W. Edwards Deming

W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993) changed our lives by developing better ways for people to work together. Deming was educated in engineering and physics and became an early student of statistics. In his native USA Deming’s ideas were thought to be too radical. He was an outsider. His big break came when he was invited to Japan as part of the US rebuilding programme after the Second World War.

He developed his philosophy helping Japanese export industries to recover following World War II. He said he could teach them to produce quality goods more cheaply than quantity, a revolutionary idea in 1950. He told them to treat manufacturing as a system rather than “bits and pieces.” He said to include the supplier and the customer in the system and to use feedback from the customer to continually improve products, services and processes. He also said to continually improve both the people in the system and the communication between them. And he said that decisions should be based on facts and data.

His ideas were adopted by Japanese auto and electronic export companies who would dominate against his homeland. Key ideas were satisfying customers, close ties with suppliers, empowering workers, managing for quality, and eliminating layers of management and hierarchy.

US News & World Report listed Deming’s philosophy, along with St. Paul, the numerous pre-Columbian discoveries of America and Napoleon’s conquest of Europe, as one of history’s nine hidden turning points.

Deming would evoke disbelief in his management seminars when he insisted that 94 percent or more of all problems, defective goods or services came from the system, not from a careless worker or a defective machine.

His famous 14 points formed the basis for the TQM or Total Quality Management theory.

Here are the 14 points in full:

11.    Aim for continuous improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, 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.

44.   ;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. They only create adversarial relationships.

a.     Remove quotas from the factory floor. Substitute with leadership.

b.      Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.

a11Remove barriers preventing pride in ones work. Quality is more important than numbers.

112 Remove barriers preventing managers having pride in their work. Abolish merit ratings & management by objectives. management by objectives.

&13.   Institute education and self-improvement.

&14.   Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish change. Change is everybody's job.

Deming is still remembered as Japan awards the Deming Prize for companies and individuals which celebrate excellence in quality.

Higher Business Management - Quality Methods

What is Quality?A product is a quality product if it is defect free. To the producer, a product is a quality product if it meets or conforms to the statement of requirements that defines the product. This statement is usually shortened to: quality means meets requirements. From a customer’s perspective, quality means “fit for use.”

Quality Control- product is checked, normally at the end of the production process and this ensures it meets quality standards.
- It ensures defective products are not dispatched to customers, harming reputation.
- Increased production costs associated with high levels of waste
- Its focus is defect detection and removal. Testing is a quality control activity

Quality AssuranceAt certain points in the production process, products are checked to ensure that they meet agreed quality standards. All aspects of the production process are looked at to ensure errors do not occur.
It deals with ‘prevention’ of defects in the product being developed.
Quality Assurance is more thorough than Quality Control.

Total Quality Management (TQM)- inspection is carried out at each stage of the production process and prevents a defect moving into next stage
- TQM treats everyone as a customer on the quality chain
- cuts down on waste with faults often being rectified early in the production process
- often requires substantial staff training
- KAIZEN – continuous improvement
- Uses Quality Circles
- TQM mantra is “Getting it right first time”

Quality Circles- Used in TQM
- small groups of staff meet on a regular basis and solve problems and make suggestions for improvement
- can result in increased worker motivation
- suggested improvements can be expensive to adopt
- Quality Circles consist of workers from all departments and all levels from shopfloor to senior managers.

Benchmarking- Comparing your company’s products, services or processes against best practices or competitive practices, to help define superior performance
- discovering the best method of production, often that of another business in the industry and adopting the same or a better as standard
- can be used to exceed the best practice
- information on other business can be difficult to obtain

British Standards Institution (BSI)- aims to promote quality at all stages of production
- products carrying, for example the Kite Mark, will gain a competitive advantage
- time consuming preparation of quality manuals and inspections to obtain/maintain approval

Recruitment of a skilled workforce- production defects should be rare resulting in reduced production costs
- staff costs are likely to be high.


QUALITY GURUS
W. EDWARDS DEMING
W. Edwards Deming is the Godfather of the Japanese success story.

He was an American whose ideas were laughed at in his native land, but when he went to help build the Japanese infrastructure in the late 1940s and 50s he transformed Japan.

“Quality is about reducing variation”. DiscussFind out more about Deming and his views on Quality.

JOSEPH JURAN
In1941 that Juran discovered the work of Vilfredo Pareto. Juran expanded the Pareto principle applying it to quality issues (for example, 80% of a problem is caused by 20% of the causes). This is also known as "the vital few and the trivial many". In later years Juran preferred "the vital few and the useful many" to signal that the remaining 80% of the causes should not be totally ignored.

According to Juran, the principal focus in quality management was on the quality of the end, or finished, product. Juran is widely credited for adding the human dimension to quality management. He pushed for the education and training of managers.

During his 1966 visit to Japan, Juran learned about the Japanese concept of Quality Circles which he enthusiastically evangelized in the West.