Quality Circles are a continuous improvement tool that was popularized in the US in the 1980s and 90’s but have since faded from common use.

Quality circles are basically project teams that meet on a regular basis to take on quality issues in their work area. They tend to be staffed in large part by frontline employees in the work areas that are being improved.

Quality circles were in common use in Japan when Lean started to become popular in the US. The most likely reason that quality circles were more effective in Japan than in the US was the level of empowerment of the teams. In the US, projects and decisions tend to be more top down. Frontline teams struggle to accomplish much without authority.

Another substantial contributor is that in Japan, quality circles were much more ingrained into the improvement and quality strategy. That never seemed to really take hold in the US, and quality circles tended to be more of an add-on to improvement programs.

W. Edwards Deming is often credited with being responsible for the growth of quality circles in Japan.