About Deming
✓ Deming, an American, was the senior quality guru.
- 1928 – awarded doctorate in mathematical physics.
- 1946 – after sharing his expertise in statistical quality control to help the US war effort during World War II, the war department sent Deming to Japan to help nation recover from its wartime losses.
- 1951 – after having impressed by his contributions, the Japanese established the Deming Prize. Deming prize is awarded annually to firms that distinguish themselves with quality management programs.
- 1956 – awarded the Shewhart medal by the American Society for Quality Control.
- 1960 – awarded by the Japanese Emperor with the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure for his teachings.
✓ Deming was a prominent consultant, teacher, and author on the subject of quality. He has published more than 200 works, including well-known books ‘Quality’, ‘Productivity and Competitive Position’, and ‘Out of the Crisis’.
Various Contributions of Deming
Deming’s contributions can be grouped under the following four topics:
- Deming’s 14 points on route to quality;
- Deming cycle (or PDC.A cycle);
- Seven deadly diseases of Management; and
- System of profound knowledge.
1. Deming’s 14 Points
Deming compiled a famous list of 14 points, which he believed were the prescription needed to achieve quality in an organisation. Table 1.1 summarises his 14 principles on route to quality.
| 1.Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and 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 inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place. |
| 4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward 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 to 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, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service. |
| 10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force which ask for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, since the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the workforce. |
| 11. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership. Eliminate management by objectives. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals, substitute leadership. |
| 12. Remove barriers to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer numbers to quality. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, for example, abolishment of 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 everyone’s job. |
2. Deming Cycle (or PDCA Cycle)
✓ Deming encouraged a systematic approach to problem solving and promoted the widely known Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle. The PDCA cycle is also known as the Deming cycle or Deming wheel, although it was developed by a colleague of Deming, Dr. Walter A. Shewhart.
Fig.1. illustrates the Deming cycle.
Fig. 1. The Deming cycle
✓ It is a universal improvement methodology, the idea is to constantly improve, and thereby reduce the difference between the requirements of the customer and the performance of the process.
✓ The cycle is about learning and ongoing improvement, learning what works and what does not in a systematic way; and the cycle repeats; after one cycle is complete, another is started.
3. Seven Deadly Diseases of Western Management
The implementation of Deming’s 14 points can transform the Western style of management. This transformation can fully materialize only when certain bad practices, called by Deming unforgivable sins or deadly diseases (DD), are eliminated. Table 1.2 presents his seven deadly diseases (DD) of Western management.
| 1.Lack of consistency of purpose. |
| 2. Emphasis on short term profits. |
| 3. Reliance on performance appraisal and merits. |
| 4. Staff mobility. |
| 5. Reliance on financial figures. |
| 6. Excessive medical costs. |
| 7. Excessive legal costs. |
4. System of Profound Knowledge
The system of profound knowledge, or management by positive co-operation, is described by Deming. The four ingredients (or elements) of the system of profound knowledge that is necessary to learn and practice are given in Table 1.3.
|
1. Appreciation for a system: The need for managers to understand the relationships between functions and activities, and that the long term aim is for everyone to win-employees, shareholders, customers; suppliers and the environment. |
| 2. Knowledge of statistical theory: Knowledge and understanding of variation, process capability, control charts, interactions and loss functions. |
| 3. Theory of knowledge: As all plans require prediction based on historical information, the theory must be understood before it can successfully be copied. |
| 4. Knowledge of psychology: The understanding of human interactions, how people are motivated and what disillusions them. |
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