Deming Philosophy
In the 1970s, Deming's philosophy was summarized by some of his Japanese proponents with the following 'a'-versus-'b' comparison:
(a) When people and organizations focus primarily on quality, defined by the following ratio,
\text{Quality} = \frac{\text{Results of work efforts}}{\text{Total costs}} quality tends to increase and costs fall over time.
(b) However, when people and organizations focus primarily on costs, costs tend to rise and quality declines over time.
The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge. The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people.
"Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. The individual, once transformed, will:
Set an example;
Be a good listener, but will not compromise;
Continually teach other people; and
Help people to pull away from their current practices and beliefs and move into the new philosophy without a feeling of guilt about the past."
Deming advocated that all managers need to have what he called a System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four parts:
Appreciation of a system: understanding the overall processes involving suppliers, producers, and customers (or recipients) of goods and services (explained below);
Knowledge of variation: the range and causes of variation in quality, and use of statistical sampling in measurements;
Theory of knowledge: the concepts explaining knowledge and the limits of what can be known.
Knowledge of psychology: concepts of human nature.
It is this steady state that determines the output of the system rather than the individual elements. Thus it is the structure of the
(a) When people and organizations focus primarily on quality, defined by the following ratio,
\text{Quality} = \frac{\text{Results of work efforts}}{\text{Total costs}} quality tends to increase and costs fall over time.
(b) However, when people and organizations focus primarily on costs, costs tend to rise and quality declines over time.
The first step is transformation of the individual. This transformation is discontinuous. It comes from understanding of the system of profound knowledge. The individual, transformed, will perceive new meaning to his life, to events, to numbers, to interactions between people.
"Once the individual understands the system of profound knowledge, he will apply its principles in every kind of relationship with other people. He will have a basis for judgment of his own decisions and for transformation of the organizations that he belongs to. The individual, once transformed, will:
Set an example;
Be a good listener, but will not compromise;
Continually teach other people; and
Help people to pull away from their current practices and beliefs and move into the new philosophy without a feeling of guilt about the past."
Deming advocated that all managers need to have what he called a System of Profound Knowledge, consisting of four parts:
Appreciation of a system: understanding the overall processes involving suppliers, producers, and customers (or recipients) of goods and services (explained below);
Knowledge of variation: the range and causes of variation in quality, and use of statistical sampling in measurements;
Theory of knowledge: the concepts explaining knowledge and the limits of what can be known.
Knowledge of psychology: concepts of human nature.
It is this steady state that determines the output of the system rather than the individual elements. Thus it is the structure of the