Most all of us know the story about how Dr. Edwards Deming became the father of quality control in Japan. With their factories and infrastructure destroyed, Deming helped rebuild post-war Japan into the industrial powerhouse we know. Deming’s reputation is so strong in Japan that the awarding of the annual Deming Prize for quality is broadcast live on TV.
Most of don’t know, however, the story of how China’s productivity revolution began some nine years ago. The improbable tale, written in a fascinating Wall Street Journal article (Nov.6-7,2010), describes Gavriel Salvendy, a 72 year old Hungarian-Israeli-American professor who is the father of Industrial Engineering in China. Dividing his time between China’s MIT (Tsinghua University in Beijing) and Purdue, Salvendy tore up the traditional Chinese academic hierarchy. Now more than 200 IE programs have sprung up around China mimicking that at Tsinghua.
I hope you can take 5 minutes to click on the link to the WSJ article and enjoy it as much as I did.