Deming's Fourteen Points of Quality Management

Deming's Fourteen Points of Quality Management

1. Create a permanent purpose of improving products and services

Top management must return from short‑term goals to a long‑term focus on continuously improving products and services, requiring reform and innovation across all areas.

2. Adopt a new philosophy

Intolerable are poor raw materials, bad operations, defective products, and lax services.

3. End reliance on mass inspection

Inspection merely discovers defects after they occur; the proper approach is to improve the production process and build quality in.

4. Eliminate the practice of "lowest price wins"

Price matters only relative to quality; management must redefine procurement principles, build long‑term supplier relationships, reduce supplier numbers, and use statistical tools to assess supplier quality.

5. Continuously improve production and service systems

Every activity—procurement, transportation, engineering, methods, maintenance, sales, distribution, accounting, HR, customer service, and manufacturing—must reduce waste and raise quality.

6. Institute modern on‑the‑job training

Training must be planned, based on acceptable work standards, and measured with statistical methods.

7. Institute modern supervision

Supervisors must inform top management of areas needing improvement, prompting corrective action.

8. Drive out fear

All employees must feel free to ask questions, raise issues, or express opinions.

9. Break down barriers between departments

Each department should act as a team; cross‑functional quality circles improve design, service, quality, and cost.

10. Eliminate numerical quotas for employees

Motivational slogans, posters, and targets that quantify productivity must be abolished; the organization should instead pursue the perpetual goal of continuous improvement.

11. Eliminate work standards and quantitative quotas

Quotas focus on quantity rather than quality; piece‑rate work encourages defective output.

12. Remove obstacles to smooth work

Any factor that undermines employee dignity, including vague performance criteria, must be removed.

13. Establish rigorous education and training programs

Because quality and productivity improvements change job structures, all employees must receive ongoing training, including basic statistical techniques.

14. Create a top‑level management structure that drives the above daily

A senior management system should be established to promote all thirteen points continuously.

Core of the Fourteen Points

Unchanging goals, continuous improvement, and innovation.

Personal Thoughts

In the 1950s Deming advocated a strategy of low price and high quality for Japan’s industrial revival. In the early 1980s he was invited by Ford’s CEO Donald Peterson to address quality crises such as the Pinto incident, introducing statistical methods that later influenced Six‑Sigma.

Unlike many modern quality systems, Deming emphasized that 98% of quality challenges lie in uncovering organizational knowledge, promoting teamwork, cross‑department collaboration, rigorous training, and close supplier cooperation.

External Evaluation

John O. Whitney, a renowned corporate transformation expert, said the United States needs Deming’s “shock therapy,” noting that Deming helped Japan transform from a declining industrial nation into a global economic power.