The
late Dr. W. Edwards Deming is a name that has become synonymous
with quality, and some would say an enlightened approach
toward industrial management. Most notably, Dr. Deming
is recognized as the guru of the resurgent Japanese manufacturing
sector. Now his principles and ideas are being taught
and instituted across America’s manufacturing business
landscape. The following looks at “Dr. Deming’s
14 Points” and attempts to show how these ideas
can be applied in any work environment, not just on the
assembly line.
1. Constancy of purpose.
Short term solutions are usually short sighted. Management
and workers must strive to think long term and make decisions
with that concept in mind. Don’t lose sight of the
forest for the trees. If your operation spends more time
fire fighting than in long term planning your value system
is out of whack. The work force will lack consistency
and will forever be chasing the wrong objectives as part
of the “flavor of the month syndrome”. |
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2.
Adopt the new philosophy.
Times change; so must attitudes and operations. To be
focused for the long run, companies and workers must be
willing to embrace new ideas and methods. A standard for
this practice is the “Rule of 10”. Businesses
doing a volume of $1 M must undergo substantial change
before they can do $10 M, and then must change all over
again to do $100M, and so on.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection.
Quality does not come from inspection, but from doing
it right the first time. How do we insure it gets done
right? We insure this through continuously improving the
process, so that errors are less and less likely to happen.
The “1-10-100 Rule” reminds us how costly
errors are when they are not eliminated upfront. An error
caught and fixed immediately costs a factor of $1. An
error caught as a result of inspection costs a factor
of $10 to fix, and an error caught in the field costs
a factor of $100 to set right. |
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4.
End the practice of awarding business on the basis of
price tag alone.
“You get what you pay for”. It is important
to develop long term relationships to insure consistency.
These relationships must provide mutual benefit to both
buyer and seller. The paramount reason for a purchase
from a specific supplier needs to be based in the total
intrinsic value of the value package that this supplier
is offering with the product.
5. Improve constantly and forever.
Continuous improvement is the mother’s milk of
future success. If you stand still you will get passed
by. This doesn’t mean that we continually need
to pick more pieces per man-hour than the month before.
What it does means is that we need to be open to doing
things in a new way. An example would be not picking
the piece at all but sorting it on the receiving dock
for direct movement to an outbound truck, or maybe just
having it shipped directly to the next link in the distribution
chain.
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