Life And Accomplishments Of Edwards Deming
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Running head: SUMMARY OF DEMINGS ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The Life and Accomplishments of W. Edwards Deming
Submitted by
Jada Cansler
QMS 101
Spring, 2006
Abstract
William Edwards Deming was known to many as one of the “Great Quality Pioneers.” He was born in Sioux City, Iowa and eventually became a statician. He attended school in a one room school house where he got his education early. He studied with Walter Shewhart for many years and used his theory of statistical control as the basis of his own work. He eventually went off to college and ended up with his Doctorate degree. He made an impact on Japan helping them to get their economy back together after WWII. After working in Japan he came back to the United States and was professor at many different colleges. His big break in the United States was when he did an interview on NBC showing the progress that he had made in Japan. After this he signed major contracts with major corporations like General Motors, Ford, and Florida Light & Power. He was known for his 14 Points, System of Profound Knowledge, and Seven Deadly Diseases. Deming lived a long and successful life. His life ended when he was 93 years old with his family by his side.
William Edwards Deming was known to most as one of the “Great Quality Pioneers.” He was born in Sioux City, Iowa in the 1900s. During his lifetime Deming made quite a difference in improving production in Japan as well as the United States. He was most known for his 14 points to help improve production. With his 14 points, system of profound knowledge, and seven deadly diseases many businesses improved significantly. Deming, a statistician, popularized and put into practice the concept of quality control originated by Walter Shewhart of Bell laboratories in the 1920s. (Current Biography Yearbook, p. 155). This concept was a forerunner for Total Quality Management or TQM.
Deming attended a one-room schoolhouse and was an errand boy when he was small. Once he graduated from high school he went to the University of Wyoming at Laramie, where he worked as a janitor. After he received his bachelors degree he stayed at the University of Wyoming where he became an instructor in engineering and still studied math. Deming received his masters degree in 1924 at the University of Colorado at Boulder to become a physics teacher there. He later attended Yale to finish with his doctorate and worked at Western Electric where he learned of Walter Shewharts theory of quality control.
After studying with Shewhart for several years Deming used his theory of statistical control as the basis of his own work. (Wikipedia). Deming was able to help the United States Bureau of the Census in it first sampling experiment. Then during WWII the techniques that he used for wartime production faded away and he ended up working
in Japan after they lost the war to help rebuild their economy. While working with Japanese scientists and engineers Deming helped their production to pick up and revenues started rising and the word spread about his principles of quality control.
Demings 14 points for management originally started with top management. But in order to have a successful organization Deming thought that it must be taught throughout. The fourteen key principles for management for transforming business effectively are:
Create consistency of purpose for the improvement of product and service, with the aim to become completive, stay in business, and provide jobs.
Adopt a new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins and put it into practice by teaching it to employees, customers and suppliers.
Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality. Instead, improve the process and build quality into the product in the first place.
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 anyone item, based on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
Improve constantly, and forever, the system of production, service, planning, of any activity. This will improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease costs.
Institute training for skills.
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.
Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work more effectively.
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 use that might be encountered with the product or service.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets asking for zero defects or new levels o f 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.
Eliminate numerical goals, numerical quotas and management by objectives. Substitute leadership.
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.
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybodys job.
Deming has said “and expenses will decline as fewer errors have to be corrected and
costly machine downtime is curbed. This, in turn, increases productively, which leads to
a greater market share as customers perceive the product as offering high quality at a
reasonable