The Quality Revolution - W. Edwards Deming

The Quality Revolution

 

 Dr. W. Edwards Deming

https://www.deming.org/theman/theories

Total Quality Management Thinker 

Dr. W. Edwards Deming: (1900-1993) is considered to be the Father of Modern Quality. Dr. Deming preached that to achieve the highest level of performance requires more than a good philosophy – the organization must change its behavior and adopt new ways of doing business.

William Edwards Deming is widely acknowledged as the leading management thinker in the field of quality. He was a statistician and business consultant whose methods helped hasten Japan’s recovery after the Second World War and beyond. He derived the first philosophy and method that allowed individuals and organizations to plan and continually improve themselves, their relationships, processes, products and services. His philosophy is one of cooperation and continual improvement; it avoids blame and redefines mistakes as opportunities for improvement. 

Deming's 14 points for management

 

Deming created 14 points which provide a framework to developing knowledge in the workplace and can be used to guide long term business plans and aims. The points constitute not so much an action plan as a philosophical code for management. They have been extensively interpreted by as many commentators on quality, as on other management disciplines.

These fourteen key principles to managers for transforming business effectiveness. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. Although Deming does not use the term in his book, it is credited with launching the Total Quality Management movement.

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, to stay in business and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building quality into the product in the first place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move towards a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, in order to foresee problems of production and usage that may be encountered with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.     a)  Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute with leadership.     b)   Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.
11. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of his right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality.
12. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of management by objectives.
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

"Massive training is required to instill the courage to break with tradition. Every activity and every job is a part of the process."

The Demings Wheel of Quality

Walter Shewhart originated the concept of the PDCA cycle and introduced it to Deming. Deming promoted the idea widely in the 1950s and it became known as the Deming Wheel or the Deming cycle.


The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle consists of four steps or stages which must be gone through to get from `problem-faced' to `problem solved.’ Repetition of these steps forms a cycle of continual improvement:


Plan for changes to bring about improvement.

Do changes on a small scale first to trial them.

Check to see if changes are working and to investigate selected processes.

Act to get the greatest benefit from change.