History

Juran Institute is an international consulting company founded by quality expert Joseph M. Juran

Joseph M. Juran

Joseph Moses Juran was a 20th century management consultant who is principally remembered as an evangelist for quality and quality management, writing several influential books on those subjects. He was the brother of Academy Award winner Nathan H...

 in 1979. It provides training and consulting services in quality improvement and Lean

Lean manufacturing

Lean manufacturing, lean enterprise, or lean production, often simply, "Lean," is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination...

 management as well as Six Sigma

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1986. , it is widely used in many sectors of industry.Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and...

 certification.

Juran Institute headquarters are based in Southbury, Connecticut

Southbury, Connecticut

Southbury is a town located in western New Haven County, Connecticut, USA. Southbury is located north of Oxford and Newtown; it also is east of Brookfield. Southbury's population was 18,567 at the 2000 census....

 with offices in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, the United Arab Emirates

United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

, and the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

The institute began as an effort to transcribe Juran's decades of knowledge into a series of audiocassettes in the late 1970s, as inspired by a similar effort by Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker

Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an influential writer, management consultant, and self-described “social ecologist.”-Introduction:...

. This effort, with the help of his granddaughter's boyfriend, G. Howland Blackiston eventually became a small business video production company with an office in the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

 Plaza in New York City. Together they produced the "Juran on Quality Improvement" series of videocassettes of which they sold nearly $16 million.

With the success of the videocassette series, customers began to ask for help institutionalizing quality improvement in their businesses. To meet this need, the Juran Institute began offering consulting services and moved its headquarters to Wilton, Connecticut

Wilton, Connecticut

Wilton is a town nestled in the Norwalk River Valley in southwestern Connecticut in the United States. It is located in Fairfield County. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 18,062. In 2007, it was voted as one of CNN Money's "Best Places to Live" in the United States.Located along...

 to be able to attract professionals to add to its consulting staff. In 1987, the Institute hired its first professional manager, Dr. A. Blanton Godfrey from AT&T to be its first CEO.

Sales peaked in 1994 and declined through 1999, but its fortunes turned around with the increasing demand for Six Sigma

Six Sigma

Six Sigma is a business management strategy originally developed by Motorola, USA in 1986. , it is widely used in many sectors of industry.Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects and minimizing variability in manufacturing and...

training.

It is now led by Joseph A. De Feo.