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ARTICLE TOOLS
H. James Harrington, Quality Magazine’s 2010
Professional of the Year, is an innovative, ambitious
leader who has dedicated his life to the evolution
and dissemination of quality thinking.
H. James Harrington
has been a vibrant part of the quality movement for
more than half a century. He has held key positions
at IBM, presided over associations, led multiple companies
and produced a large body of writing. Harrington has
travelled the world many times over proclaiming the
quality gospel, advising governments and business
leaders from many nations on quality practices.
Harrington, chief
executive officer of the Harrington Institute (Los
Gatos, CA) and Quality Magazine’s 2010 Professional
of the Year, has had a truly accomplished career,
one that continues to flourish and today finds him
applying quality practices to areas outside of the
typical quality environment.
An Early Education
in Quality
Harrington
was introduced to quality thinking at an early age,
through his father, who was chief inspector at IBM
(Armonk, NY) during the 1920s and 1930s. Even before
he started grade school, the conversation around the
dinner table often was about quality problems at IBM.
During grade school,
Harrington’s father used control charts to average
his test scores each month, and these averages directly
factored into his reward system. For example, Harrington
needed to maintain an average of 88% to reserve the
privilege to go to the movies each week. “It
was very, very meaningful for me,” says Harrington.
“I wanted to go back to the movies every week
because they were serials. I was highly motivated
to get good grades.”
During this time
Harrington also held many jobs, such as paper routes,
picking fruit at farms and working at a shoe factory.
On his 12th birthday, he began working at IBM, setting
pins in the company’s bowling alley, and that
summer he began mowing lawns at the company. In 1947,
afterhigh school, IBM hired him as a full-time apprentice
toolmaker.
The IBM Years
IBM’s
apprentice tool making school was a four-year institution
that taught students tool design and how IBM functioned.
In the early 1950s, Harrington became part of a team
that helped design IBM’s first just-in-time
manufacturing system, while also taking night classes,
which resulted in a bachelor’s degree in electrical
engineering.
After completion
of this project, Harrington was assigned to IBM’s
Federal Systems Division’s component reliability
analysis department where he specialized in the development
of magnetic device and magnetic component reliability
analysis. When the federal contract that the department
was working on was cancelled, Harrington was asked
to be the quality representative to IBM’s diode
and transistor suppliers. He did not want to leave
the development lab for a manufacturing environment,
but there was no other option if he wished to remain
an IBM employee. Harrington took the job.
Some years later
Harrington was asked to establish a failure analysis
laboratory for IBM, and then he was assigned quality
engineering responsibilities for the Titan Missile
Program. He also was assigned to IBM corporate headquarters
where he was part of a team that developed a quality
manual and standard quality reporting system.
In 1962 Harrington
was transferred to IBM’s facility in San Jose,
CA, as the reliability expert tasked with applying
the quality and reliability concepts used in the Titan
Missile Program to an IBM process control system called
the 1710.
“We
applied everything we were using in the military to
a commercial project to see its impact,” says
Harrington. “It was interesting because IBM
gave me an open budget, but they wanted a 10-time
improvement in reliability.”
The one-year project
met all its objectives and the reliability of the
1710 improved by more than 18 times. Harrington says
that this goal was largely accomplished through product
and manufacturing process redesign, as well as improved
vendor processes. “It literally saved IBM billions
of dollars,” says Harrington. “It completely
changed the makeup of our quality system.”
Harrington then
established the IBM Quality Research Center at the
San Jose, CA, location, where, in 1964, he developed
the poor-quality-cost system. This system broke with
the conventional quality logic of the time, which
did not consider the indirect effects of sending defective
parts to the customer, such as customer-incurred cost,
loss-of-reputation cost and lost-opportunity cost.
Throughout
the 1970s and 1980s Harrington had a hand in developing
many innovative quality initiatives at IBM. To counter
the time delay and reduce the cost associated with
assembling computer systems for customers, Harrington
helped develop a field-merged process. At that time,
the common practice was for all computer components
to be assembled and tested before delivery to the
customer. In the field-merged process, certain computer
components could be exempt from this final testing,
provided that they met a very stringent performance
objective.
“That
was advanced thinking at that time,” says Harrington.
“Our competition was putting together total
systems, which gave us a very good competitive advantage.
It would save us a good two months in shipping and
reduce costs tremendously.”
Harrington also
was involved in IBM’s development of process
compatibility. The end result of which ensured not
only that all components—regardless of where
on the globe they were manufactured—met the
same quality requirements, but also that unfinished
product could be moved to different facilities around
the world and the manufacturing process would remain
seamless.
“This
started in the late 1970s—the process benchmarking
philosophy that is so popular today,” says Harrington.
“All key production processes were completely
benchmarked every six months.”
Around this time
IBM realized the importance of concurrent engineering
in the design phase of a product. The company pulled
together a team from all IBM locations comprised of
engineering and manufacturing employees, the goal
being a better synergy between engineering and manufacturing.
“At
that time engineering was very separate from manufacturing,”
says Harrington. “They’d get the design
complete and throw it over the wall to manufacturing.
So what we were doing was engineering the product
for the final production line, rather than engineering
it from a technician standpoint only.”
Harrington’s
part in this effort consisted of developing a process
certification procedure, which evaluated processes
as they moved from stage to stage, from design through
mass production. The process could not advance to
the next stage until the quality assurance department
granted clearance.
In the early 1980s
Harrington was part of a team at IBM that developed
the business process improvement concept. At this
time IBM’s production processes were producing
exemplary performance; however, support organizations,
such as accounting, procurement and maintenance, were
lackluster. In an effort to achieve equal performance
across the board, the team began applying quality
techniques used in manufacturing to these other business
areas. The approach identified, flowcharted and streamlined
major business processes, reducing cycle times and
cutting costs.
Role at ASQ
Harrington
joined the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC),
known today as the American Society for Quality (ASQ),
in 1962. He was an active member and worked his way
through the ranks, eventually being nominated president-elect
in 1984, and serving as president from 1985 to 1986
and then as chairman from 1986 to 1987. “It
was a 20-year project,” says Harrington. “I
held about 20 different chairmanships during that
period.”
During the early
1980s Harrington served as chairman of ASQ’s
international chapter, a chapter that he helped grow
into what he says is still the society’s largest.
While chairman of the chapter, Harrington established
the World Crusade for Quality, which he says is perhaps
his greatest life achievement. This “crusade”
found Harrington leading an international group of
quality professionals on more than 12 occasions. They
toured the world, lecturing in both developed and
developing countries on modern quality practices.
The group worked in concert with local quality associations
to organize the lectures.
Because the speakers
did not ask for compensation for their lectures, the
revenue from the conferences went to the local quality
associations. Harrington says that this often turned
out to be a major source of income for young quality
associations in developing countries.
“It
was a very significant introduction to quality throughout
the world,” says Harrington. “It gave
ASQ an international presence rather than just a local
one.”
The crusade spread
quality culture throughout the world and aimed to
improve relations between host countries and the United
States. The tours led to Harrington being appointed
honorary quality adviser to the Chinese government;
he also was inducted to Singapore’s hall of
fame for helping develop quality systems within the
country. In the United States, his international efforts
led to President Bill Clinton appointing Harrington
to serve as an Ambassador of Good Will.
As honorary quality
advisor to the Chinese government, Harrington was
brought to China four consecutive years to train 150
of the country’s top chief executive officers
each time. “Each year there’d be a different
group of executives, and I had them for two weeks
to teach them quality,” says Harrington. “So
we ended up with most of the major chief executive
officers, presidents and government officials having
the same vocabulary and training in quality.”
While serving as
president and then chairman of the ASQ, Harrington
accomplished much, including the establishment of
a magazine aimed at executives, a book program and
Fortune Magazine dedicating an issue each year to
quality. But Harrington says the greatest achievement
made during this time was getting Congress and President
Reagan to pass the Malcolm Baldrige Award.
Changing Career Paths
After
his tenure at ASQ, Harrington returned to IBM. However,
the return was short lived. Six months at IBM made
Harrington feel that it was time to move on and time
to go into consulting. “I just sort of outgrew
the job,” says Harrington. At ASQ he enjoyed
the resource of an advisory board comprised of leaders
from a number of large corporations.
“I was
working with a different level of people,” says
Harrington. “When I came back to IBM I didn’t
find my job as stimulating as it was in the past.
When I was with ASQ, I found that there was a lot
of good information out there that people who stay
within one company miss.”
Along with some
colleagues, Harrington started Harrington, Hurd and
Rieker (Los Gatos, CA), a consulting firm that focused
on total quality management, strategic planning and
business process improvement. By 1989, this company
was doing very well and another consulting firm, Ernst
& Young (London, England), offered to buy it.
The offer was accepted, and Harrington took a position
at Ernst & Young as its international quality
advisor. In this capacity he worked to help the company’s
process innovation group develop concepts related
to process redesign, process reengineering and change
management.
After 10 years with
Ernst & Young, Harrington left in 2000 and took
the role as chief operating officer at Systemcorp
(Montreal, Canada), a software company that made business
management applications. Systemcorp was experiencing
some financial troubles when Harrington took the job,
but through applying good management principles, Harrington
and his team were able to turn the organization around.
Harrington says that what helped him here was his
experience at Ernst & Young, which taught him
how someone outside the quality department—such
as a chief financial officer or chief executive officer—might
identify uses for quality methodologies.
“I was
able to take and apply quality principles as a chief
operating officer would apply them, rather than how
the vice president of quality would,” says Harrington.
“I’ve done that since, as a means to apply
quality in a more sophisticated manner.”
For example, poor
quality costs in sales and marketing, says Harrington,
far exceed poor quality costs in manufacturing. “The
quality professional plays in manufacturing, which
is not the place where the real costs are, where the
real customer satisfaction level is,” says Harrington.
“Sales and marketing has a greater impact on
customer satisfaction than the product.”
Systemcorp was eventually
sold to IBM, and Harrington went back into consulting,
forming his own company in 2002, the Harrington Institute
(Los Gatos, CA). “The Harrington Institute improves
organizational performance,” says Harrington.
“We’re not focused on quality, cost or
schedule. We focus on overall performance. If a change
doesn’t improve the ROI, output per employee
or customer satisfaction, then it probably shouldn’t
be made.”
Performance,
says Harrington, is the combination of quality, cost
and schedule that provides the best return on investment
to the investor and the highest level of customer
satisfaction to the customer.
“With
Six Sigma companies report on the dollars they save,
and that’s all I see reported,” says Harrington.
“I don’t see them report on customer satisfaction.
Many of the companies that are doing Six Sigma have
customers who are more dissatisfied than they were
before the Six Sigma process was introduced within
the organization. We’ve got to have that balance.
We’ve got to focus on performance.”
Performance, says
Harrington, improves under three conditions: It improves
when productivity increases and quality remains constant;
when productivity remains constant and quality increases;
and when both quality and productivity increase together.
“And
that’s what you’ve got to do,” says
Harrington. “You’ve got to focus on that
complete picture. Performance is what the executives
focus on, it’s what the investors focus on,
it’s what your customer focuses on. And if you
reduce costs but do not share that with your customer,
then you’re not really improving performance
from their standpoint.”
In 2004 Harrington
opened a Middle East branch of the Harrington Institute
in Dubai, a city of the United Arab Emirates. In 2007
he worked with officials in Dubai to redesign the
city’s government.
“The
government wanted to improve customer satisfaction
while reducing cost and relying less on the tax payers’
money,” says Harrington. “That’s
where I see quality methodology going, expanding far
from where we are normally thinking by leading the
organizational alignment activities.”
The success of the
Harrington Institute has been far reaching and has
even brought the company recognition on the television
program “Heartbeat of America,” a program
that tells the success stories of American small businesses.
Currently, Harrington
continues as chief executive officer of the Harrington
Institute and also is chief operating officer of Define
Properties, a construction company in Dubai. At Define
Properties, Harrington has been using quality practices
to improve the company’s construction and sales
processes.
“To
me it’s a real challenge to apply quality methodologies
in the construction field,” says Harrington.
“The project we’re doing is called SPICE:
Streamlined Process Improvement for Construction Excellence.
We’re putting that in place; it will reduce
the cycle time of putting up a 50-story building.”
Life Lesson and America's
Future
With the expansive
and varied career of Harrington in mind—a career
that has touched many continents, cultures and professions—Quality
Magazine asked the 2010 Professional of the Year what
would he most like to impart to the reader of this
article. The answer is heartfelt, but not surprising.
“The
only thing that I’d want to emphasize is that
people around the world are good. I’ve spent
a lot of time in Iran. The people are great. It’s
the governments that are the problem.”
Harrington, who
also lectured in the former Soviet Union during the
Cold War, says that governments need to apply quality
principles as they are applied to businesses. “U.S.
policies need to have quality applied to them,”
says Harrington. “It’s one of the biggest
opportunities we have in our profession. I travel
around the world about 50% of my time and we are making
more and more enemies and fewer and fewer friends.
You just can’t buy true friendship.”
Harrington also
says that America’s largest challenge relating
to the quality of its goods and services—and
quality of life—is reliability. “We don’t
think about reliability as part of quality, but it
is probably the most important part of quality,”
says Harrington. “Our problem is not making
quality; it’s reliability, and we’ve turned
our backs on it.”
Harrington says
that this dearth of reliability explains why American
dominance is slumping. He cites everything from the
financial sector to the automotive industry, from
the education system to the healthcare industry as
suffering from this American lack of reliability.
Harrington says the problem of reliability stems from
poorly designed products and processes, and that a
redesign in these areas would help bring America up
to speed with the rest of the world.
Harrington’s
personal quality crusade shows no sign of letting
up. He continues to innovate and advocate quality
thinking, applying quality concepts to new areas,
and asking us to reevaluate the way we look at quality
today. Q
Editor’s Note:
To learn more about H. James Harrington, visit www.qualitymag.com
to listen to the Q-Cast Podcast.
H. James Harrington
is a prolific author, having written hundreds of technical
reports, magazine articles and more than 35 books.
His books “The Improvement Process” (1987)
and “Poor-Quality Cost” (1987) were written
from ideas he developed while working for IBM, and
served as the bedrock for his first consulting firm,
Harrington, Hurd and Rieker.
Harrington says
he turned to publishing books as a way to keep up
his credentials. While at IBM, Harrington says he
wrote hundreds of technical papers. What frustrated
him was that he would find the ideas he had developed
in his technical papers in other people’s books,
which meant the published author would be credited
with the idea, even though Harrington may have thought
of it first. “As a defense method I started
writing books,” says Harrington. “And
that turned out to be an excellent way of getting
my ideas documented.”
Of his many books,
Harrington feels that “Total Improvement Management”
(1995) is his most important. Total improvement management,
or TIM, states that the key ingredients of an organization’s
many business systems can be combined into an enterprisewide
plan for improvement.
Harrington says
that the second and third books at the top of his
list are “The Improvement Process” and
“Poor-Quality Cost,” respectively. Of
“Poor-Quality Cost” Harrington says it
is important because American businesses have not
yet caught up with the book’s concepts. “They
do not consider the cost of the customer, and if you
look at lost opportunity costs, it’s just ridiculously
high,” says Harrington. “To follow that
book would mean a complete transformation of the quality
system in most companies.”
Steve Wichelecki
wicheleckis@bnpmedia.com
Steve Wichelecki is assistant editor for Quality Magazine
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