W. Edwards Deming was also a statistician and professor in the United States.
Edwards Deming was an American engineer. He started the Deming Institute to teach people about statistics.
Deming contributed to the development of sampling procedures that are currently used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the United States Census Bureau. Deming is credited with launching Japan's postwar economic boom, which propelled the country to prosperity in the ’50s and ’60s.
With 14 fundamental concepts to alter your business performance as stated in his book, 'Out Of Crisis,' here are some of W. Edwards Deming's most famous quotations. His other books are 'The Essential Deming' and 'The New Economics'.
Deming quotes are perfectly designed to help you understand the new economics, new machinery, and production process. They also help you run the top management.
Famous Demings Quotes
Deming quotes are sure to help people run a better business or improve management in a company.
“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Put a good person in a bad system and the bad system wins, no contest.”
“In God we trust; all others bring data.”
“Nobody goes to work to do a bad job.”
“Whenever there is fear, you will get the wrong figures.”
“Two basic rules of life are: 1) Change is inevitable. 2) Everybody resists change.”
“The ultimate purpose of collecting the data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation.”
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
“Manage the cause, not the result.”
“We know what we told him, but we don’t know what he heard.”
“The customer is the most important part of the production line.”
"Scientific data are not taken for museum purposes; they are taken as a basis for doing something. If nothing is to be done with the data, then there is no use in collecting any."
“Information is not knowledge. Let’s not confuse the two.”
“We should work on our process, not the outcome of our processes.”
“We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing.”
“To optimize the whole, we must sub-optimize the parts.”
“A committee appointed by the President of a company will report what the President wishes to hear. Would they dare report otherwise?”
“The system that people work in and the interaction with people may account for 90 or 95 percent of performance.”
“Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment.”
“When asked what single event was most helpful in developing the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein replied, “Figuring out how to think about the problem”.”
Demings Quotes On Quality
Quality makes the impression of a company. This is best understood by the Deming quotes below.
“Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality.”
“A leader is a coach, not a judge.”
“Improve quality, you will automatically improve productivity.”
“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you will discover nothing.”
“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 either there or it isn’t by the time it’s inspected.”
“Quality starts in the boardroom.”
"…a person and an organization must have goals, take actions to achieve those goals, gather evidence of achievement, study and reflect on the data, and from that, take actions again. Thus, they are in a continuous feedback spiral toward continuous improvement. This is what ‘Kaizan’ means."
“Quality is everyone’s responsibility.”
“Quality is pride of workmanship.”
“Learning is not compulsory; it’s voluntary. Improvement is not compulsory; it’s voluntary. But to survive, we must learn.”
“Quality comes not from inspection but from improvement of the production process.”
"Put in a negative way, the aim of leadership is not merely to find and record the failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure: to help people do a better job with less effort.”
“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 either there or it isn’t by the time it’s inspected.”
“Nothing happens without personal transformation.”
Demings Quotes On Management
Here are some Deming quotes that help the top management do their job well.
“Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.”
“The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people."
“Innovation comes from people who take joy in their work.”
“Transformation is not automatic. It must be learned; it must be led.”
"Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable.”
"A bad system will beat a good person every time.”
" The ultimate purpose of taking data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation for action. The step intermediate between the collection of data and the action is prediction.”
“Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.”
“Management by results—like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.”
“Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, and joy in learning. "
“What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.”
Motivational Demings Quotes
These are a few Deming quotes to fill you with motivation so as to do your job in the best possible way.
“The greatest waste … is the failure to use the abilities of people…to learn about their frustrations and about the contributions that they are eager to make.”
“It’s not enough to do your best; you must know what to do and then do your best.”
“Inspection with the aim of finding the bad ones and throwing them out is too late, ineffective, and costly. Quality comes not from inspection but from improvement of the process.”
“Scrap doesn’t come for free, we pay someone to make it.”
“Each system is perfectly designed to give you exactly what you are getting today.”
“The most valuable “currency” of any organization is the initiative and creativity of its members. Every leader has the solemn moral responsibility to develop these to the maximum in all his people. This is the leader’s highest priority.”
“If you wait for people to come to you, you’ll only get small problems. You must go and find them. The big problems are when people don’t realize they have one in the first place.” ~ W. Edwards Deming
“Stamping out fires is a lot of fun, but it is only putting things back the way they were.”
"The biggest cost of poor quality is when your customer buys it from someone else because they didn’t like yours.”
“A goal without a method is nonsense.”
"The forces of destruction begin with toddlers – a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars – and on up through the university. On the job people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom."
“Divide responsibility and nobody is responsible.” ~ W. Edwards Deming
"I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system responsibility of management 6% special”
“Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.”
“You must not run your Organization as a functional hierarchy. You must understand it as a System.”
“Understanding variation is the key to success in quality and business.”
“To manage one must lead. To lead, one must understand the work that he and his people are responsible for.”
“Just because you can measure everything doesn’t mean that you should.”
"We are here to learn, to make a difference, and to have fun.”
“Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.”
“It is a mistake to assume that if everybody does his job, it will be all right. The whole system may be in trouble.”
“No one can measure the loss of business that may arise from a defective item that goes out to a customer.”
“If you destroy the people of a company, you do not have much left.”
“Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.”
“Research shows that the climate of an organization influences an individuals contribution far more than the individual himself.”
