Dr. Deming: The American who Taught the Japanese About Quality by Aguayo Rafael

Author:Aguayo, Rafael [Aguayo, Rafael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Millennia Mangement Associates, Ltd.
Published: 2010-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

Summary

The first of the fourteen points calls for a company to clarify and acknowledge its purpose and maintain its focus in good times and in bad. This is hardly a moot issue. It is folly to believe that everything of importance can be justified on the basis of expected return. The impact on the financial statements and stock price of many of the most important decisions is unknown and unknowable. Investment in ideas and technologies with no immediate payoff and continual investment in a company's people are necessary ingredients for a leading company.

To try to justify long-term actions on the basis of their impact on the balance sheet is the modern equivalent of determining how many angels can occupy the head of a pin. Costs and payoffs are important, no doubt about it, but they are not enough and in many cases are just useless or deceptive. The projected return for a given course of action depends on the assumptions and inputs. Any way you look at it, it's a guess. But if a company loses sight of where it is going, which should be improvement in the standard of living of its customers, it will surely suffer along with its customers.

The second point calls for a company to accept the new economic philosophy. To try to institute methods and techniques without changing the managerial philosophy of a company will not lead to rapid results, and may even backfire. It's possible to raise the hopes and expectations of the people of a company but then disappoint them when the changes necessary to restore pride in themselves and their work aren't made. Some of the biggest barriers to individuals in a company experiencing pride and satisfaction in their work are structural in nature and often imposed by management in its attempts to "control" production, output, or results.

The meaning of the word control in the expression quality control has a very different meaning to someone who has studied with Deming and someone who is hearing it for the first time or who has studied with a hack. To the uninitiated, control means inspection, supervision, analysis, and reports to look into what went wrong. This already implies a structure to management that is inconsistent with the Deming view.

To a Deming student, control means knowledge, especially knowledge of variation and processes, continual education, training, and joy in work.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.