One of the foremost and well known philosophers of Total Quality Management is W. E.
Deming. Deming attended Yale University and received his PhD in Physics in 1928 and
was a well trained statistician. In 1950 he was invited to Japan by the Union of Japanese
Scientists and Engineers (JUSE), where he preformed several lectures for executive,
managers and researchers. This was a difficult time for Japan, the war had just ended and
the county was struggling to keep its people employed. Through Deming training, flailing
Japanese industry was able to compete on a global level and became one of the countries
best known for quality products. Deming is credited with establishing the axiom, work
smarter, not harder. His teachings promoted continued quality control, and as testament to
his teaching the JUSE established the Deming Prize to promote the continued development
of quality control in Japan. In 1953 Deming began working with American Industry by
using his Total Quality Management principles. The main points of his philosophy were
simple yet not quite understood. He believe that management must recognize and define
continuous improvements and work with subordinates to improve the system; to improve
quality it must be measure; and one must tell others about the lessons learned and the
benefits to mankind. (Schultz, n.d.)
Demining was responsible for creating or at least popularizing several quality control
principles; one of his first and still best know is the Deming Cycle also called the Plan, Do,
Study, Act (PDSA) cycle. Using this principle the cycle can show how a product can
related to a customers need. The steps can be repeated over and over to continuously
improve the product. First, Plan a change to the process, predict the effect this change will
have and plan how the effects will be measured Second, Do, implement the change on
small things and measure its effects. Third, check, study the effects and learn what effects
it had if any. Lastly, Act, adopt the change as a permanent modification to the process, or
abandon it.
Deming emphasized the importance of improving quality through what he called the Five
step chain reaction which proposes that once quality improves, (1) cost decreases because
of less rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays, snags, better use of machine time and
materials (2) Productivity Improves (3) you must capture the market with better quality
and lower price (4)Stay in business (5) provide jobs and more jobs.
To summarize Deming philosophy on quality improvement he developed a 14 point plan.
