“A good question for anybody in business to ask is what business are we in? To do well what we are doing – i.e., to turn out a good product, or good service, whatever it be? Yes, of course, but this is not enough. We must keep asking: What product or service would help our customers more? We must think about the future. What will we be making 5 years from now? 10 years from now?”
“A goal without a method is cruel.”
“All that we have has come from people who are answerable only to themselves.”
“Defects are not free. Somebody makes them, and gets paid for making them.”
“Divided responsibility means that nobody is responsible.”
“Don’t expect smart people to listen to you without proof.”
“Each system is perfectly designed to give you exactly what you are getting today.”
“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.”
“Experience alone, without theory, teaches management nothing about what to do to improve quality and competitive position, nor how to do it.”
“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”
“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 where people don’t realize they have one in the first place.”
“Improve quality, you automatically improve productivity.”
“Innovation comes from people who take joy in their work.”
“Inspection does not improve the quality, nor guarantee quality. Inspection is too late. The quality, good or bad, is already in the product.”
“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.”
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
“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.”
“It’s not enough to do your best; you must know what to do and then do your best.”
“Just because you can measure everything doesn’t mean that you should.”
“Learning is not compulsory; it’s voluntary. Improvement is not compulsory; it’s voluntary. But to survive, we must learn.”
“Manage the cause, not the result.”
“Management by results – like driving a car by looking in rear view mirror.”
“Management of a system requires knowledge of the interrelationships between all of the components within the system and of everybody that works in it.”
“Money and time spent for training will be ineffective unless inhibitors to good work are removed.”
“No one has all the answers. Fortunately, it is not necessary to have all the answers for good management.”
“Nothing happens without personal transformation.”
“People generally want to do the right thing, but in a large organization, they frequently don’t really understand what is the right thing.”
“People work in the system. Management creates the system”
“Poor quality begets poor quality and lowers productivity all along the line, and some of the faulty product goes out the door, into the hands of the customer. And unhappy customer tells his friends. The multiplying effect of an unhappy customer is one of those unknown and unknowable figures, and likewise for the multiplying effect of a happy customer, who brings in business.”
“Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.”
“Put a good person in a bad system and the bad system wins, no contest.”
“Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.”
“Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process.”
“Quality starts in the boardroom.”
“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. 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.”
“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.”
“Stamping out fires is a lot of fun, but it is only putting things back the way they were.”
“Support of top management is not sufficient. It is not enough that top management commit themselves for life to quality and productivity. They must know what it is that they are committed to — that is, what they must do. These obligations can not be delegated. Support is not enough: action is required.”
“The basic problem anywhere is quality. What is quality? A product or service possesses quality if it helps someone and enjoys a sustainable market. Trade depends on quality.”
“The biggest cost of poor quality is when your customer buys it from someone else because they didn’t like yours.”
“The customer is the most important part of the production line.”
“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.”
“The problem lies in the difficulty to define a meaningful measure of performance.”
“The purchasing department must change its focus from lowest initial cost of material purchased to lowest total cost.”
“The ultimate purpose of collecting the data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation.”
“To optimize the whole, we must sub-optimize the parts.”
“Transformation is not automatic. It must be learned; it must be led.”
“Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality.”
“Understanding variation is the key to success in quality and business.”
“We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing.”
“We should work on our process, not the outcome of our processes.”
“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”
“Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.”
“You can’t build quality by inspection, but when the quality is not there, the inspection may be the only answer.”
“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
“You must not run your Organization as a functional hierarchy. You must understand it as a System.”