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Management's job is to optimize the whole system.

W. Edwards Deming

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W. Edwards Deming
Age: 93 †
Born: 1900
Born: October 18
Died: 1993
Died: December 20
Composer
Economist
Engineer
Industrial Engineer
Statistician
University Teacher
Sioux City
Iowa
William Edwards Deming
W.E. Deming
W. E. Deming
Optimize
Management
System
Jobs
Whole

More quotes by W. Edwards Deming

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Experience by itself teaches nothing... Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.
W. Edwards Deming
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People copy examples and then they wonder what is the trouble. They look at examples and without theory they learn nothing.
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Nobody should try to use data unless he has collected data.
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Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force
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Eighty percent of American managers cannot answer with any measure of confidence these seemingly simple questions: What is my job? What in it really counts? How well am I doing?
W. Edwards Deming
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The customer is the most important part of the production line.
W. Edwards Deming
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You can not achieve an aim unless you have a method.
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It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone. . . . The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.
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The most important figures for management of any organization are unknown and unknowable.
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Put a good person in a bad system and the bad system wins, no contest.
W. Edwards Deming
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Management is prediction.
W. Edwards Deming
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The greatest waste … is failure to use the abilities of people…to learn about their frustrations and about the contributions that they are eager to make.
W. Edwards Deming
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Knowledge is theory. We should be thankful if action of management is based on theory. Knowledge has temporal spread. Information is not knowledge. The world is drowning in information but is slow in acquisition of knowledge. There is no substitute for knowledge.
W. Edwards Deming
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The prevailing style of management must undergo transformation. A system can not understand itself. The transformation requires a view from outside.
W. Edwards Deming
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To successfully respond to the myriad of changes that shake the world, transformation into a new style of management is required. The route to take is what I call profound knowledge, knowledge for leadership of transformation.
W. Edwards Deming
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A leader is a coach, not a judge.
W. Edwards Deming
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Foremost is the principle that the purpose of consumer research is to understand the customer's needs and wishes, and thus design product and service that will provide better living for him in the future. A second principle is that no one can guess the future loss of business from a dissatisfied customer.
W. Edwards Deming
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What makes a scientist great is the care that he takes in telling you what is wrong with his results, so that you will not misuse them.
W. Edwards Deming
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The system that people work in and the interaction with people may account for 90 or 95 percent of performance.
W. Edwards Deming
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Manage the cause, not the result.
W. Edwards Deming