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qclublogo.jpg (2683 bytes)  All About Quality Newsletter - Inauguration Issue 

Dr. Deming's 14 Points of Management

Do you know that the famous Plan->Do->Check->Act cycle for continual improvement was promoted by Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the quality management guru from the 1950s? Are you aware that the popular quality management concepts of involving customers in your product/service processes….encouraging cross-functional cooperation…building up team spirit….establishing partnerships with your suppliers….pursuing continual improvement…are all key concepts of Dr. Deming's "14 Points of Management"? Dr. Deming was a firm believer in quality management as the critical factor for a successful enterprise. The "14 Points of Management" identify how management must transform itself to create a quality-oriented enterprise. It was through the implementation of Dr. Deming's management method that Japan was able to transform herself from a manufacturer of shoddy products in the 1950s-60s to an economic powerhouse in the 1980s.

  1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.
  2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.
  3. Cease reliance on mass inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.
  4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. Instead, minimize total cost. Move toward a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
  5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
  6. Institute training on the job.
  7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers.
  8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.
  9. Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.
  10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, since 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.
  11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute leadership
    b. Eliminate management by objectives. Eliminate management by numbers, numerical goals. Substitute leadership. 
  12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly workers of their right to pride of workmanship. The responsibility of supervisors must be changed from mere numbers to quality.
    b. Remove barriers that rob people in management and in engineering of their right to pride of workmanship. This means, inter alia, abolishment of the annual merit rating and of management by objectives.
  13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement. Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
  14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job. 

Excerpted from:
<Dr. Deming, the American who Taught the Japanese about Quality>, Simon & Schuster, 1991, USA, p.124-125
Hong Kong Economic Journal, Jan 29, 1999, p. A26, <Dr. Deming>

Published in Aug 1999.