Features Feigenbaums' achievements as "founding fathers of quality"




Donald S. and Armand V. Feigenbaum (Val) are honored in Accolades Magazine as, "The Founding Fathers of Quality." For nearly five decades the Feigenbaum brothers have been initiating and implementing quality control and management systems of some of the world's largest corporations.

Providing an overview of the Feigenbaums' early backgrounds and subsequent career achievements, the magazine describes how the brothers left successful careers at GE to form General Systems Co., Inc., located in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts where they were raised in their youth. Val is the company's president and chief executive officer and Don is executive vice president and chief operating officer. Together, they form General Systems' executive office from which they manage the company's global operations.

The brothers do not see themselves as consultants, a word that connotes an outside advisor, nor do they see their company as a consulting company. "General Systems is an execution company -- an implementation company, an engineering company -- in a broader sense than the word is typically used,"Val says, "We think of ourselves as systems engineers or systems managers. What we want to do is create results and relationships with customers. "Don adds, "We don't advise people. We work with people to build something. Most people think of systems as computers. We see people, machines, and information that have to be integrated. We build the internal processes."

And it works. The article cites the Tenneco example where the chief executive officer of Tenneco claimed a $2 billion savings in just three years -- real margins without sacrificing the core businesses or the company's valuable people. And it is principles such as these that the Feigenbaums emphasize for their corporate customers throughout all of the 24 industry groups that General Systems has served

Both Val and Don point out that Pittsfield has a long history of success in technology and is a good environment for the headquarters of a company like General Systems. "Our international customers know the big U.S. cities as well as we do," Val says, "But Pittsfield and the Berkshires are a welcome experience for them. They call Pittsfield the World Capital of Total Quality Management."

Accolades is a semiannual publication of the Union College Office of College Relations. It is designed to showcase Union Alumni and their many impressive accomplishments.