Deming Management Method and GSPI, Part I

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Reading Mary Walton’s The Deming Management Method (1986), I can’t help but wonder whether the Deming method is applicable to Global Steel Philippines. W. Edwards Deming, the genius who revitalized Japanese industry from 1950s, was rediscovered in America only in 1980. To show their appreciation, the Japanese established in 1951 the Deming Prize—a silver medal engraved with a profile of Dr. Deming—given in two major categories: to an individual for accomplishments in statistical theory and to companies for accomplishments in statistical application. The award was established from proceeds from his published lectures. Dr. Deming refused to accept the proceeds for personal use.

The Deming Management Method consists of Fourteen Points:

1. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service.
   

   “Establishing constancy of purpose means 1) innovation; 2) research and education; 3) continuous improvement of product and service; 4) maintenance of equipment, furniture and fixtures, and in new aids to production in the office and in the plant. … It is not sufficient to announce intentions to improve quality, even repeatedly, or a succession of plans for improvement. … programs come and go, often coinciding with the term of the chief executive officer. … One way to demonstrate commitment is with money.”

2. Adopt the new philosophy.
   

   “Quality must become the new religion. … There are new standards. We can no longer afford to live with mistakes, defects, poor workmanship, bad materials, handling damage, fearful and uninformed works, poor training or none at all, executive job-hopping, and inattentive and sullen service. Defects are not free.”

3. Cease dependence on mass inspection.
   

   “Inspection with the aim of finding the bad ones and throwing them out is too late, ineffective, costly. … The result of such inspection is scrap, downgrading and rework, which are expensive, ineffective and do not improve the process. Quality comes not from inspection but from improvement of the process.”

4. End the practice of awarding business on price tag alone.
   

   “Variation causes problems in production and impairs quality … Defects beget defects. … Price has no meaning without a measure of the quality being purchased. … Reliance on specification becomes barriers to continuous improvement.”

5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service
   

   “Improvement is not a one-time effort. Management is obligated to improve continually. … Only management can initiate improvement in quality and productivity. Production workers on their own can achieve very little. … Removal of an irritant, or solving a particular problem, is not improvement of a process. It is simply «putting out a fire.» … Meeting specifications does not result in constant improvement. It ensures the status quo.”

6. Institute training.
   

   “Training should not end as long as performance is not yet in statistical control and there is something to be gained. … All employees will have to have some training in the significance of variation, and be taught rudimentary knowledge of control charts. When new equipment or processes are introduced, there must be retraining as well.”

7. Institute leadership.
   

   “Leadership is the job of management. It is the responsibility of management ti discover the barriers that prevent workers from taking pride in what they do. The workers know exactly what these barriers are: an emphasis on numbers, not quality; turning out the product quickly rather than properly; a deaf ear to their suggestions; too much time spent on rework; poor tools; problems with incoming materials.”

8. Drive out fear.
   

   “What are people afraid of? Afraid to contribute to the company. Better not get out of line, Don’t violate procedures. Do it exactly this way. … It is unbelievable what happens when you unloose fear. … It is necessary that people feel secure—without fear—not afraid to express ideas, not afraid to ask questions.”

9. Break down barriers between staff areas.
   

   “People can work superbly in their respective departments, but if their goals are in conflict, they can ruin the company. … People work in the system. Management creates the system.”

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for workforce.
    

    “Slogans never helped anybody do a good job. … «Zero defects.» «Do it right the first time» have a lofty ring, but how could a man make it right the first time when the incoming material is off-gauge, off-color, or otherwise defective, of if his machine is not in good order? In short management fails to provide the means to the ends it proclaims. … Forced to work with improper or malfunctioning equipment, poor lighting or ventilation, in awkward work spaces, under incompetent supervision, they perceive slogans and exhortations as signals that management not only doesn’t understand their problems, it doesn’t care enough to find out. … If a system is unstable, anything can happen, Management’s job is to try to stabilize the systems. An unstable system is a bad mark against management.”

11. Eliminate numerical quotas.
    

    “Work standards guarantee inefficiency and high cost. They frequently contain allowances for defective items and scrap, which is a guarantee that management will get them. … A proper work standard would define what is and is not acceptable in terms of quality. … A goal without a method for reaching it is useless.”

12. Remove barriers to pride in workmanship.
    

    “People today are regarded as a commodity, to be used as needed. If not needed, they are returned to the market. … To deal with «people problems,» they are wont to establish «employee involvement» programs, quick-fix solutions, «smoke-screen,» a way of pretending to be doing something about a problem.”

13. Institute a vigorous program of education and retraining.
    

    “People must be continually acquiring the new knowledge and the new skills that are required to deal with new materials and new methods of production. Education and retraining—an investment in people—are required for long-term planning.”

14. Take action to accomplish the transformation.
    

    “Management will have to organize itself as a team to advance the thirteen other points. … Follow the Shewhart Cycle, also called the Deming Cycle, or referred to as the PDCA Cycle: Plan, Do, Check, Act. … In addition to its use, it is vital that everyone begin to think of their work as having satisfaction for a customer—internal as well as external.”

The above summarized Deming’s idea of management. Although Dr. Deming used these 14 Points to help transform American management thinking, it is rather obvious that it can also be applied anywhere, such as GSPI. Several examples, highlighted in previous posts, show that some of the present management practices at GSPI emphasized the lack of it. Furthermore, several literature reviews were posted in this blog to accentuate the importance of the missing features.

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Notes:

Walton, Mary (1986). The Deming Management Method. New York: Perigee, 1986. pp. 33-88. back to text

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