Joseph M. Juran

Joseph Moses Juran (December 24, 1904 – February 28, 2008) was a Romanian-born American engineer, management consultant and author. He was an advocate for quality and quality management and wrote several books on the topics. During World War II, he served as Assistant Administrator of the Lend-Lease Administration. He was the brother of Academy Award winner Nathan Juran.

Early life Juran was born in Brăila, Kingdom of Romania, one of six children born to Gitel and Jakob Juran; they later lived in Gura Humorului. His family was Jewish and as part of the Jewish community in Romania, were subjected to oppression by the authorities and their Romanian gentile neighbors. Escaping antisemitism, his father emigrated to the United States in 1909 with the rest of the family following in 1912. The Juran family settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In deciding to leave Romania the family avoided becoming victims of The Holocaust, as most of the Jews of Gura Humorului were detained and transported to Nazi concentration camps.

Juran had three sisters and two brothers. Rebecca (Betty), Charlotte and Minerva, who earned a doctoral degree and had a career in education, film and art director Nathan Juran and Rudolph (Rudy) the founder of a municipal bond company.

He attended Minneapolis South High School where he excelled, especially in mathematics. He graduated from high school in 1920. He was a chess champion at an early age, and later was dominant in chess at Western Electric. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.

In 1924, Juran joined Western Electric's Hawthorne Works where his first job was troubleshooting in the Complaint Department.

Juran's philosophy emphasized that quality should be managed as an integral part of business strategy, involving all levels of leadership—not just engineers or quality inspectors. His message strongly resonated with Japanese executives, who integrated his teachings into company-wide initiatives. Over time, Juran’s influence contributed to a national transformation in quality thinking, laying the groundwork for what became known as Total Quality Control (TQC) in Japan. By the 1970s, companies like Toyota and Nippon Steel had incorporated Juran’s principles to such an extent that Japanese goods were no longer seen as cheap imitations but as benchmarks of excellence. Juran later reflected on this transformation, stating that “the Japanese revolution in quality was the greatest quality achievement in the history of mankind.”

Contributions

Pareto principle In 1941, Juran came across the work of Vilfredo Pareto and began to apply the Pareto principle to quality issues (for example, 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes). This is also referred to as "the vital few and the trivial many." In later years, Juran preferred "the vital few and the useful many" to signal that the remaining 80% of the causes should not be totally ignored or trivialized.

Management theory When he began his career in the 1920s, the principal focus in quality management was on the quality of the end, or finished, product. The tools used were from the Bell system of acceptance sampling, inspection plans, and control charts. The ideas of Frederick Winslow Taylor dominated.

Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension to quality management. He pushed for the education and training of managers. For Juran, human relations problems were the ones to isolate, and resistance to change was the root cause of quality issues. Juran credits Margaret Mead's book Cultural Patterns and Technical Change for illuminating the core problem in reforming business quality.

The Juran trilogy Juran was one of the first to write about the cost of poor quality. This was illustrated by his "Juran trilogy," an approach to cross-functional management, which is composed of three managerial processes: quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement. Without change, there will be a constant waste; during change there will be increased costs, but after the improvement, margins will be higher, and the increased costs are recouped.

Transferring quality knowledge between East and West During his 1966 visit to Japan, Juran learned about the Japanese concept of quality circles, which he enthusiastically evangelized in the West. He also acted as a matchmaker between U.S. and Japanese companies looking for introductions to each other.

Juran left an unfinished book (37% complete), that he began writing at the age of 98.