Quality circles were at their most popular during the 1980s, but continue to exist in the form of Kaizen groups and similar worker participation schemes.
They meet regularly on company time and are trained by competent persons (usually designated as facilitators) who may be personnel and industrial relations specialists trained in human factors and the basic skills of problem identification, information gathering and analysis, basic statistics, and solution generation.
[6] Quality circles are generally free to select any topic they wish (other than those related to salary and terms and conditions of work, as there are other channels through which these issues are usually considered).
Handbook of Quality Circle: Quality circle is a people-development concept based on the premise that an employee doing a certain task is the most informed person in that topic and, as a result, is in a better position to identify, analyse, and handle work-related challenges through their innovative and unique ideas.
However this was not successful in the United States, as the idea was not properly understood and implementation turned into a fault-finding exercise – although some circles do still exist.
In a structures-fabrication and assembly plant in the south-eastern US, some quality circles (QCs) were established by the management (management-initiated); whereas others were formed based on requests of employees (self-initiated).
[17] Attributions of quality circles' problem-solving failure vary across participants of QCs: Management, supporting staff, and QC members.
[19] The idea of SQCs was presented by City Montessori School (CMS) Lucknow India at a conference in Hong Kong in October 1994.
It was developed and mentored by two engineers of Indian Railways PC, Bihari and Swami Das, in association with Principal Dr. Kamran of CMS Lucknow India.
They were inspired and facilitated by Jagdish Gandhi, who founded CMS after his visit to Japan, where he learned about Kaizen.
It monitors and facilitates student quality circle activities in its member countries, which number more than a dozen.