Dr. Juran first began developing a philosophy of quality in 1926 when he started working for the quality inspections division at Western Electric. At the time, managing for quality emphasized statistics and production techniques. Dr. Juran theorized that the field really depended on human factors, especially the work of managers, and that quality problems should be solved systemically. By engaging leadership in addressing quality at its most fundamental levels, Dr. Juran realized there would hardly be a limit to a company’s potential for success.

He centered his philosophy on three key elements: planning, control, and improvement. Dr. Juran developed the Pareto principle, named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, which observes that 80 percent of the problems in management arise from 20 percent of causes. Managers, says Dr. Juran, should concentrate on solving the 20 percent.

In 1951, Dr. Juran’s philosophy coalesced in the first edition of Juran’s Quality Handbook, which is now in its fifth edition. It became the handbook for the new discipline of quality management and helped establish Dr. Juran’s international reputation as the thought leader of the quality field.

Beginning in 1954, Dr. Juran heavily influenced the development of companies in Japan’s postwar economy. His work developing a culture of quality within these burgeoning companies helped lead to Japan’s preeminence in quality achievement in the 1970s and since.

Dr. Juran’s work in Japan also helped many companies around the world develop an institutional memory of what it takes to be a quality leader. In those companies, quality work is properly valued from the lowest-level worker to the highest-level manager. And a company with a cultural embrace of quality will continually strive to improve and learn from past mistakes.

Knowing the importance of institutional memory within companies, Dr. Juran began to consider ways to fortify the effects of his work and research so that his principles and ideas would be a constant resource to companies in America and around the world.

In 1997, the University of Minnesota proposed establishing its then-named Quality Leadership Center, founded in 1993, as a repository of Dr. Juran’s work, and as an anchor for continually developing knowledge in the field of quality. Today, the Joseph M. Juran Center for Leadership in Quality serves as a collective institutional memory for organizations seeking to make permanent their quality advantage, as well as for scholars examining various facets of leadership in quality.

The Juran Center’s research and resources have been called on by legendary companies like Motorola seeking to renew their quality advantage and by newer companies like Hutchinson Technology that strive to build a governance structure that secures the company’s future for generations. The Juran Center has also worked with a number of other organizations on quality leadership issues, including the Mayo Clinic, 3M, Carlson Companies, Cargill, Ford Motor Company, Target Corporation, and Honeywell.