Dr.Deming’s 14 Points : A systematic approach to quality

1. Create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and services – Organizations must allocate resources for long term planning instead of reacting to short term problems.
2. Adopt the new philosophy- Organizations, both at the managerial and workforce level, must no longer accept the ‘acceptable’ levels of delays, defective material and workmanship.
3. Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality- Quality must be built into the design of the processes preventing defects rather than detecting them after the errors have occurred.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag.
5. Improve constantly- Management and employees must locate problems and strive to constantly improve quality by reducing variation in all aspects, like planning, production and service.
6. Institute modern methods of training on the job- This will reduce variation in the way work is done.
7. Adopt and institute modern methods of supervision- Managers must lead, not supervise, and the responsibility of workers must shift to quality instead of numbers.
8. Drive out fear, through effective communication- Employees must feel secure to work effectively for the organization.
9. Break down barriers between departments- This will promote clarity of working among different departments, such as research, design, production and sales; and improve quality and productivity.
10. Eliminate numerical goals, slogans (exhortations), targets for the workforce- Let the workforce be encouraged to increase productivity without providing the methods to achieve this.
11. Eliminate work standards that prescribe numerical quotas- To produce numerical quotas, employees will churn out low quality products.
12. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker of the right to pride of workmanship- Individual performance reviews are a great barrier.
13. Institute education and training for everyone.
14. Create a structure in top management that will drive employees everyday on the above 13 points- To achieve this transformation, everybody in the company should be put to work.

Dr.Deming highlighted the seven deadly diseases towards achieving quality.

Top five are diseases are as under :

1. Lack of constancy of purpose
2. Emphasis on short term profits
3. Evaluation pf performance
4. Mobility of management
5. Running an organization on visible figures alone.

Find more about Dr.Deming on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._deming