Top 250 Quotes & Sayings by W. Edwards Deming - Page 2

Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality.

Stamping out fires is a lot of fun, but it is only putting things back the way they were.

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers - a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars - and on up through the university. On the job people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable.

Nobody goes to work to do a bad job.

We should work on our process, not the outcome of our processes.

A committee appointed by the President of a company will report what the President wishes to hear. Would they dare report otherwise?.

The biggest cost of poor quality is when your customer buys it from someone else because they didn't like yours.

A goal without a method is nonsense.

I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system responsibility of management 6% special

Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.

Part of America's industrial problems is the aim of its corporate managers. Most American executives think they are in the business to make money, rather than products or service. The Japanese corporate credo, on the other hand, is that a company should become the world's most efficient provider of whatever product and service it offers. Once it becomes the world leader and continues to offer good products, profits follow.

Divide responsibility and nobody is responsible.

Scientific data are not taken for museum purposes; they are taken as a basis for doing something. If nothing is to be done with the data, then there is no use in collecting any. The ultimate purpose of taking data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation for action. The step intermediate between the collection of data and the action is prediction.

We are here to learn, to make a difference and to have fun.

The system that people work in and the interaction with people may account for 90 or 95 percent of performance.

We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing.

If you destroy the people of a company, you do not have much left.

Learning is not compulsory; it's voluntary. Improvement is not compulsory; it's voluntary. But to survive, we must learn.

Eighty percent of American managers cannot answer with any measure of confidence these seemingly simple questions: What is my job? What in it really counts? How well am I doing?

Understanding variation is the key to success in quality and business.

Don't expect smart people to listen to you without proof.

Information is not knowledge. Let's not confuse the two.

To optimize the whole, we must sub-optimize the parts

Just because you can measure everything doesn't mean that you should.

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of 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

What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.

You must not run your Organization as a functional hierarchy. You must understand it as a System.

Without questions, there is no learning.

Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.

It is a mistake to assume that if everybody does his job, it will be all right. The whole system may be in trouble.

Nothing happens without personal transformation.

When asked what single event was most helpful in developing the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein replied, "Figuring out how to think about the problem".

We know what we told him, but we don't know what he heard.

Transformation is not automatic. It must be learned; it must be led.

A leader is a coach, not a judge.

To manage one must lead. To lead, one must understand the work that he and his people are responsible for

Quality starts in the boardroom.

People work in the system. Management creates the system

If you wait for people to come to you, you'll only get small problems. You must go and find them. The big problems are where people don't realize they have one in the first place.

Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment.

A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system.

The customer is the most important part of the production line.

Everyone is a customer for somebody, or a supplier to somebody.

Quality is made in the board room. A worker can deliver lower quality, but she cannot deliver quality better than the system allow.

We cannot rely on mass inspection to improve quality, though there are times when 100 percent inspection is necessary. As Harold S. Dodge said many years ago, 'You cannot inspect quality into a product.' The quality is there or it isn't by the time it's inspected.

You can not achieve an aim unless you have a method.

No one can measure the loss of business that may arise from a defective item that goes out to a customer.

One cannot be successful on visible figures alone ... the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable, but successful management must nevertheless take account of them.

What makes a scientist great is the care that he takes in telling you what is wrong with his results, so that you will not misuse them.

You have to manage a system. The system doesn't manage itself.

You cannot inspect quality into the product; it is already there.

Research shows that the climate of an organization influences an individuals contribution far more than the individual himself.

Anyone that enjoys his work is a pleasure to work with.

It is not enough that top management commit themselves for life to quality and productivity. They must know what it is that they are committed to - that is, what they must do. These obligations cannot be delegated. Support is not enough; action is required.

Scrap doesn't come for free, we pay someone to make it.

Management is prediction.

People need to know how their job contributes.

The questions are more important than the answers.

Judging people does not help them.

You can expect what you inspect.