H. James Harrington

H. James Harrington (born 1929) is an American author, engineer, entrepreneur, and consultant in performance improvement. Over his career he has developed many concepts, including poor-quality cost and business process improvement.
Harrington has authored 35 books and created ten software packages on performance improvement. In addition, he has written a monthly column for Quality Digest magazine for over eleven years. His career in quality and performance improvement spans 65+ years. He spent forty years with IBM, working on reliability and quality. For a number of years he headed up the Quality Research Center for IBM in San Jose, California. For ten years he was a Principal at Ernst & Young and served as their International Quality Advisor. In 2010 he was named “The Global Leader in Performance Improvement Initiatives” by the Australian Organization for Quality.
He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1952 after four years of service.
Harrington is the president and Chairman of the Walter L. Hurd Foundation that he founded and funds to honor his good friend and business associate, Walter L. Hurd. This foundation focuses on improving performance in the developing countries of Asia.
Some of Harrington’s major accomplishments include:
* 1967—Originated the Poor-Quality Cost concept
* 1981—Originated IBM’s process for Process Qualification
* 1985 - 1990 -- He started developing the Business Process Improvement methodology. This approach was first documented while he was at Ernst & Young and then in Harrington’s 1991 book entitled Business Process Improvement - the Breakthrough Strategy for Total Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness,
* 1998—Developed the Area Activity Analysis concept.
* 2003—Developed the Five Pillars of Organizational Excellence approach.
#1985 - 1990—Developed the Business Process Improvement methodology. (This approach is sometimes referred to as “Business Process Management.”)
#1986 - 1991—Developed the Total Improvement Management (TIM) methodology.
TIM was documented in Harrington’s book entitled Total Improvement Management published in 1995 by McGraw-Hill. a Certified Quality and Reliability Engineer by the American Society for Quality Control, and a Permanent Certified Professional Manager by the Institute of Certified Professional Managers. He is a certified Master Six Sigma Black Belt and received the title of Six Sigma Grand Master. H. James Harrington has an MBA and Ph.D. in Engineering Management and a BS in Electrical Engineering.
Harrington has served as the Chairman of the Advisory Board for E-TQM College and he is now an Honorary Advisory Board member for the Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University Advisory Board.
Harrington’s contributions to performance improvement around the world have brought him many honors. He was appointed the honorary advisor to the China Quality Control Association in 1984 and was elected to the Singapore Productivity Hall of Fame in 1990. He has been named lifetime honorary President of the Asia-Pacific Quality Control Organization and honorary Director of the Association Chilean de Control de Calidad. In 2006 Harrington accepted the Honorary Chairman position of the Quality Technology Park of Iran.
Harrington has been elected a Fellow of the British Quality Control Organization and the American Society for Quality Control. In 2008 he was elected to be an Honorary Fellow of the Iran Quality Association and of the Azerbaijan Quality Association. He was also elected an honorary member of the quality societies in Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Australia and Singapore. He has been listed in the “Who’s Who Worldwide” and “Men of Distinction Worldwide.” He has presented hundreds of papers on performance improvement and organizational management structure at the local, state, national, and international levels.
Recognition
* The Harrington/Ishikawa Medal, presented yearly by the Asian Pacific Quality Organization, was half named after H. James Harrington to recognize his many contributions to the region, the other half being Kaoru Ishikawa.
* The Harrington/Neron Medal was named after H. James Harrington in 1997 for his many contributions to the quality movement in Canada.
* Harrington Best TQM Thesis Award was established in 2004 and named after H. James Harrington by the European Universities Network and Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University.
* Harrington Chair in Performance Excellence was established in 2005 at the Sudan University.
* Harrington Excellence Medal was established in 2007 to recognize an individual who uses the quality tools in a superior manner.
Harrington has received many awards, among them the Benjamin L. Lubelsky Award, the John Delbert Award, the Administrative Applications Division Silver Anniversary Award as the leading contributor to the advancement in quality management over the past 25 years, and the Inspection Division Gold Medal Award. He received five Testimonial Awards from ASQ for his outstanding contributions in 1974, 1978, 1981, 1983 and 1988. In 1996, he received the ASQC’s Lancaster Award in recognition of his international activities. In 2001 he received the Magnolia Award in recognition for the many contributions he has made in improving quality in China. In 2002 Harrington was selected by the European Literati Club to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Literati Award for Excellence ceremony in London. The award was given to honor his excellent literature contributions to the advancement of quality and organizational performance. Also, in 2002 Harrington was awarded the International Academy of Quality President’s Award in recognition for outstanding global leadership in quality and competitiveness, and contributions to IAQ as Nominations Committee Chair, Vice President, and Chairman. In 2003 Harrington received the Edwards Medal from the American Society for Quality (ASQ). The Edwards Medal is presented to the individual who has demonstrated the most outstanding leadership in the application of modern quality control methods, especially through the organization and administration of such work. In 2004 he received the Distinguished Service Award which is ASQ’s highest award for service granted by the Society. In 2008 Dr. Harrington was awarded the Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award (UAE) in recognition of his superior performance as an original Quality and Excellence Guru who helped shape modern quality thinking. In 2009 Harrington was selected as the Professional of the Year (2009). Also in 2009 he received the Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University Medal. In 2010 the Asian Pacific Quality Association (APQO) awarded Harrington the APQO President’s Award for his “exemplary leadership.” The Australian Organization of Quality NSW’s Board recognized Harrington as “the Global Leader in Performance Improvement Initiatives” in 2010.
Books by Harrington
Harrington has published hundreds of technical reports and magazine articles. He wrote a monthly column in the Quality Digest magazine from 1997 to 2010. He has authored 35 books, which are:
# The Improvement Process: How America's Leading Companies Improve Quality; one of best selling business books of 1997.
# Poor-Quality Cost; 1987.
# Excellence—The IBM Way; 1988.
# The Quality/Profit Connection; 1988.
# Business Process Improvement; 1991—the first book on Process Redesign.
# The Mouse Story; 1991 (out of print).
# Of Tails and Teams; 1994.
# Total Improvement Management; 1995.
# High Performance Benchmarking; 1996.
# The Complete Benchmarking Implementation Guide: Total Benchmarking Management; 1996.
# ISO 9000 and Beyond: From Compliance to Performance Improvement; 1996.
# The Business Process Improvement Workbook: Documentation, Analysis, Design, and Management of Business Process Improvement; 1997.
# The Creativity Toolkit: Provoking Creativity in Individuals and Organizations; 1998.
# Statistical Analysis Simplified: The Easy-to-Understand Guide to SPC and Data Analysis; 1998.
# Area Activity Analysis: Aligning Work Activities and Measurements to Enhance Business Performance; 1998.
# ISO 9000 Quality Management System Design: Optimal Design Rules for Documentation, Implementation, and System Effectiveness (ISO 9000 Quality Management System Design) - co author; 1998.
# Reliability Simplified: Going Beyond Quality to Keep Customers for Life; 1999.
# ISO 14000 Implementation: Upgrading Your EMS Effectively; 1999.
# Performance Improvement Methods: Fighting the War on Waste; 1999.
# Simulation Modeling Methods: To Reduce Risks and Increase Performance; 2000.
# Project Change Management: Applying Change Management to Improvement Projects; 2000.
# E-Business Project Manager; 2002.
# Process Management Excellence: the Art of Excelling in Process Management (Five Pillars of Organizational Excellence); 2005.
# Project Management Excellence: the Art of Excelling in Project Management (Five Pillars of Organizational Excellence); 2005.
# Change Management Excellence: The Art of Excelling in Change Management (Five Pillars of Organizational Excellence); 2005.
# Knowledge Management Excellence: The Art of Excelling in Knowledge Management (Five Pillars of Organizational Excellence); 2005.
# Resource Management Excellence: The Art of Excelling in Resource Management (Five Pillars of Organizational Excellence); 2005.
# Improving Healthcare Quality and Cost with Six Sigma; 2006.
# Making Teams Hum; 2007.
# Advanced Performance Improvement Approaches: Waging the War on Waste II; 2007.
# Six Sigma Green Belt Workbook; 2008.
# Six Sigma Yellow Belt Workbook; 2008.
# Fast-Action Solution Technique: Save A Million Dollars in Two Days; (2008).
# Strategic Performance Improvement Approaches: Waging the War on Waste III; 2008.
# Corporate Governance: From Small to Mid-Sized Organizations; 2009.
Harrington’s books have been published in the following languages:
* French
* Spanish
* Arabic
* Portuguese
* Romanian
* Hebrew
* Swedish
* Chinese
* Korean
* Russian
* Italian
Software by Harrington
In 1993, he produced the interactive computer program, Benchmarking With H. James Harrington. In 1995, in conjunction with Systemcorp, he released two CD-ROMs, H.J. Harrington’s ISO 9000 - Step by Step and H.J. Harrington’s QS-9000 - Step by Step. Also in 1995, he developed a screen saver with 2000 key thoughts on performance improvement with a 50,000-word support text. In 1997, he released a CD-ROM entitled Management Mentor. He has also released a series of CD-ROMs related to performance improvement, as follows:
# Creative Suspenders - 1998
# Making Better Decisions with Numbers - 1998
# Area Activity Analysis - 1999
# Reliability Simplified - 1999
# ISO 14000 and Beyond - 1999
# War on Waste - 1999
# Project Change Management - 2000
# Simulation Modeling Methods - 2000

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