Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

All Quotes by author - W. Edwards Deming

" A bad system will beat a good person every time. "

" All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride. "

" American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan. But they don't know what to copy. "

" Any manager can do well in an expanding market. "

" Customer expectations? Nonsense. No customer ever asked for the electric light, the pneumatic tire, the VCR, or the CD. All customer expectations are only what you and your competitor have led him to expect. He knows nothing else. "

" Declining productivity and quality means your unit production costs stay high but you don't have as much to sell. Your workers don't want to be paid less, so to maintain profits, you increase your prices. That's inflation. "

" Eliminate numerical quotas, including Management by Objectives. "

" Export anything to a friendly country except American management. "

" Hold everybody accountable? Ridiculous! "

" I am forever learning and changing. "

" If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing. "

" If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing. "

" If you don't understand how to run an efficient operation, new machinery will just give you new problems of operation and maintenance. The sure way to increase productivity is to better administrate man and machine. "

" In 1945, the world was in a shambles. American companies had no competition. So nobody really thought much about quality. Why should they? The world bought everything America produced. It was a prescription for disaster. "

" In Japan, a company worker's position is secure. He is retrained for another job if his present job is eliminated by productivity improvement. "

" Innovation comes from the producer - not from the customer. "

" I predicted in 1950 that in five years, manufacturers the world over would be screaming for protection. It took only four years. "

" It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best. "

" It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. "

" Lack of knowledge... that is the problem. "

" Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. "

" My mother was my biggest role model. She taught me to hate waste. We never wasted anything. "

" No one knows the cost of a defective product - don't tell me you do. You know the cost of replacing it, but not the cost of a dissatisfied customer. "

" People don't like to make mistakes. "

" People with targets and jobs dependent upon meeting them will probably meet the targets - even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it. "

" Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them. "

" Quality is everyone's responsibility. "

" Quality is pride of workmanship. "

" Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action. "

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

Check our other websites: