VOA慢速英语 2008 0523a

Economics¹ Report - Joseph Juran, 1904-2008: A Life of Quality Control
22 May 2008

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.

Recently the business world lost a leader in quality control. Joseph Juran died at the age of one hundred and three. He developed ideas that are still important today to improving the quality of products.
　

Joseph Juran

Joseph Juran was born in Braila, Romania. His family came to the United States in nineteen twelve when he was eight. They settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

He studied electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota. He was also the school champion at the game of chess. After college, the Western Electric Company put him to work on mathematical methods of quality control.

He became interested in the idea he termed "vital few and trivial² many." This idea is popularly known as the "eighty-twenty rule." It could mean, for example, that eighty percent of manufacturing problems result from twenty percent of the causes.

He named it the "Pareto principle," for the Italian economist³ Vilfredo Pareto. A century ago, Pareto observed that eighty percent of the wealth in Italy went to twenty percent of the population.

But Joseph Juran came to recognize that he had misnamed this principle. He knew that unequal distribution had long been observed in other areas, not just wealth. Yet he gave Pareto credit for identifying it as "universal" when, it seemed, he could have taken the credit himself. He could have called it, he said, the Juran principle.

In nineteen fifty-one, he published his "Quality Control Handbook⁴." This influential⁵ book especially interested the Japanese. He was invited to teach in Japan, and he advised some of its largest companies. The Japanese also had help from another American, William Edwards Deming. The two experts helped Japan became a world leader in quality control.

In nineteen sixty-four Joseph Juran published "Managerial Breakthrough." This book formed the basis of several other strategies to reduce manufacturing mistakes and cut waste. Among them are the methods known as Six Sigma and lean management.

In nineteen seventy-nine, Joseph Juran established the Juran Institute in Connecticut. It works with organizations that want to improve quality. But the main purpose of the institute, he said, is to improve society.

Joseph Juran died on February twenty-eighth in Rye, New York. That was where he lived with Sadie Juran, his wife of eighty-one years.

And that's the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

1 economics   

n.经济学，经济情况

参考例句：

• He is studying economics,which subject is very important.他正在学习经济学，该学科是很重要的。
• One can't separate politics from economics.不能把政治与经济割裂开来。

2 trivial   

adj.琐碎的，不重要的，无价值的

参考例句：

• Be patient.Don't lose your temper over trivial matters.忍着点，别为了一点小事发火。
• It's useless to fire away with such trivial details.喋喋不休地谈这些琐碎细节是无用的。

3 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

4 handbook   

n.手册，便览，指南

参考例句：

• Her mother bought a handbook of English grammar for her last Sunday.上星期天她母亲给她买了一本英语语法手册。
• None of them has got a handbook to tourists.他们谁也没搞到旅游指南。

5 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。