Out of the Crisis Quotes

“dissatisfied customer does not complain: he just switches.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“She learns, after she finishes the job, that she programmed very well the specifications as delivered to her, but that they were deficient. If she had only known the purpose of the program, she could have done it right for the purpose, even though the specifications were deficient.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“Inspection to improve quality is too late, ineffective, costly.
Quality comes not from inspection, but from the improvement of the production process.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“it will not suffice to have customers that are merely satisfied. Customers that are unhappy and some that are merely satisfied switch. Profit comes from repeat customers—those that boast about the product or service.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“    Beware of conference-room promises. (Ronald Moen.)”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“The transformation can only be accomplished by man, not by hardware (computers, gadgets, automation, new machinery). A company can not buy its way into quality.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“As long as management is quick to take credit for a firm’s successes but equally swift to blame its workers for its failures, no surefire remedy for low productivity can be expected in American manufacturing and service industries.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“Any substantial improvement must come from action on the system, the responsibility of management. Wishing and pleading and begging the workers to do better was totally futile.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“To manage, one must lead. To lead, one must understand the work that he and his people are responsible for.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“Short-term profits are not reliable indicator of performance of management. Anybody can pay dividends by deferring maintenance, cutting out research, or acquiring another company.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“Many customers form their opinions about the product or about the service solely by their contacts with the people that they see—contact men, I will call them.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“People generally want to do the right thing, but in a large organization, they frequently don't really understand what is the right thing.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“Most American executives think they are in the business to make money, rather than products and services.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“Money and time spent for training will be ineffective unless inhibitors to good work are removed.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“The purchasing department must change its focus from lowest initial cost of material purchased to lowest total cost.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“Divided responsibility means that nobody is responsible.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“quality control departments have taken the job of quality away from the people that can contribute most to quality—management, supervisors, managers of purchasing, and production workers.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“Christine, what is your job?
Is it:
To make 25 calls per hours?
Or
To give callers courteous satisfaction, no brushoff.

It can not be both.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“The most important figures needed for management of any organization are unknown and unknowable.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“Folklore has it in America that quality and production are incompatible; that you can not have both. A plant manager will usually tell you that it is either or. In his experience, if he pushes quality, he falls behind in production. If he pushes production, his quality suffers. This will be his experience when he knows not what quality is nor how to achieve it.
A clear, concise answer came forth in a meeting with 22 production workers, all union representatives, in response to my question, "Why is it that productivity increase as quality improves?"
Less rework.
There is no better answer. Another version often comes forth: Not so much waste.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“No one has all the answers. Fortunately, it is not necessary to have all the answers for good management.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“On production floors and in corporate offices, sociological verbiage has replaced a basic understanding of human behavior.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“Competent men in every position, if they are doing their best, know all that there is to know about their work except how to improve it.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“Schools of business responded to popular demand for finance and creative accounting. The results are decline.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises

“I could do a much better job (fewer mistakes) if I knew what the program is to be used for. The specifications don't tell me what I need to know (programmer).”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“The fact is, they tell me, that they are forced to cut corners to meet production. They never have time to finish anything. Push for production robs them of the chance to go into the production area to learn the problems created by the designs that they construct.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“A new president came, talked with the head of sales, design, manufacturing, consumer research, and so forth. Everybody was doing a superb job, and had been doing so for years. Nobody had any problems. Yet somehow or other the company was going down the tube. Why? The answer was simple. Each staff area was sub-optimizing its own work, but not working as a team for the company.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“Truth is stranger than fiction.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“The wealth of a nation depends on its people, management, and government, more than on its natural resources.”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

“One of my students told the class that he worked in a bank in which everybody made note of every action—a telephone call, a calculation, use of a computer, waiting on a customer, etc. There was a standard time for every act, and everybody was rated every day. Some days this man would make a score of 50, next day 260, etc. Everybody was ranked on his score, the lower the score, the higher the rank. Morale was understandably low. “My rate is 155 pieces per day. I can’t come near this figure—and we all have the problem—without turning out a lot of defective items.” She must bury her pride of workmanship to make her quota, or lose pay and maybe also her job. It could well be that with intelligent supervision and help, and with no inherited defects, this operator could produce in a day and with less effort many more good items than her stated rate. Some people in management claim that they have a better plan: dock her for a defective item. This sounds great. Make it clear that this is not the place for mistakes and defective items. Actually, this may be cruel supervision. Who declares an item to be defective? Is it clear to the worker and to the inspector—both of them—what constitutes a defective item? Would it have been declared defective yesterday? Who made the defective item? The worker, or the system? Where is the evidence?”
― W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crises