W. Edwards Deming Quotes

Transformation is not automatic. It must be learned; it must be led.

If you destroy the people of a company, you do not have much left.

Management is prediction.

All models are wrong; some models are useful.

Nobody should try to use data unless he has collected data.

You can not hear what you do not understand.

Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

Without theory there is nothing to modify or learn.

The greatest losses are unknown and unknowable.

Knowledge needs to be a verb.

Monetary rewards are not a substitute for intrinsic motivation.

There must be consistency in direction.

Hard work and best efforts will not by themselves dig us out of the pit.

When a system is stable, telling the worker about mistakes is only tampering.

Anybody can achieve gains in quality by slowing down production. That is not what we are talking about.

Let us ask our suppliers to come and help us to solve our problems.

Management does not know what a system is.

There is very little evidence that we give a hoot about profit.

The aim should be to work on the method of management.

Everyone is a customer for somebody, or a supplier to somebody.

Knowledge is the key.

People care more for themselves when they contribute to the system.

The job can't be finished only improved to please the customer.

The moral is that it is necssary to innovate, to predict the needs of the customers, and give him more. He that innovates and is lucky will take the market.

Change the rule and you will get a new number.

The individual has been crushed by our style of management today.

It only takes a little innovation.

The prevailing style of management must undergo transformation. A system can not understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside.

No requirement of industry is so much neglected as operational definitions.

The problem is that most courses teach what is wrong.

Research shows that the climate of an organization influences an individuals contribution far more than the individual himself.

It does not happen all at once. There is no instant pudding.

The main difference between service and manufacturing is the service department doesn't know that they have a product.

It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of a specific activity or method. It must always relate to a better life for everyone.

A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves in the Western world, components become selfish, competitive. We cannot afford the destructive effect of competition.

Retroactive management emphasizes the bottom line.

There is no knowledge without theory.

A manager of people knows that in this stable state it is distracting to tell the worker about a mistake.

You can not define being exactly on time.

Any two people have different ideas of what is important.

We want best efforts guided by theory.

Survival is optional. No one has to change.

Without theory, there are no questions.

The customer invents nothing. New products and new services come from the producer.

The most important things cannot be measured.

A system can not understand itself.

Without theory we can only copy.

The most important measures are both unknown and unknowable.

You do not install knowledge.

We are here for an education.