Kaoru Ishikawa

Kaoru Ishikawa (13 July 1915 to 16 April 1989) was a Japanese organizational theorist and a professor in the engineering faculty at the University of Tokyo who was noted for his quality management innovations. Born in Tokyo, he graduated from the University of Tokyo with an engineering degree in applied chemistry in 1937, worked as a naval technical officer from 1939 to 1941 and at the Nissan Liquid Fuel Company from 1941 to 1947, and began his academic career in 1947. He joined the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers in 1949 and became president of the Musashi Institute of Technology in 1978. He is considered a key figure in the development of quality initiatives in Japan, particularly the quality circle, and is best known outside Japan for the cause and effect diagram that bears his name, also called the fishbone diagram.