Work with Joy

From humble origins, W. Edwards Deming became a preeminent voice in the world quality movement.
W. Edwards Deming died Dec. 20, 1993 at his Washington, D.C. home.  He was 93.

It was Deming�s work in Japan following World War II that made him famous, at least in Japan.  In 1949 the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) asked Deming to come to Japan to help increase productivity.  He went in 1950 and gave eight lectures to 230 of Japan�s leading industrialists. (Eighty percent of Japan�s capital was controlled by the men in that room, Deming claims.) Ironically, it was the same course he had taught Americans during the war.

Despite being revered as a virtual god in Japan, Deming remained relatively unknown in the United States until NBC broadcast a documentary in June 1980 titled, If Japan Can, Why Can�t We? Many people credit this broadcast with igniting the quality renaissance that swept the United States in the 1980s. 

He is known as the savior of Japanese industry.  He�s been called a capitalist revolutionary.  He is teacher to CEOs, middle managers, educators.  His public courses are filled with some of the best and brightest from around the world.

In October 1999, the Los Angeles Times business staff compiled a list of the most influential business people of the century. W. Edwards Deming was featured with General Douglas MacArthur for their work in rebuilding Japan after 1945. Dr. Deming was credited as a catalyst for Japan's economic surge in well-made consumer goods.

Deming's Teachings

His educational legacy is considerable. Deming is probably best known for his 14 points and the system of profound knowledge, but equally powerful among his teachings were the red-bead experiment, funnel experiment, and Shewhart cycle.

The system of profound knowledge has four parts: appreciation for a system, knowledge about variation, theory of knowledge, and psychology.

The red-bead experiment was one of the highlights of Deming's four-day seminars; it clearly illustrates why organizations, and management in particular, must understand variation. It sought to prove that the only way to improve a product or service is for management to improve the system that creates that product or service. Rewarding or punishing individuals trapped in the system is pointless and counterproductive.

When Deming took the Shewhart cycle to Japan, it was quickly renamed by it's Japanese users as the Deming cycle. Regardless of it's name, it involves a four-step process for quality improvement. These steps are �plan� to improve a product or process, �do� what is planned, �study� the results, and �act� on what has been learned so that the process can be repeated and continuously improved.

Deming�s 14 Points

1.  Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service. With the aim to become competitive, stay in business, and provided jobs.

2.  Adopt the new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins. Put it into practice and teach it to employees, customers. and suppliers.

3.  Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality. Improve the process and build quality into the product in the first place.

4.  End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone. Instead, minimize total cost in the long run.  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, service, planning, or any activity. This will improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease costs.

6.  Institute training for skills.

7.  Adopt and institute leadership for the management of people, recognizing their different abilities, capabilities, and aspiration. The aim of leadership should be to help people, machines, and gadgets do a better job. Leadership of management is in need of overhaul, as well as leadership of production workers.

8.  Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work effectively.

9.  Break down barriers between departments. Abolish competition and build a win-win system of cooperation within the organization. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team to foresee problems of production and in use that might be encountered with the product or service.

10.  Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or 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.

11.  Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.

12.  Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work. This will mean abolishing the annual rating or merit system that ranks people and creates Competition and conflict.

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.

Four Days with Dr. Deming

Day One: "Is it sufficient to have happy customers?" "The customer never invented anything. The customer generates nothing. He takes what he gets."

He then went on to explain the disappearance of carburetor manufacturers. Sure, they made better and better products, but now they are gone. Why? "They saw themselves as carburetor makers, not as providers of mixing fuel and air," replied Deming.

Change comes from outside the system, according to Deming. No matter how hard employees work or how few defects they produce, the tide of innovation and change cannot be held back.

Just to do well in the future is not enough, Deming pronounced. "We must constantly ask ourselves 'What business are we in?' if we are to survive," he said.

"There is no substitute for knowledge." "The most important losses and gains have no figures."
An example: Spend $20,000 training 10 people in a special skill. What's the benefit? "You'll never know," answered Deming. "You'll never be able to measure it. Why did you do it? Because you believed it would pay off. Theory."

Although we cannot measure them, we must manage them, Deming told us. But by what method? "If you don't have a method, you were goofing off," he declared. "A system must be managed and must have an aim."

Day Two:  "Competition is bad."  Deming explained that competition in and between organizations, whether they be manufacturers, government or education, is the worst thing that can happen to an organization.  Deming claims that infighting between different parts of organizations for resources is one of the most destructive forces in modern organizations.  He credits Japan�s lack of competition for its phenomenal success.

Reference Deming's new book: The New Economics for Industry, Education, Government, which is little more than a simplified version of his classic book Out of the Crisis.

Day Three: �If you don�t have a theory, you don�t have an experience. Without theory there is no observation; there is no experience.�

Deming doesn�t care much for ISO 9000 or zero defects. �ISO 9000 shows a lack of brains.� He also believes: �Benchmarking is the last stage of civilization.� In self-directed work teams: �Each works for its own goals and benefit; they are very destructive.�

Day Four: role of the supervisor in an organization.  A supervisor has two responsibilities: to assist those who need special help and to improve the system.