Sunday, January 20, 2008

Quality Guru Deming

W. Edwards Deming is known is the area as a "Guru". He came in a time when people were interested in turning statistical data about quality into practical use. His ideas were not taken into such a focal point until he travelled overseas to Japan and used their teamwork disciplines, simple tools and mass management and the statistical data he had to transform quality and its measures as we use them today. I chose Deming, because he used what he learned overseas here in western managment. He developed a system known as the fourteen points and also the seven deadly diseases, to impliment high quality standards into business today. Shortly before he passed he wrote The System of Profund Knowledge".

Deming's fourteen points were as followed:
1. Create constancy
2. Adopt a new philosophy
3. Cease dependeancy on inspection (do things right the first time)
4. End practice of awarding on price
5. Improve constantly
6. Institute on the job training
7. Institute leadership
8. Drive out fear
9. Drive out business barriers
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and work targets
11. Eliminating numerical quotas
12. Remove business barriers to employees
13. Institute learning
14. Continually transform jobs into careers
This will generate higher levels of productivity, dcrease costs and improve quality.

Deming's seven deadly diseases are those things that will be detrimental or decrease quality in a business, inclusing healthcare. They include:
1. Lack of constancy of purpose
2.Emphasis on short term profits
3. Evaluation of performance, merit rating and annual review
4. Mobility of management, job hopping
5. Management by use only of visible figures, with little or no consideration of figures that are
unknown or unknowable
6. Excessive medical costs
7. Excessive costs of liability

"The system of Profound Knowledge" is based on three concepts with four concentration areas. Management must understand that 1)There is no true meaning of anything, 2) experience teaches nothing and 3) management is prediction. The four areas that must be concentrated on are: Knowledge about variation, psychology, theory of knowledge and appreciation of a system.

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