A Toast to Dr. W. Edwards Deming

[PDF] MAQIN -

2004

A MAQIN Special Event Tedd Snyder, Albany Analytical On December 15 th , at the Great Dane Brewpub, a group of MAQIN members celebrated the life and work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming.


Maury Cotter, Director of Strategic Planning and Quality Improvement, University of Wisconsin-Madison, opened the session asking, “Why are we here?”, using the same phrase with which Dr. Deming began his seminars. The group heard some of the life lessons from Dr. Deming as Maury recounted from the October 1994 issue of the newsletter, SPC INK: If it weren’t for Dr. Deming… “I would still read the daily stock market reports and think they meant something. I would know my auto service/repair people as well as I used to. I would blame the store clerk for the long lines and the return policy. I would scrape the burnt toast and not fix the toaster. I would reduce my costs by buying the lowest priced thread. I would design a new product and then market it hard to try to convince customers they needed it. I would tell my kids to do their own work and that working on their homework with other kids was cheating. I would fire the lowest producing worker, but first I’d have him train his replacement.”

Six “Willing Workers;” reenacted the Red Bead Experiment. Dr. Deming called the Red Bead Experiment, “a stupidly simple experiment” that uses variation in worker performance to show that “performance does not come from the individual, it comes mostly from the system that he works in.” In other words, a bad process, created and controlled by management, can overcome a worker’s best efforts to succeed and result in defective products or ineffective services, whether in health care, government, education, services or manufacturing.


Former MAQIN board member, Brian Joiner, a long-time associate and friend of Dr. Deming offered a Toast to Dr. Deming. (Brian’s toast is below.)

Proctor & Gamble Professor Emeritus, University of Wisconsin- Madison, Don Ermer, closed the event with his reminiscences of helping Dr. Deming to imp lement Statistical Process Control at Ford in the early 1980s.


A Toast to Dr. W. Edwards Deming
December 15, 2004
Brian L. Joiner
It is a great pleasure to offer a toast to Dr. Deming. He was a friend and mentor for 30 years. I cried when he died and would cry again today if I were here with you. And I am not alone. Dr. Deming touched many people’s lives in a very deep way. Some people say Deming was a statistician – and that he was – a great one. But he was much more than a statistician, just as Mahatma Gandhi was much more than a lawyer. There are many parallels – both started out in rather technical fields – but their work took them into uncharted territory. Both had a deep caring for people and their belief in people allowed them to touch many people deeply. Both made Nobel Prize level contributions to peace and the betterment of human kind.

A toast to Dr. Deming would not be complete without recourse to a few of his famous sayings: “Best efforts are not enough, you have to know what to do.” Dr. Deming was a great learner – I saw him continue to learn almost daily, up until he died at 93 – and maybe beyond for all I know.

“Willing workers, just doing their best.” He would meet with the workers in factories, in routine clerical jobs, in any job – and he would ask them, “Can you take pride in your work?” Then they would tell him the problems they encountered in their everyday work – these willing workers, just doing their best. He may have been the only person who ever asked them that question. They trusted him – and he learned things their managers needed to know but few were ever curious enough to ask. Where managers did ask, there was a wonderful change.

In one moving instance, a gruff 50+ yr old employee said, “We used to have to check our brains at the door, but now people care what I think, now I look forward to coming to work!”

“There is no substitute for knowledge.”
A chemical company manager (Jerry Brock) decided to teach “the willing workers” about the chemistry that was behind the products they made - the result – greatly increased employee satisfaction and improved quality and productivity – they had some knowledge!

Dr. Deming used to say it is important to promote education. Pay for the tuition. It doesn’t matter what they study – Plato or basket weaving, It’ll make them better, more productive employees. “There is no substitute


“You can work with a man who knows his limitations.” (Dr. Deming never made the switch to more gender neutral language.) For years I found this statement strange – what’s he really trying to say here? I don’t know why it was so hard – but now it’s totally clear. Maybe I just had to work with a few more people who were totally over their heads and didn’t know it.

“A numerical goal without a method

is nonsense.”

“The most useful numbers

are unknown and

unknowable.”

“Where there is fear you do

not get honest figures.”

These three are closely connected

and still not understood by most

managers and most professors of

business. The simplicity of

Management by Results is so

compelling – too bad it just doesn’t

work

So here is to the most amazing and

wonderful man I have ever know – a

man who raised my spirits and taught

me so much –

Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

『如何紀念戴明』的雜思

『如何紀念戴明』的雜思


昨天是W. E. Deming 博士（1900-93）的冥誕。我在1995-2002的這天或12月底，多會辦活動。

今年有朋友來問：「Dear HC,…… 今年十月有準備紀念戴明的活動嗎？」我無言以對。不過我們如果有心，可以自力救濟或自言自語一番。

我想全世界對於Deming 的了解都只是局部的。昨晚接到幾封DEN的通訊，上www.deming.org（內容充實許多了，讓我想起累積之功）。我從它轉到美國國會圖書館中的100多boxes之DEMING檔案，看熱鬧/沉思。

譬如說他約39歲時，在農業部編輯過重要的統計學講義（包括W. A. Shehart的名著和Nyman的統計推論）和十講的科學史和科學。

他晚年的兩部曲之深意，還沒神真正深入地談（很巧，傍晚路過台大校園，有攤販，買本「轉危為安」（五折，2001年第9刷）。

Deming是有深刻思想的人，他將最後一本書取名The New Economics，這絕對不是說說算了的事。

昨天白天想他的學說和其他不同進路者的差別；由於近日稍為讀JD的COLLAPSE一書之摘要。這讓我想起這主題的傳承淵源很早，比企管界在談的LIVING ORGANIZATIONS更深遠。企管界談大公司（公司最多500-600年）之「管理型資本主義」或「偉大的公司」等等，幾乎可以說連「中看」都談不上，更不用談「中用」了—所以它得出的結論，已經很少人用心思考。這是「市場兼組織」之近視特性和限制。

同樣，20世人湯恩比等用「文明」做單位來談興衰之道…..現在JD用SOCIETY作單位……但願這approach是R. Merton所謂的 middle-range theory—另外，經一世紀的努力，社會科學的資料庫發揮功能（如他舉的，用「嬰兒死亡率」最能預測…..）

不過，Deming 對於資本主義*自有他的許多微言大義。

當然 我們可以從他與日本友人的合照；從他的聖樂作品了解另外一些面相。

日本科技連 (JUSE) 所寫的品質革命中Deming 博士的貢獻

日本科技連 (JUSE) 所寫的品質革命中Deming 博士的貢獻 鍾漢清

...the best way out is always through.
---A Servant to Servants by Robert Lee Frost


寫給成立10周年的網路討論 Deming Electronic Network *DEN) 談
Deming vs. Juran
The Words by JUSE by Hanching Chung

昨天提筆抄錄一大段JUSE 在戴明獎十周年專刊解釋他們如何感謝Deming博士的幫忙。

我翻譯過 Deming 和 Juran 博士的重要著作，受益極大。兩位都長壽（Deming 晚年創造力極了不起。）。Business Week慶祝70周年設Innovators 專欄，述兩位前輩事績總帶記者劣根性，挑選出許多 gossips。我一向認為日本的成績最大功臣為日本，不是洋客。
不過日本懂得飲水思源，感恩。

我一個人在品質學會的一間會議室。CSQ很忙，借兩團體開會，自己也有課、有會議，辦事的人員團團轉。座位對面兩列講義夾，那「品質改善之短期系列課程」是我80年代初所創的點子，我自己留下2-3課程之講義。背後是我的老師們所捐贈的一些資料和書籍，THE STORY of ROCKFELLER FOUNDATION是1951年出版的，很精彩，我們可能到了2050或2100年，都沒有財團法人可以跟他們的VISIONS 和實務相當；連同「高階層企業管理考察團（三團）」之報告，可能是高院長送的。劉振老師送的日本科技連（JUSE，Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers）的最為寶貴：


Some friends of DEN know my position and opinion on the personal impact on the 'Japanese Quality Revolution'. That is, the major and vital contributors are Japanese themselves, not any (native or overseas) quality gurus. Hence the argument of whom was more influential on the Japanese achievement or more popular is not relavant.

I admire Dr. Deming insightful and creative contribution to the theory of management and organizations. Dr. Juran's contribution is also significant.

On the other hand, the history was written and witnessed by JUSE. So I like to share with you their appreciation of Dr. Deming in an important document (note by Hanching : I used JUSE and SQC/QC in my own copy and I used their full names in the following ones) :

'The 10th Anniversary of the Deming Prize : How Have 25 Leading manufacturers Materialized SQC for Better Quality and More Efficient Operation?' May, 1960, presided by Kenichi Koyanagi

'It was in 1948, or three years after the war termination, that the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers started a series of research and investigation on the industrial application of Statistical Quality Control. But our research workers then were few, and they could avail themselves of little information and literature on the subject. Not until Dr. W. Edwards Deming gave his compact, practical Quality Control lectures in this country in August, 1950, under the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers sponsorship did our industrial application of Statistical Quality Control method start steady progress. It is his educational activities at that time and his advices and suggestion in the following years that have given us the guiding torchlight and invincible determination with which we have been well able to use QC methods wider and wider in industry, the Deming Prize was found, and it was award for the first time in 1951…

附件劉振老師與小柳賢一通信原稿（日文信應為奇美的張先生代寫）；劉振老師寫「1962年1月9日小柳賢一先生贈送」（大意）。