At the beginning of the 1980s, American entrepreneurs asked W. Edwards Deming for their help and advice in order to solve the enormous and serious problems that were registered in their respective companies in terms of quality and productivity. The competitiveness of North American and European companies was being overwhelmed by the strength and high level of quality of their Japanese competitors.
Now, why was this American consultant being asked for help? This guru spent much of his time in Japan and had been together with Juran, Ishikawa, Taguchi, Ohno and Shigeo Shingo responsible for the great success of Japanese companies in the world. Such is so, and so powerful its influence, that the highest quality award in Japan bears his name.
Beginning in the 1930s, Deming actively participated in a statistical revolution that would radically change data processing and analysis forever.
Deming and his colleagues were responsible for developing statistical sampling methods that not only helped make current quality management possible, but also led to current techniques of survey, market research, and census. It was precisely during this decade that probability sampling first began to gain legitimacy outside of scientific circles.
Deming was a statistician with revolutionary ideas in administration, so revolutionary that they were not accepted and / or assimilated by American managers. It was not so with the Japanese businessmen and managers, who paid attention and took pains to put into practice the recommendations of the North American adviser.
To a great extent, the state of affairs of the Japanese companies devastated by the Second World War, and the philosophical concepts prevailing there, contributed to the adoption of such ideas with greater energy and speed.
He had to wait to be an octogenarian before the American managers began to put their attention on him. Although his ideas were accepted in principle, they never penetrated deeply into the spirit and psychology of the American businessman. Proof of this is that today, after more than a quarter of a century of his teachings in Detroit conference rooms, American automotive companies, as well as those corresponding to other industrial sectors, are again registering profound problems that lead them to adopt measures harmful to their own future, such as the massive dismissal of personnel in order to reduce costs.
The North American businessmen could never get out of the karma that the quarterly results mean. Thus, the need to show and distribute benefits in the short term leads to adopting counterproductive measures for results in the medium and long term.
But this revolution that began or had its beginnings in Asian lands, never came to advance decisively in the West, not only in the United States, but much less still in Latin America. Not everyone knows who Deming is, few know of his ideas, and very few have read his works. Therefore very few of his concepts are applied systematically today in western companies.
Deming's ideas were precursors not only to quality in Japanese production, but also to the notable increase in productivity levels, revolutionizing concepts in strategic management.
An easy way to know that your ideas have not yet flourished, especially in Latin America, is asking yourself: how many universities treat your works and to what extent? How many companies apply Statistical Process Control, not only to quality but also to the other ratios and management indicators ?, and finally, how many companies follow their fourteen-point philosophy applied to business administration?
Very few, is not it ?, perhaps almost nothing. Well, that's how we are. In a world whose processes are continuously accelerating, managing companies with the same fundamental criteria of former times are no longer valid. Although American and European corporations can partly overcome the problem through permanent innovation, their productive policies take them very quickly to the limits of global production capacity, taking into account the absorption capacities of new products and the limits of adaptation. ecology and existing resource capacity.
The world must change the way it manages and controls its resources, and the way to do it is by incorporating management patterns guided by productivity and better use of resources into its decision systems.
The philosophy of quality management developed by Deming is based on the understanding of the power and penetration capacity of variation, and how it affects the production process, that delicate interaction of people, machines, materials and the external environment.
All systems are subject to a certain amount of variation that leads to inconsistency and, eventually, erosion of both process and product quality. The inconsistency makes it difficult for management to predict how their systems and strategies will work, and the degradation of quality will inevitably result in a loss for the company. Deming's teaching on variation provides management with the vital knowledge it needs to recognize when a problem is the result of isolated detail in an otherwise well-run business and when it is the result of systemic problems. deeply rooted. Therefore, understanding variation is vital to effect change.
Deming began by analyzing processes through the scientist's lens, studying the effects of variation on a multitude of individual processes. That original perspective led him, over time, to develop a comprehensive quality model that helps management adjust the focus of the company and, finally, to improve and optimize the organization as a whole.
Back in the 70s and 80s, while in some places there were important and revolutionary advances in terms of quality, productivity and production systems, in Latin America the university faculties were more concerned and concentrated in analyzing the ideas of Marx and Engels, corresponding to the nineteenth century. This explains why today the managers, advisers and teachers trained in those years do not have the foundations to counteract the competitive onslaught, let alone give a solution to the pressing problems of this new century.
Trying to solve current problems with ideas and thoughts of 19th century philosophers and economists is absurd and totally far-fetched. The world runs its course, as some try to look back on this part of the world, other places like Vietnam, India or China, accelerate towards the future.
Deming started a revolution in management, an unfinished revolution that has not yet ended, and from which businessmen, advisers and professors must take the lead to generate a profound and radical advance in the effective management of organizations.
Shaping new paradigms
Deming is a revolutionary in the field of administration, because from him there is a new way of seeing things, a different way of conceiving organizational processes and activities.
Both Deming and his disciples consider that, due to the influence of the "bean carriers", the companies have lost the rhythm of the market beats and do not carry out objective evaluations of their capacity. In a financially minded company, its owners and shareholders replace the customer as the main focus of attention.
Accounting, the primary language in most Western companies, tends to dismiss nonfinancial employees, and is of little use when it comes to understanding manufacturing concerns in operations, the marketing department's analysis of customer needs, or Research and Development interest in a new research path.
Quality, according to Deming, has no meaning except that defined by the wishes and needs of customers. A company that has a well-defined image of its client and that productively manages the knowledge gained through constant improvements will have much more possibilities of giving impulse to innovations than a company satisfied with its status quo.
The last victim, for Deming, of the traditional style of administration is not the consumer, because he always has the possibility of crossing the sidewalk to buy a Toyota, but the employee and worker, whose work is threatened by administrative mismanagement and who usually also be blamed for the errors of said administration.
Quality and utility become synonyms when the concept of quality covers the entire organization. In this way, the "deminguista" philosophy covers each and every one of the functions and disciplines within the company. Controlling variation, eliminating the corresponding impediments to quality and improving production prices are only the price to enter the challenge of competitiveness. Equally critical is the constant and systematic search for new characteristics in products and processes that serve to increase quality.
Just as Statistical Process Control helps employees analyze, understand and improve individual processes, so companies that leverage that knowledge across the organization are more likely to innovate. Deming's doctrine of variation provides management with the tools to clearly distinguish between the kinds of systematic problems that individual employees can influence and those that only management can solve.
A new strategic vision
Eliminating defects is not enough to capture markets. Success depends on how well the company evaluates the processes, products and markets of today to satisfy what the customer will want tomorrow, and that it has the administrative conviction to assume the corresponding changes. It requires a commitment to long-term strategies, and analytical insight to accurately estimate where systemic changes should be made.
New leadership involves transforming the role of both the manager and the supervisor, from being a police officer to being a coach. Thus, competitive leadership must help people and machines engage in a process that does a better job.
Deming urges and underlines the need to eliminate 100% inspection as a method to control and improve quality, as doing so is equivalent to planning for defects, confirming that the process does not have the required capacity to meet specifications. The best way to improve processes is by perfecting systems and processes, which implies putting a strong focus on prevention, and if prevention is a question, investing in training is essential.
Deming tells us that education is directly linked to the company's ability to maintain and refine processes.
Another fundamental issue for quality improvement involves ending the practice of awarding contracts largely on the basis of price. Companies must move yes or yes towards a single supplier for each particular item, in a long-term relationship based on loyalty and trust.
Although Deming acknowledges that it is not always feasible to have only one supplier, he insists that the client company works closely and systematically with the suppliers in order to efficiently communicate their needs and thereby help the seller to improve the quality of their products. At the same time, it significantly reduces the total cost to the buyer.
Getting the company to work as a system leads to the urgent need to break down the barriers and walls that separate the departments. The integrated work of each and every one of the sectors and areas of the organization is essential, over the sectorized jobs competing with each other. If there is something that destroys the quality and productivity of traditional companies, it is that internal rivalry between their own sectors. Something that by the way is seen in great magnitude both in large companies and in public bodies.
Managing human resources differently
Performance evaluations that seek to measure individual employee input are often damaging. This is so because change and improvement must be constant and comprehensive. They must involve all members of the company, including external suppliers and even customers.
Within this new vision, the education and ongoing training of all members of the organization is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving the type of analysis that is necessary for continuous improvement.
Fear must be removed, for no one can do their best unless they feel safe. Insurance implies not being afraid or afraid to express your ideas, nor afraid to ask questions. The training of directors and employees must have as one of its purposes the elimination of fear or fear.
Finally, the traditional performance evaluation system with bonuses and rewards for a few winners generates a constant and absurd internal fight between employees, which ends up being clearly detrimental to the interests of both the company and its employees.
His philosophy based on statistics
Deming's management philosophy is based on a simple statistical observation of how processes work: all processes are subject to a certain level of variation that is likely to decrease quality. Variation is arch enemy of quality, and is as inevitable and pervasive as gravity. What makes variation a particular annoyance is that the defendant comes in two different costumes that, if confused, will only lead to further problems and losses. Statistical differences between variations that obey "common" causes and those that respond to "special" causes. Special causes are the product of special circumstances, a temporary slip in the system: the malfunction of a piece of machinery or the use of unusual materials, for example.The special causes are by their very nature discreet, being able to be detected and eliminated in many cases by the employees themselves.
While common causes are more difficult to distinguish, since they are inherent in the system, representing the greatest opportunities for long-term improvement. And precisely because common causes are part and parcel of the system that the management has created, only it can reduce this variation and thereby improve the system.
Thus management has, according to Deming, the opportunity as well as the unique responsibility to work systematically and consistently in reducing the common causes of variation. Deming argues that managers have a primary responsibility to identify and reduce variation in everything from the production floor to the finance floor.
Since little or nothing workers can do to eliminate the common causes of variation, the burden of improvement falls on management. This is why slogans are misleading and of little use, since they lead us to believe that improvement depends fundamentally on the work of employees, when in fact they critically depend on management's plans and actions.
Conclusions
For all those who are and feel involved and committed to quality and productivity, whether in public or private organizations, it is necessary to adopt and improve the ideas and instruments of both Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum, Taguchi and other leading exponents. of contemporary management.
Staying up-to-date on the latest in quality and productivity is being on the crest of the wave in terms of competitiveness, not doing it is getting caught under the wave.
A company has two options, being among the best managed or among the worst managed. The former have the capabilities and conditions to fully satisfy their customers and consumers. The latter are degraded day by day both in terms of quality, costs and capacity of services.
Bibliography
Quality, productivity and competitiveness. The way out of the crisis - W. Edwards Deming - Editorial Díaz de Santos - 1989
The new economy - W. Edwards Deming - Editorial Díaz de Santos - 1998
