Deming Model Essay ⋆ Business Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

A method for ensuring that quality is incorporated into every stage of every task carried out by an organization is known as the Deming Model or Deming Cycle. The model is named for Dr. William Edwards Deming (1900–93), who is widely credited with exerting a lasting influence on the study of quality. Deming’s model is a feedback loop with four parts: (1) Plan: identify customer needs and expectations, set strategic objectives; (2) Do: implement and operate processes; (3) Check: collect business results, monitor and measure the processes, review and analyze; and (4) Act: continually improve process performance.

Deming argued that managers must continuously improve their production and service processes. He believed that improvement was not just a one-time effort, but that managers are obligated to continuously search for and implement ways to reduce waste and improve quality. Continuous quality improvement is driven by two imperatives: (1) To maintain and increase sales income, companies must continually evolve new product features and new processes to produce these features; and (2) to keep costs competitive, companies must continually reduce the level of product and process deficiencies. Continuous improvement is embodied in a structured approach— the Plan, Do, Check, and Act model (PDCA)—that emphasizes organizational commitment to the systematic, continual improvement of the capability, reliability, and efficiency of business processes.

Deming was one of the leading figures in the quality movement of the 1950s to 1970s. His early work involved the development of statistical quality control (SQC) on production lines. While his work was largely ignored in his home country, in the early 1950s in postwar reconstruction Japan, Deming, and another quality control expert, Joseph Juran, emerged as major influences on the Japanese drive for quality, most notably in the Toyota Production System. In the late 1970s, as American firms found themselves under increasingly fierce competition from Japanese firms producing low-cost, high-quality goods, Deming and Juran were rediscovered by their home country as quality issues became integrated into management thinking and practice. Today, Deming-influenced practices can be seen in firms of every size all around the world, his name forever associated with the concept of total quality management (TQM).

While pursuing his Ph.D. in mathematical physics at Yale University, Deming spent his summers working at the Hawthorne-based telephone assembly plant of Western Electric, a subsidiary of AT&T. During Deming’s time at Hawthorne the company was part of a research project, led by two Harvard University investigators, Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger, focusing on the effects of environmental conditions on productivity. Deming’s Hawthorne experience taught him about factory management and the mistakes being made in terms of both machine and human efficiency. While at Hawthorne, Deming came across the pioneering work in statistical quality control being undertaken by Walter Shewhart, then employed in doing research for AT&T. Shewhart developed statistical sampling methods that could identify defects or variations in quality during the production process. In Shewhart’s view, the root causes of defects need to be detected as soon as possible, and then those causes should be eliminated.

During the 1980s Deming was for a time the best-known management guru in the world. To Deming, quality was more than just a set of techniques for quality control and standardization. Quality had to become a mindset, embraced by the entire company. His book Out of the Crisis (1986) describes how a quality system can be introduced, while his last work, The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education (1993), urges the importance of quality thinking for national competitiveness and prosperity.

Deming believed that the primary responsibility for quality lay with management; he was opposed to the misconception that poor quality was due solely to low skills and/or poor performance by workers. From Shewhart, Deming adopted the PDCA cycle in which actions and events are constantly monitored and defects or problems noticed quickly and eradicated. This became famous in Japan as the Deming cycle or Deming model.

Revisionists think that Japan (as well as Shewhart) had a profound influence on Deming’s thinking, rather than the reverse. Statistical quality control was already known in Japan and several organizations were actively involved in its development and implementation. Japanese ideas on total quality management influenced Deming’s later thinking. Other revisionists credit Joseph Juran with even greater influence in Japan than Deming. Working independently, Juran argued that to achieve quality, management needs to move away from statistical targets and toward a culture of continuous improvement, backed up by training and motivation. Another quality guru, Philip Crosby, an engineer with ITT for many years, developed his own 14 points, which likewise include training, motivation, and the commitment by top management to improving quality, focusing on zero defects to avoid repairs, replacement of defective products, and lost customers.

Bibliography:

John Beckford, Quality (Routledge, 2002);
Thomas J. Douglas and Lawrence D Fredendall, “Evaluating the Deming Management Model of Total Quality in Services,” Decision Sciences (v.35/3, 2004);
Caroline Fisher, Jesse Barfield, Jing Li, and Rajiv Mehta, “Retesting a Model of the Deming Management Method,” Total Quality Management and Business Excellence (v.16/3, 2005);
Michael Lowenstein, The Customer Loyalty Pyramid (Quorum Books, 1997);
David E. Meen and Mark Keough, “Creating the Learning Organization,” McKinsey Quarterly (1992);
Michael A. Milgate, Transforming Corporate Performance: Measuring and Managing the Drivers of Business Success (Praeger, 2004);
Judy D. Olian et al., “Designing Management Training and Development for Competitive Advantage: Lessons from the Best,” Human Resource Planning (v.21, 1998);
Morgen Witzel, Fifty Key Figures in Management (Routledge, 2003);
John C. Wood and Michael C. Wood, W. Edwards Deming: Critical Evaluations in Business and Management (Routledge, 2005).

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