美國TWEDI 的W. Edwards Deming 簡歷

補充一下 2007年8月30日 星期四

W. Edwards Deming

Biogry94aphy再

W. Edwards Deming
William Edwards Deming was born in Sioux City, Iowa on 14 October 1900 to William Albert Deming and Pluma Irene Edwards.

As an adult, he used the name W. Edwards Deming.

His brother, Robert Edwards was born on 11 May 1902; his sister, Elizabeth Marie, later Elizabeth Deming Hood was born on 21 January 1909.

The family lived at 121 Bluff Street in Sioux City. In 1904, they moved to the Edwards farm located in Polk City, between Ames and Des Moines. The farm was owned by Pluma’s father, Henry Coffin Edwards (Pluma’s mother, Elizabeth Grant, died when Pluma was young).

In an effort to encourage settlement in the West, the United States government granted parcels of land (usually 40 or 80 acres) to citizens who agreed to settle, farm or develop the land.

William Albert Deming filed on 40 acres in Camp Coulter, later named Powell, Wyoming. The family moved to Wyoming in 1907. They rented a house in Cody until they could build on their own land. William Albert learned that his parcel was poor, useless for farming.

Their first dwelling was a shelter, rectangular in shape (like a railroad box car), covered with tar paper, often referred to as a tar paper shack. Water was pumped from a well. There was little protection from the harsh weather. The family was often cold, hungry and in debt.

Eighty years later, on a visit to Powell, Dr. Deming learned that the 40 acres was still referred to as the Deming Addition. (hc 案: 在美加兩國 addition 為" 増(築)部分".

Pluma Irene and William Albert Deming were well-educated and emphasized the importance of education to their children. Pluma had studied in San Francisco and was a musician. William Albert had studied mathematics and law. Young Ed Deming attended school in Powell and held odd jobs to help support the family.

In 1917, he enrolled in the University of Wyoming at Laramie. In 1921 he graduated with a B.S. in electrical engineering. In 1925, he received an M.S. from the University of Colorado and in 1928, a Ph.D. from Yale University. Both graduate degrees were in mathematics and mathematical physics.

Dr. Deming studied music theory, played several instruments and composed two masses, several canticles and an easily sung version of the Star Spangled Banner.

Dr. Deming married Agnes Bell in 1922 in Wyoming. Agnes and Ed had a daughter, Dorothy. Agnes died in 1930. Dr. Deming married Lola Elizabeth Shupe in 1932. They had two daughters, Diana and Linda. Dorothy died in 1984.

Dr. and Mrs. Deming lived in Washington, D. C. for the remainder of their lives in the house that they bought in 1936. With her family at her side, Mrs. Deming died on 25 June 1986. Dr. Deming, surrounded by his family, died at his home on 20 December 1993.

International Activities

Statistician, Allied Mission to Observe the Greek Elections, January-April 1946; July-October 1946 Consultant in sampling to the Government of India, January and February 1947; December 1951; March 1971
Delegate from the A.A.A.S. to the Indian Science Congress, New Delhi, January 1947
Adviser in sampling techniques to the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers, Tokyo, 1947 and 1950
Teacher and consultant to Japanese industry, through the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers 1950, 1951, 1952, 1955, 1960, 1965
Member of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Statistical Sampling, 1947-52
Consultant to the Census of Mexico, to the Bank of Mexico, and to the Ministry of Economy, 1954, 1955
Consultant., Statistisches Bundesamt, Wiesbaden, 1953
Consultant to the Central Statistical Office of Turkey, 1959-1962
Lecturer, London School of Economics, March 1964
Lecturer, Institut de Statistique de l'Universite de Paris, March 1964
Consultant to the China Productivity Center, Taiwan, 1970, 1971(台灣的"中國生產力中心"--亞洲生產力組織的創始會員之一 當初就用CPC--而這CPC商號現在為"台灣中油"公司所使用......)
Lecturer in Santiago, Córdoba (Argentina), and Buenos Aires, under the auspices of the Inter American Statistical Institute, 1971.

Honors

Taylor Key award, American Management Association, 1983

The Deming prize was instituted by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers and is awarded each year in Japan to a statistician for contributions to statistical theory. The Deming prize for application is awarded to a company for improved use of statistical theory in organization, consumer research, design of product and production.

Recipient of the Second Order Medal of the Sacred Treasure, from the Emperor of Japan, 1960, for improvement of quality and of Japanese economy, through the statistical control of quality.

ずいほうしょう　瑞宝章

the Order of the Sacred Treasure.

Recipient of the Shewhart Medal for 1955, from the American Society for Quality Control.

Elected in 1972 most distinguished graduate from the University of Wyoming.

Elected in 1983 to the National Academy of Engineering.

Inducted into the Science and Technology Hall of Fame, Dayton, 1986.

In 1980, the Metropolitan section of the American Society for Quality Control established the annual Deming Medal for the improvement of quality and productivity.

Recipient of the Samuel S. Wilks Award from the American Statistical Association in 1983.

Recipient of the Distinguished Career in Science award from the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.

Recipient of the National Medal of Technology from President Reagan in 1987. 這BLOG有當年所有得獎者資料)

Targets can seriously damage your health

這位作者 (專欄作家) 是英美少數 經常引Deming的話來發揮"評論(英國)世事"論點的朋友
這幾個案例都是忘記原先組織的目的和基本要求
而忙於達成生產力或成本或局部最佳化的重從事表面或短期績效的.....



Opinion


Simon Caulkin, management editor
Sunday November 4, 2007
The Observer


First there were the truly gruesome events at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals where, according to an official report, at least 90 patients died of the superbug Clostridium difficile because of deficiencies in the cleaning regime. Second was the strange embarrassment of the Surrey police chief at his force's top place in the performance league tables - an achievement, he confessed, that was undeserved. Third, the saga of the National Treatment Agency, which has been rewarding drug addicts who present clean urine samples with bonus drugs, and which last week revealed that a £130m budget increase had resulted in just 70 extra patients kicking the habit.


What do these cases have in common? While the consequences were unintended, they were also no accident. Each was the unerring product of the management regime that ministers have propagated throughout the public services - and for which they, as much as the executives involved, should be in the dock.

At Maidstone, a report by the Health Commission said that the trust had been under such pressure to cut costs and waiting times that it took its eye off the job of cleaning. The drug administration regime is driven by the need to demonstrate that it is getting addicts into treatment, rather than getting results.

Most tellingly, Surrey's chief constable explained that, to meet government objectives to boost numbers of offenders brought to justice, his coppers were focusing on soft targets such as handing out warnings to shoplifters, instead of more serious and difficult cases. The result, the chief constable said, was that 'we are at risk of claiming statistical success when real operational issues remain to be addressed'.

Together these cases illustrate once more just why and how top-down target regimes have such baleful effects.

Targets, claim their defenders, are simple, they provide focus, and they work. Yes, they do. Unfortunately, these are also their fatal flaws. The simplicity is a delusion. As Russ Ackoff put it: 'The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers with simple problems are those with simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a simple part.'

To focus on the individual parts and ignore the whole always makes things function worse at a system-wide level. Thus, to meet financial and waiting-time targets, Maidstone drove up bed occupancy rates. But that compromised cleaning. At the system-wide level, the cost was making the hospital more dangerous to patients than staying at home.

And if enough pressure is applied, people will meet targets - even if they destroy the organisation in doing so. As quality guru W Edwards Deming put it: 'What do "targets" accomplish? Nothing. Wrong: their accomplishment is negative.'

These are systemic faults, which is why such regimes can't be refined by setting 'better' or fewer targets. Deming added: 'Management by numerical goal is an attempt to manage without knowledge of what to do'. This is what makes it so attractive to bad managers. Unfortunately, in absolving them from the effort of thought, it is also junk management, which has the same effect on the consumer as junk food: obesity, flatulence, discontent and demoralisation.

Lack of method explains why the public sector absorbs so much resource for so little return. It also explains the stop-go, curiously disembodied experience of engaging with it: it's not reacting directly to you, the individual citizen, but to management's abstraction of you, as embodied in the target. Hence the obsession with 'choice', which simply transfers the question of method to you.

Here's what I mean. On holiday near Aix-en-Provence in September, my mother had a fall. At the small, busy local hospital she was seen, X-rayed and discharged within two hours.

One phone call produced home visits by a local doctor and a nurse to administer a daily injection. On the last day, she showed my mother how to inject herself - a smart move, because the logistical feat of getting a nurse out for an immobile 90-year-old in Primrose Hill subsequently proved beyond the NHS. She also needed a blood test. Several days after the request, a nurse turned up without tourniquet, cotton wool or plaster. She severely bruised the arm, failed to take any blood and said someone would return with a 'longer needle'. Several weeks later, still no test.

So when Camden Primary Care Trust sends out a document on 'Improving Health in Camden' and asks for feedback, this is my reply. Stuff the targets and fancy extra services. I don't want 'choice'. I want competent professionals to give objective advice based on medical, not financial, considerations. What use is a health service that isn't personalised? If it functions properly, as in the wilds of Provence, it doesn't need personalising. If it works there, why not here?

simon.caulkin@observer.co.uk

If you stay in this world, you will never learn another one.

Quote from W. Edwards Deming:
If you stay in this world, you will never learn another one.

這句話耐人尋味
世界何只 "大千"世界
(古印度的宇宙觀，後影響佛教，成為佛教的宇宙觀。其說以須彌山為中心，以鐵圍山為外郭，同一日月所照的空間，稱為小世界。一千個小世界稱為小千世界；一千個小千世界稱為中千世界；一千個中千世界稱為大千世界。因一個大千世界是由小中大三種千世界組成，故稱為三千大千世界。簡稱為大千。)

必須從系統之外觀之求知

必須走出這世界
才能了解大千