W. Edwards Deming Quotes

68 Sourced Quotes

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.

W. Edwards Deming
Foremost is the principle that the purpose of consumer research is to understand the customer's needs and wishes, and thus design product and service that will provide better living for him in the future. A second principle is that no one can guess the future loss of business from a dissatisfied customer...

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

W. Edwards Deming
Precision is expressed by an international standard, viz., the standard error. It measures the average of the difference between a complete coverage and a long series of estimates formed from samples drawn from this complete coverage by a particular procedure or drawing, and processed by a particular estimating formula.

W. Edwards Deming
The worker is not the problem. The problem is at the top! Management!

W. Edwards Deming
... the principle that where there is fear, there will be wrong figures....

W. Edwards Deming
The customer is the most important part of the production line.

W. Edwards Deming
What is a system? 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 an aim, there is no system. The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment. (We are of course talking here about a man-made system.)

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

W. Edwards Deming
The supposition is prevalent the world over that there would be no problems in production or service if only our production workers would do their jobs in the way that they we taught. Pleasant dreams. The workers are handicapped by the system, and the system belongs to the management.

W. Edwards Deming
A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management.

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

W. Edwards Deming
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.

W. Edwards Deming
Quality begins with the intent, which is fixed by management.

W. Edwards Deming
In Europe and in America, people are now more interested in the cost of quality and in systems of quality-audit. But in Japan, we are keeping very strong interest to improve quality by use of methods which you started.... when we improve quality we also improve productivity, just as you told us in 1950 would happen.

W. Edwards Deming
Knowledge is theory. We should be thankful if action of management is based on theory. Knowledge has temporal spread. Information is not knowledge. The world is drowning in information but is slow in acquisition of knowledge. There is no substitute for knowledge.

W. Edwards Deming
To successfully respond to the myriad of changes that shake the world, transformation into a new style of management is required. The route to take is what I call profound knowledge - knowledge for leadership of transformation.

W. Edwards Deming
Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

W. Edwards Deming