| 22 January 1901 | Sir John Wolfe-Barry (the man who designed London’s Tower Bridge) instigated the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers to form a committee to consider standardizing iron and steel sections. |
| 1911 | Frederick W. Taylor published “The Principles of Scientific Management.” |
| 1924 | Walter A. Shewhart, a statistician at Bell Laboratories, developed the control charts, and principles of statistical process control. |
| 1925 | Sir Ronald Fisher published the book, Statistical Methods for Research Workers, and introduced the concept of ANOVA. |
| 1937 | Joseph Juran introduced the Pareto principle as a means of narrowing on the vital few. |
| 1940 | The acceptance sampling plan was developed by Harold F Dodge and Harry G Roming. |
| 1943 | Kaoru Ishikawa developed the cause and effect diagram (also known as fishbone diagram). |
| 1946 | The Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineering (JUSE) established. |
| 1946 | The International Organization for Standardization was founded in Geneva, Switzerland. |
| 16 February 1946 | The American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) was formed. |
| 1947 | Dr. Edwards Deming was sent to Japan to help Japanese rejuvenate their industries. |
| 1950 | Genrich Altshuller developed the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ). |
| 1951 | Deming prize instituted. |
| 1951 | Juran published the first edition of “Quality Control Handbook.” |
| 1954 | Juran’s reputation in quality management led the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers to invite him to Japan. |
| 1960 | The first “quality control circles” were formed in Japan and simple statistical methods were used for quality improvement. |
| 1960s | The concept of Kaizen developed. |
| 1961-1964 | The concept of Poka Yoke developed by Shigeo Shingo. |
| 1966 | Dr. Yoji Akao introduced Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Methodology. |
| 1968 | Kaoru Ishikawa published the Guide to Quality Control. |
| 1969 | Dr. Shingo Shigeo, as part of JIT, pioneered the concept of Single Minute Exchange of Dies. |
| 1969 | Ishikawa emphasized the use of Seven Quality Tools. |
| 1969 | ASQC co-sponsors the first International Congress in Quality Control, hosted by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers in Tokyo. |
| 1970s | Dr. Taguchi promoted the concept of Quality Loss Function. |
| 1977 | International Association for Quality Circles founded. |
| 1979 | BS 5750 was issued. This was later replaced with ISO 9001:1987. |
| 1979 | Philip Crosby published his book “Quality is Free.” |
| 24 June 1980 | NBC aired the television documentary “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?. |
| 1980s | Professor Noriaki Kano developed the Kano model which classifies customer preferences into five categories: Attractive, One-Dimensional, Must-Be, Indifferent, Reverse. |
| 1982 | In Out of the Crisis, published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. |
| 1986 | Six Sigma formulated by Bill Smith in Motorola. |
| 1986 | Masaaki Imai established the Kaizen Institute to help Western companies introduce Kaizen concepts, systems and tools. |
| 15 March 1987 | ISO issued the first version of the ISO 9000 series. (ISO 9001:1987) |
| 1987 | Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was established. |
| 1988 | Motorola becomes the first company to win Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. |
| 15 September 1988 | Presidents of 14 European companies came together to create the European Foundation for Quality Management. |
| 1994 | QS9000 quality standard developed by a joint effort of the ‘Big Three’ automakers, General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford. |
| 1994 | ISO issued the second version of the ISO 9000 series. (ISO 9001:1994) |
| 1995 | General Electric (GE) launched the Six Sigma initiative. |
| 1997 | ASQC drops ‘Control’ from its name, becomes ASQ. |
| 1999 | ISO/TS 16949 1st Edition was released. |
| 2000 | ISO issued the third version of the ISO 9000 series. (ISO 9001:2000) |
| 2008 | ISO issued the fourth version of the ISO 9000 series. (ISO 9001:2008) |
| 2015 | ISO issued the fifth version of the ISO 9000 series. (ISO 9001:2015) |
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