In my opinion, he was a
brilliant Industrial Engineer, a humanitarian in his soul, and the most
important single contributor to the industrial and business renewal of Japan
following WWII; and a cantankerous old man when I encountered him at a
training session a few years before his death. He had a bit of an influence
in his home country, at least for a few years, but now, it seems, I rarely
hear his name spoken or his concepts being practiced. What happened? I don�t
know. I do know that I would like to share his Fourteen Points with whoever
might be interested and since my Website is in my control, I have a forum.
b. Eliminate
management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals.
Substitute leadership.
b. Remove barriers that
rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of work.
This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual or merit rating and of
management by objective, management by numbers.
January 1986
W. Edwards Deming: A Theory for Management
Transformation through application of the
Fourteen Points
Diseases that Stand in the Way of the
Transformation
- 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. - Adopt a new philosophy. We are in a new economic
age. Western mangers must awaken to the challenge, must learn their
responsibilities, and take on leadership for change. - 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. - 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. - Improve constantly and forever the system of
production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus
constantly decrease costs. - Institute training on the job.
- Institute leadership (see Point 12). The aim of
leadership is to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better
job. Leadership of managers is in need of overhaul, as well as
leadership of production workers. - Drive out fear, so that everyone may work
effectively for the company. - 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. - Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the
work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. - a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory
floor. Substitute leadership.
- a.� Remove
barriers that rob hourly workers of their right to pride of quality
work. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from sheer
numbers to quality.
- Institute a vigorous program of education and
self-improvement. - Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish
the transformation. The transformation is everybody�s job.
- Lack of constancy of purpose to plan product and
service that will have a market and keep the company in business, and
provide jobs. - Emphasis on short-term profits: short-term thinking
(just the opposite of constancy of purpose to stay in business), fed by
fear of unfriendly takeover and by push from bankers and owners for
dividends. - Personal review system, or evaluation of
performance, merit rating, annual review, or annual appraisal, by
whatever name, for people in management, the effects of which are devastating.
Management by objective, on a go, no-go basis, without a method for
accomplishment of the objective, is the same thing by another name.
Management by fear would still be better. - Mobility of management: job-hopping.
- Use of visible figures only for management, with
little or no consideration of figures that are unknown or unknowable. - Excessive medical costs.
- Excessive costs of liability, fueled by lawyers
that work on contingency fees.