Kaoru Ishikawa- Fishbone Diagram

The Fishbone diagram is one of the many management tools created by Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa. Ishikawa-san was thirty years old when the "little boy" and "fat man" bombs dropped on two of Japan's cities. Working in the Kawasaki shipyards, Dr Ishikawa was also witness to Japan's long road towards recovery and rebuilding which required a lot of hard work coupled with innovation and creativity.
This was when Japan turned to advanced countries such as the United States for ideas and techniques for application in their own context. Quickly discarding their pre-war biases and prejudices, Japanese businesses embraced all management concepts developed by the Americans - for there was just no other way to lower their costs and boost their efficiency.
From an importer of knowledge and ideas, Japan became an exporter of the same when Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa's inventions and contributions in the management field began to be adopted by management and businesses throughout the world.

http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Fishbone_Diagram.html

Kaoru Ishikawa- Quality Circles

Dr Kaoru Ishikawa, amongst other things, gave his name to the Ishikawa diagram. The Ishikawa diagram is also known as the “fishbone diagram” or “cause and effect diagram” and is a problem-solving tool used in Quality Circles.

Kaoru Ishikawa received many esteemed quality awards including the Deming Prize. He led the “Total Quality Control” movement with focus on statistical quality control techniques such as control charts and Pareto charts.

Kaoru Ishikawa led the concept and use of Quality Circles. The intended purpose of a Quality Circle is to;
Support the improvement and development of the company
Respect human relations in the workplace and increase job satisfaction
Draw out employee potential

He believed quality must be company wide – including the product, service, management, the company itself and the people. Quality improvement must be company wide in order to be successful and sustainable.

Many, including Juran and Crosby, consider Kaoru Ishikawa’s teachings to be more successful in Japan than in the West. Quality circles are effective when management understand statistical quality management techniques and are committed to act on their recommendations.

http://www.mftrou.com/kaoru-ishikawa.html

Kaoru Ishikawa- Developing a specifically Japanese quality strategy

The career of Kaoru Ishikawa in some ways parallels the economic history of contemporary Japan. Ishikawa, like Japan as a whole, learned the basics of statistical quality control developed by Americans. But just as Japan's economic accomplishments are not limited to imitating foreign products, so the country's quality achievements—and Ishikawa's in particular—go well beyond the efficient application of imported ideas.
Perhaps Ishikawa's most important contribution has been his key role in the development of a specifically Japanese quality strategy. The hallmark of the Japanese approach is broad involvement in quality, not only top to bottom within the organization, but also start to finish in the product life cycle.

http://www.asq.org/about-asq/who-we-are/bio_ishikawa.html

Kaoru Ishikawa: One Step Further

Kaoru Ishikawa wanted to change the way people think about work. He urged managers to resist becoming content with merely improving a product's quality, insisting that quality improvement can always go one step further. His notion of company-wide quality control called for continued customer service. This meant that a customer would continue receiving service even after receiving the product. This service would extend across the company itself in all levels of management, and even beyond the company to the everyday lives of those involved. According to Ishikawa, quality improvement is a continuous process, and it can always be taken one step further.With his cause and effect diagram (also called the "Ishikawa" or "fishbone" diagram) this management leader made significant and specific advancements in quality improvement. With the use of this new diagram, the user can see all possible causes of a result, and hopefully find the root of process imperfections. By pinpointing root problems, this diagram provides quality improvement from the "bottom up." Dr. W. Edwards Deming --one of Isikawa's colleagues -- adopted this diagram and used it to teach Total Quality Control in Japan as early as World War II. Both Ishikawa and Deming use this diagram as one the first tools in the quality management process.
http://www.skymark.com/resources/leaders/ishikawa.asp

Kaoru Ishikawa In Wikipedia

Kaoru Ishikawa (石川馨) (Ishikawa Kaoru) (1915-1989) was a Japanese University professor and influential quality management innovator best known in North America for the Ishikawa or cause and effect diagram (also known as Fishbone Diagram) that are used in the analysis of industrial process.

Born in Tokyo, the oldest of the eight sons of Ichiro Ishikawa. In 1939 he graduated University of Tokyo with an Engineering degree in applied chemistry. His first job was as a naval technical officer (1939-1941) then moved on to work at the Nissan Liquid Fuel Company until 1947. Ishikawa would now start his career as an associate professor at the University of Tokyo. He then undertook the Presidency of the Musashi Institute of Technology in 1978.
In 1949, Ishikawa joined the Union of Japanese Scientist and Engineers (JUSE) quality control research group. After World War II Japan looked to transform its industrial sector, which in North America was then still perceived as a producer of cheap wind-up toys and poor quality cameras. It was his skill at mobilizing a lot of people towards a specific common goal that was largely responsible for Japan's quality-improvement initiatives. He translated, integrated and expanded the management concepts of Dr. Deming and Dr. Juran into the Japanese system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaoru_Ishikawa