26 quotes
Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
Out Of The Crisis (1982)
Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process.
Out Of The Crisis (1982)
Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality.
to Edward Deming (1980)
It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.
Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.
Learning is not compulsory; it's voluntary. Improvement is not compulsory; it's voluntary. But to survive, we must learn.
Deming: The Way We Knew Him (1995)
The worker is not the problem. The problem is at the top! Management!
Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.
Out Of The Crisis (1982)
The 14 points [for quality control] apply anywhere, to small organizations as well as to large ones...
Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position (1982)
Empirical evidence is never complete.
Out Of The Crisis (1982)
The causes usually cited for failure of a company are costs of start-up, overruns on costs, depreciation of excess inventory, competition—anything but the actual cause, pure and simple bad management.
What is the variation trying to tell us about a process, about the people in the process?
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)
Blame the process, not the people.
It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of a specific activity or method. It must always relate to a better life for everyone.
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)
Choice of aim is clearly a matter of clarification of values, especially on the choice between possible options.
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)
I think that people here expect miracles. American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan—but they don't know what to copy!
If Japan Can...Why Can't We? (1980)
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.
Out Of The Crisis (1982)
The various segments of the system of profound knowledge proposed here cannot be separated. They interact with each other. Thus, knowledge of psychology is incomplete without knowledge of variation.
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)
. . .the principle that where there is fear, there will be wrong figures. . . .
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)
Experience by itself teaches nothing...Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence without theory there is no learning.
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993)