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.

1956 - awarded the Shewhart medal by the American society for Quality Control (ASQC)

1960 - honoured by the Japanese Emperor with the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure for his teachings

A prominent consultant, teacher, and author on the subject of Quality. Deming has published more than 200 works, including well known books Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position and Out of the crisis. Deming developed 14 points for managing.

The 14 points for managing.

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 (see Point 12). 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 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.
•Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership.
•Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute 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 objective .
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.

The Deming Cycle:
The Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle is an all-encompassing improvement methodology.

  • Plan what to do.
  • Do the experimentation.
  • Check the solutions.
  • Act on the results.

System of Profound Knowledge:
The System of Profound Knowledge, or management by positive co-operation, is described in its four interrelated elements.

  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 function.
  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.

Links:

The W. Edwards Deming Institute

Who is Dr. W. Edwards Deming

The red bead experiment

Deming’s 1950 Lecture to Japanese Management

VARIATION, MANAGEMENT AND W. EDWARDS DEMING

Summary of “Out of the crisis”

Books:

The Man Who Discovered Quality: How W. Edwards Deming Brought the Quality Revolution to America... …… The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education - 2nd Edition …… Why Things Go Wrong: Deming Philosophy in a Dozen Ten-Minute Sessions …… Out of the Crisis …… Dr. Deming : The American Who Taught the Japanese About Quality …… Four Days with Dr. Deming : A Strategy for Modern Methods of Management (Engineering Process Improvement Series) ……Deming management method

W. Edwards Deming

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