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<div>Dear Colleagues -</div>
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<div
>http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/12/the-sensei-from-sioux-city/#locshar<span
></span>e/print</div>
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<div>A good reminder, somewhat belatedly sent.</div>
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<div>Manufacturing, that nowadays often state-less orphan, is moving
away from Deming's precepts. Although some may need to be updated,
claims that they no longer apply are largely bogus, just as were the
claims on the eve of the dot.com bust, that conventional economics no
longer applied. Clarity about how to pursue quality is in
decline.</div>
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<div> --PJK</div>
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<div><font size="+3"><b>The Sensei from Sioux City</b></font></div>
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<div>December 20, 2012 by <a
href="http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/author/jgav/">Jennifer Gavin</a></div>
<div>Today marks 19 years since the passing of one of the world's
great management thinkers-W. Edwards Deming.</div>
<div><a href="http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/files/2012/12/image00482.jpg"><img
src="http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/files/2012/12/image00482.jpg"
width="284" height="212"></a></div>
<div>W. Edwards Deming in Japan, around the time he revolutionized
Japanese manufacturing (courtesy W. Edwards Deming Institute)</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>After World War II, the U.S. did something remarkable in the
history of war - it helped its friends and even its former foes get
back on their feet economically. In Europe, that was
accomplished through the <a
href=
"http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/marshall/aa_marshall_mplan_1.html"
>Marshall Plan</a> - but in Japan, where the U.S. also gave broad
counsel, one man had a singular impact: Ed Deming.</div>
<div>Born in Sioux City, Iowa and reared in Iowa and Wyoming, Deming
was officially a statistician and college professor, and he was sent
to Japan post-war to give his expertise to the U.S. allied command and
help the Japanese government set up a census.</div>
<div>But he had studied work processes from a statistical point of
view for years and had come to some interesting conclusions -
essentially, that quality with the goal of satisfying customers and
even employees must govern production decision-making, and ultimately
costs less than trying to sell lower-quality goods. In that war-torn
nation lacking a broad industrial base, Deming in 1950 was invited by
a Japanese scientists' and engineers' group to give a talk - the first
of many - that set the stage for a Japanese resurgence in
electronics, automobiles and other produced goods. Later, he authored
many books and taught at several U.S. universities.</div>
<div>Deming's teachings, which came to be known as Total Quality
Management or TQM (and originated to address production-style
workplaces) have been summarized as 14 points:</div>
<div>1. "Create constancy of purpose towards improvement."
That is, plan for the long term instead of reacting, short-term.</div>
<div>2. "Adopt the new philosophy." Everyone in the
workplace - including the management - understands and lives by the
philosophy established for that workplace.</div>
<div>3. "Cease dependence on inspection." If
statistical variation is reduced, inspection for product defects loses
importance because there will be few, or no, defects.</div>
<div>4. "Move towards a single supplier for any one item."
Multiple suppliers increase the potential for statistical variation
and defects.</div>
<div>5. "Improve constantly and forever." A workplace must
constantly strive to reduce variation.</div>
<div>6. "Institute training on the job." If people aren't
sufficiently trained, they will not all work the same way, and this
will introduce variation.</div>
<div>7. "Institute leadership." Deming made a distinction
between leadership and supervision, which he defines as quota- and
target-based.</div>
<div>8. "Drive out fear." Deming believed workers would act
in an organization's best interest if they would not be punished or
demoted for pointing out problems or telling uncomfortable
truths.</div>
<div>9. "Break down barriers between departments." In
Deming's analysis, customers are not just people outside the
organization - customers include other departments within a
workplace.</div>
<div>10. "Eliminate slogans." Deming felt that posting
slogans or exhortations was not nearly as effective in improving a
workplace as finding out where, in that workplace's processes, the
bugs were, and removing them.</div>
<div>11. "Eliminate management by objectives." Deming
disliked production targets, saying they led to delivery of
poor-quality goods.</div>
<div>12. "Remove barriers to pride of workmanship."
Satisfied workers make quality products.</div>
<div>13. "Institute education and self-improvement."</div>
<div>14. "The transformation is everyone's job."</div>
<div>Deming remains one of the most revered business thinkers of our
time - and <a href="http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms997017">his
papers are in the Manuscript Division</a> here at the Library of
Congress.</div>
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<blockquote><br></blockquote>
<div>The W. Edwards Deming Institute <a
href="http://deming.org/index.cfm?content=771">entertains applications
for grants</a> to aid students or authors in conducting their research
using that Library of Congress collection.</div>
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