throughout history. For ex-
ample, skilled Egyptian architects, surveyors, stone cutters, and builders used high quality
measures to built miraculously large pyramids (e.g., The Great Pyramid of Giza, circa
2,560 BC). During the helm of Emperor Qin Shihuang in China’s Qin Dynasty (221-210
BC), expert builders erected the Great Wall and skilled sculptors designed thousands of
Terracotta soldiers, all based on precise standards of quality. During the Middle Age in
Europe, the system of craftsmanship was established to train skilled workers who pro-
duced quality goods and services through the career steps of apprenticeship, journeymen,
and masters. Suffice to say, some sort of quality management system existed in almost
every country throughout its economic and cultural development.
The late 19th century until World War II could be described as the “producer cen-
tric” economy. Taking advantage of the rapidly developing industrial technologies, man-
ufacturers began to mass-produce goods through assembly lines, Frederick Taylor’s
Scientific Management, human resource management systems, and the like, as all they
produced was gobbled up by consumers [3]. However, with the accelerating volume of
production, consumers began to have a choice in selecting the goods they wanted.
Thus, manufacturers began to use some sort of “product-focused” quality control. The
product engineers and process designers began to pay attention to the specifications re-
quired for the product; thus the initial quality concept meant to meet the standards
and specifications that defined the attributes of the product (e.g., usability, perform-
ance, reliability, durability, conformance, serviceability, etc.). Consequently, the initial
quality management system dealt with inspection for detecting defects in meeting the
specifications. The inspection method used was based on Shewhart’s control chart at
the Bell Labs and the statistical process control (SPC) was born [4]. Many of the quality
gurus (Walter Shewhart, Harold Dodge, Joseph Juran, and W. Edwards Deming, among
many others) served in the quality inspection department of Western Electric Company
in the 1920s [5].

(2) The middle 20th century

After World War II, U. S. firms were primarily concerned with producing sufficient
amounts of goods to satisfy the increasing consumer demand. Thus, quality manage-
ment was relegated to the quality control and inspection department. However, most
human talents dedicated to the war efforts soon returned to the private sector, and the
supply of goods soon met or exceeded demand. Business firms began to recognize qual-
ity as a source of competitive advantage. Several important quality management ap-
proaches were introduced around this time:
Joseph Juran’s Quality Control Handbook (later published as Juran Trilogy, [6]),
Armand Feigenbaum’s Total Quality Control [7], W. Edwards Deming’s integrated con-
cept of quality (later became the 14 Points of Quality Management, [8]), Philip Crosby’s
Preventive Quality Management [9], among others. Right after World War II, the
Lee International Journal of Quality Innovation (2015) 1:1 Page 3 of 5

defeated Japan requested the help of the U. S. government in its efforts to rebuild its
devastated economy. Drs. Juran and Deming were sent to Japan to help the Union of
Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) as consultants to teach the concepts of qual-
ity, statistical process control and total quality control (TQC). Japanese manufacturers
pursued these quality principles to develop Kaizen (continuous improvement) and sub-
sequently a system known as company-wide quality control (CWQC).

(3) Total quality management and business excellence models

In the post war era, American firms became complacent, due to the political and eco-
nomic leadership of the country. Simultaneously, Japanese firms had the sense of ur-
gency to rebuild its economy through export of manufactured goods. Armed with the
knowledge of CWQC, pursuit of excellence, highly motivated and cheap manpower,
and the newly opening global market, Japanese firms became formidable competitors.
Many western firms visited Japan to benchmark Japanese CWQC, Toyota’s just-in-time
system (e.g., quality at the source and quick response systems), and bottom-up manage-
ment systems (e.g., quality circles). Based on this new knowledge, U. S. firms developed
the concept of total quality management (TQM) [10]. Many new innovative quality
programs have since developed, such as Motorola’s Six Sigma, ISO 9000 series, Toyota’s
Lean Management, and the like [11]. Thus, quality became not simply the concern of
the manufacturing process (Little q) but the strategic imperative for the entire
organization (Big Q) [5].
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, globalization became a reality. To compete
in the global marketplace, quality is an essential requirement for market success. Japan
established the Deming Prize in 1951 to recognize the quality accomplishments of
Japanese firms. The U. S. Department of Commerce established the Malcolm Baldrige
National Quality Award (MBNQA) in 1987 to promote the principles of TQM in
manufacturing/service industries and not-for-profit organizations. The European Foun-
dation for Quality Management (EFQM) launched its own quality award, the European
Quality Award (EQA), in 1992. Since then, a number of countries followed suit to es-
tablish national quality awards, all based on the general frameworks of Deming Prize,
MBNQA, and EQA. Also, similar awards have been established in different industries,
such as health care.

(4) Quality innovation

In the fast evolving global economy and with the increasing manufacturing prowess of
emerging economies in the new millennium, there has been a dramatic change in the indus-
try mix in advanced countries. For example, in the U. S. today, manufacturing has less than
13% of jobs, agriculture about 2%, governments 5%, with the remainder in the service sec-
tor, especially in knowledge-intensive industries such as biotech, health care, ICT, logistics,
hospitality and tourism, entertainment, education, and the like. Consequently, quality man-
agement has gradually developed to include service excellence. Thus, SERVQUAL has be-
come a popular research topic [12]. Even for manufactured goods, product quality alone
has become insufficient to attract customers and gain their loyalty. As a matter of fact, the
most significant financial return no longer comes from simply selling a product, but from
downstream after-sale services such as maintenance, upgrades, warranties, financing and
Lee International Journal of Quality Innovation (2015) 1:1 Page 4 of 5

the like. Products need to be packaged with service innovation to provide value that can de-
light customers. iPhone apps, warranty packages for home appliances, the navigation system
and SiriusXM Radio package for new automobiles, etc. are good examples. Thus, many
firms have developed the product service system (PSS) to offer new customer value through
an integrated package of products and services.
Today, the concept of quality has long passed the traditional utilitarian standards and
measures. Producing global quality goods and services at reasonable price is simply a
market entry requirement. In addition, customers also expect speed in delivery and op-
portunities for customization. New customer value now includes hedonic qualities such
as a sense of safety and security, aesthetics, well-being, engagement, and participation.
Furthermore, many customers seek opportunities to experience the process of value
creation or co-creation with the producer. Many new ventures are even being created
for sharing (Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Apple’s App Store, etc.), co-creation (e.g., user gener-
ated content, do-it-yourself (DIY) agricultural tourism, archeological tourism), and the
like. Another new customer value is environmental sustainability. Customers are not
only interested in, but also active partners with corporations for “being green” (e.g.,
ISO 14001, ISO 24000).
Today, quality management is no longer concerned with producing and selling “fit to
use” goods to the customer. Instead, it is directly tied to the strategic imperative of
organizational innovation for world-class performance. Thus, the task of quality man-
agement is not only to explore what the customer needs based on the customer centric
perspective, but to co-create what the customer will need in the future in collaboration
with other stakeholders including suppliers, employees, the general public (crowd sour-
cing), partner organizations, governments, and even competitors. Quality management
now falls under the umbrella of organizational innovation. Innovation can be defined
narrowly as scientific breakthroughs, inventions, patents, and new technologies. How-
ever, in the realm of management, we should define innovation broadly as “ the on-
going process of exploring for new ideas or approaches that can be applied differently
than before to create new or greater value” [1,13]. There are different types of
innovation such as incremental, disruptive, and radical. Quality innovation can be in-
volved in any of these types, but disruptive and radical innovations will bring quantum
changes to the concept of quality.
There are many possibilities for value creation through organizational innovation.
The most widely recognized areas are developing new products, services, or ventures;
redesigning the value chain architecture for greater efficiency; reinventing the concept
of customer value; expanding the customer base; and introducing new business models
[1]. Quality innovation can take place in any of these five areas. However, the develop-
ment of new products/services and creating new customer value should be the primary
foci for their obvious impact on performance excellence.
Organizational innovation has evolved over the years from Innovation 1.0 –closed
innovation (e.g., Proctor & Gamble – “Invented here”; NASA – “As only NASA can”)
to Innovation 2.0 – collaborative innovation (e.g., collaborative value chains with part-
ner organizations), to Innovation 3.0 – open innovation (e.g., searching for any viable
source of new ideas, including collective intelligence and crowd sourcing), and now to
Innovation 4.0 – co-innovation (e.g., integrating collaborative, open, and co-creating in-
novations through a unique organizational convergence platform) [13]. We are now in
Lee International Journal of Quality Innovation (2015) 1:1 Page 5 of 5

the co-innovation age of quality management where organizations are open for collabor-
ation, co-creation, and use of leading-edge technologies for value creation. Today, ad-
vanced mobile technologies, wearable devices, IoT, IoE, cloud computing, ubiquitous
computing, sensing devices and machine learning based artificial intelligence allow orga-
nizations to collect big data and use analytics to extract valuable information. Many social
network and mobile ICT firms have accurate information about customers’ tastes, behav-
iors, life styles, latent needs, and even inner feelings. The real key of effective co-
innovation for quality management is how to transform such high-order information into
accurate and useful business intelligence. The organization should develop a convergence
platform with its unique tacit knowledge about core competencies required to satisfy its
customers’ current and future needs. Such a convergence platform is inimitable – and
thus sustainable – to leverage the competitive advantage of the organization. This re-
searcher and colleagues have been exploring the application of “design thinking” princi-
ples to co-innovation for quality excellence, “design for quality innovation (D4QI).”

The inaugural issue of International Journal of Quality Innovation

I am truly honored to launch the International Journal of Quality Innovation as its
Editor-in-Chief. This effort has become possible because of the tireless support of Mr.
Nicholas Philipson, Editorial Director for Business, Economics and Statistics of Springer
Publishers. The journal will be partially supported by the Korean Society of Quality Man-
agement under the leadership of President Dr. Wan Sun Shin and the former President,
Dr. Hanjoo Yoo. Dr. Jeongil Choi of Soongsil University, Korea will serve as the Associate
Editor. The Editorial Board of the journal is composed of renowned experts in the fields
of operations, supply chain management, quality management, and innovation through-
out the world. Most people hold distinguished university professorships and directorships
of research centers at their respective institutions, have served or currently serving as
presidents of professional organizations, and/or editors-in-chief of global journals. I am
totally confident that this journal will make important contributions to the field and be-
come a success under the guidance of such distinguished professionals.
Received: 11 January 2015 Accepted: 21 February 2015

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