W. Edwards Deming

Visionary in Workplace Management

Photo of W. Edwards Deming
W. Edwards Deming, ca. 1950

Deming created a management protocol to ensure that workers enjoyed their employment and that the company's product would be of high quality, a philosophy often called "managing for quality." Deming's protocol is established in 14 points:

  1. Create constancy of purpose for improving products and services.
  2. Adopt the new philosophy.
  3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
  4. End the practice of awarding business on price alone; instead, minimize total cost by working with a single supplier.
  5. Improve constantly and forever every process for planning, production and service.
  6. Institute training on the job.
  7. Adopt and institute leadership.
  8. Drive out fear.
  9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
  10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the workforce.
  11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and numerical goals for management.
  12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship, and eliminate the annual rating or merit system.
  13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement for everyone.
  14. Put everybody in the company to work accomplishing the transformation.

"Every day I think about what he meant to us. Deming is the core of our management."

Dr. Shoichiro Toyoda, Chairman and former President (1982-1999) of Toyota

Read more about Deming at the Deming Institute's official site.