W Edwards Deming was an American statistician, considered the father of the modern quality movement. In 1982, Edwards Deming published “Out of the Crisis” identifying 14 points for management which if applied would enable Japanese manufacturing efficiencies to be realized.

Deming’s 14 Points:

• Create constancy of purpose and continual improvement where long-term planning replaces short-term reaction.
• Adopt this new philosophy by management and workers alike.
• Do not depend on quality inspection; rather build quality into the product and process.
• Choose quality suppliers over low cost suppliers in order to minimize variation in raw materials and supply.
• Improve constantly in order to reduce variation in all aspects.
• Train on the job (both workers and management) in order to reduce variation in how job is done.
• Lead, don’t supervise in order to get people to do a better job, not just meet targets.
• Eliminate fear and encourage two-way communication.
• Break down internal barriers by departments to view each other as “internal customers.”
• Assert that processes make mistakes not people. Management harassment of workers will create bad relations if no is effort made to improve processes.
• Eliminate numerical targets. Management by objectives encourages low quality in order to meet quantity.
• Remove barriers to worker satisfaction.
• Encourage self-improvement and education for all.
• Assert that everyone is responsible for continual improvement in quality and productivity.

W. Edwards Deming’s ideas strongly influenced the Japanese auto industry after World War II. Additionally, his quality management systems influence other models such as Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Total Quality Management (TQM).