W. Edwards Deming. Biographical review.
1. Edwards Deming was born on October 14, 1900 in the US, the son of Albert Deming. He grew up in a Wyoming homestead during the time that irrigation was threatening the Old West and transportation was by horse-drawn wagon.
At the beginning of the century, he moved with his family from Sioux City to Cody Wyoming. Later they moved to the city of Powel, where they settled on a 16-hectare site and in a tarred cardboard hut, fitted out his father's library and his mother's piano. The father was engaged in cultivation while his mother taught music.
The first years in Powel were very difficult for the family, but W. Deming with his business specialized in the sale of insurance, real estate and legal services were able to get ahead: The most difficult thing was the discomfort with which they lived since there was no electricity or drainage.. William Edwards earned 25 cents running errands at a hotel, he went on to earn $ 10 a month for lighting the lanterns that light the street. Over time, the family's situation improved.
In 1917 W. Deming made a trip to Caramie to start his studies at the University of Wyoming, in the city he found a janitor job, shoveling snow, working in a soda fountain, playing the piccolo in the university choir. In 1921 he graduated but decides to stay one more year to study mathematics and physics. A year later he taught physics at a Colorado mine, thereby obtaining a master's degree in mathematics and physics. While there, he courted a teacher named Agnes Bell whom he married in 1923 and they adopted a son Danothy.
In 1924, a teacher encouraged him to continue studying at Yale, receiving his Ph in physics. In the summer, he works at the Hawthorne plant at Western Electric in Chicago where 46,000 people make phones in a low-pay, exploitative environment.
Some of his management ideas grew out of his experience at Hawthorne, where workers were paid according to what they produced. Deming's greatest interest was in studying nitrogen and analyzing its effects on crops. In 1954, he rejected offers to work in private industry.
His wife Aggnes died in 1930. Two years later he married Lola Shupe, a mathematician with whom he had two daughters, Diana, who was born in 1934, and Linda, who was born in 1942. When Deming works in the agriculture department, he meets Walter A. Shewhart. Statistical expert and worked with Bell telefhone laboratories in New York. He developed techniques to bring industrial processes to what he called "statistical control."
Dr. Deming was recruited by the Supreme Command of the Allied Forces to carry out a 1915 Japanese census. The country was badly damaged, when Deming arrived the occupation had been two years old and there was little evidence of physical recovery. Deming tried to familiarize himself with his culture. In 1956 he wrote that his study methods would become Japanese.
Dr. Deming did not know the Japanese Scientists and Engineers Union Group (UCIJ) which had been organized to rebuild the country, the situation in Japan was dire as it could not produce enough food to feed the people. It was evident that goods had to be exported in order to have money to buy food. But for the cause of the war in Japan, not only was there a market, but industrial production was very bad because it had given Japan what Dr. Deming called "negative heritage.
The UCIJ members were fascinated by Shewhart's theories, and also with Dr. Deming they were fascinated by his knowledge and friendliness and thought that perhaps it would help them in their recovery efforts. In March 1950, UCIJ Executive Director Kenichi Koyanagi wrote to Dr. Deming to give researchers, production managers, and engineers a lecture series on quality control methods. Dr. Deming's answer was yes and he arrived in Tokyo on June 16, 1950. The situation in Japan had improved.
On June 19, before a group of 500 people, he held the first of twelve series of conferences. Dr. Deming was concerned about his experience in the United States where statistical quality control had flourished in such a short time.
Dr. Deming encouraged the Japanese to produce with quality, following the method of conducting research and looking to the future to produce goods that had a long market. In August of that year, the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce invited Dr. Deming to address 50 other industrialists and talk to them about his methods and 45 more in Hakone. By the end of the summer, he had come to the management of most large companies, in addition to teaching statistical techniques to thousands of technicians.
To show their appreciation, the Japanese established the Deming Prize in 1951, a silver medal engraved with Dr. Deming's profile, which was awarded in two categories, to an individual for his knowledge in statistical theory and to companies for achievements in the statistical application.
In 1951 he returned to Japan to teach more courses and attend ceremonies, he also toured a camera factory and observed somewhat prophetically and simply with better quality control.
The Japanese were very grateful to Dr. Deming as he offered his warm cordiality to all the Japanese he met and exchanged frank opinions with everyone. His noble personality deeply impressed everyone who learned from him and got to know him. The sincerity and enthusiasm with which he dedicated himself to his courses are still alive and will live forever in everyone's memory.
By 1980 thirty years after teaching his methods to the Japanese, Dr. Deming was discovered in the United States, and they shot him to fame, the person who discovered Dr. Deming was a television producer Clare Crawford-Mason.
In 1982 he published a book for use in his Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness courses, a thick, paperback book published by the Massachusetts Center for Advanced Engineering Studies.
EPISODE 2
The Four Days Deming: A seminar begins.
Dr. Deming begins his seminar sponsored by the Growth Opportunity Alliance of Greater Lawrence of the city of Springfield, Massachusetts. Including high and low technology companies, some firms were known; Many people came from departments designated as "quality assurance" and quality control. There were also engineers, plant supervisors and managers, they came because their companies wanted answers and to be sure of what they could expect from a man they did not know, but had heard of.
At this seminar, all managers were to be scolded as the managerial skills they were proud of, misguided, and lacking in vision. On his first day Dr. Deming made a presentation of his philosophy that revolutionized Japan. The heart of that philosophy was its fourteen points and the seven deadly diseases.
In the afternoon of the second day, Deming would conduct a ball experiment illustrating the importance of workers to change the system in which they worked. Much of the third and fourth days would be devoted to giving examples of how statistical methods can be used as the basis for taking or not taking action as appropriate.
Dr. Deming believed that the American management that had required reform. In his welcome speech he tells them that they will learn how to change. He says I'm not an economist. I am an expert in statistics, my job is to find out the sources of improvement, the sources of problems, that way they will understand that change is absolutely necessary.
As quality improves, costs will drop. This is one of the main lessons that the Japanese learned and that North American management does not even know, nor care. Instead they are more interested in finance, creative accounting, but are ignoring the essentials of improvement.
A continuous reduction of errors, a continuous improvement in quality, means lower and lower costs, less reprocessing in manufacturing, less waste of materials, equipment time, tools, and human effort.
They have to know how to market and they have to know how to sell it. Keep the company in business, provide more and more jobs. I also touched on the issue of unemployment and said that unemployment is not inevitable, it is man-made, by management. In Japan when a business declines, management avoids cutting staff.
"Proof of purpose." At this point the business must be maintained, doing whatever is necessary to achieve it. When everyone is an individual businessman and the American style of management creates it, there can be no teamwork.
The chain reaction was learned by Japan's top management in July 1950. One can speak of quality; but if you don't know what to do about it, it's an empty word. Much of what they learned in the seminar had to do with what is wrong with what seem to be great ideas, but which produce the completely opposite effect to what was intended.
In order to improve the quality, the materials that enter and that are the materials that enter into everything that is worked on must be analyzed. It is also essential to improve the materials and never stop improving them, this means that you have to work with suppliers. Quality had to be demanded because if it is not done, the desired results will not be obtained. Quality has meaning only in the function of the client, his needs, the purpose for which they are to be used. With this diagram Dr. Deming says that all materials enter the different points of the production line. It is necessary to continuously improve what comes in.
CHAPTER 3
Introduction to the fourteen points, the seven deadly diseases and some obstacles.
Points, diseases, and obstacles are a comprehensive recipe for change. Develop your own adaptation, which is appropriate for your corporate culture. Dr. Deming says that what management can accomplish by applying the fourteen points "is huge compared to what you get in another way."
THE FOURTEEN POINTS
- Be consistent in the purpose of improving products and services. Dr. Deming suggests a radical new definition of the role a company plays. Instead of making money, you must stay in business and provide employment through innovation, research, constant improvement and maintenance. Adopt the new philosophy. Americans are too tolerant of poor work and surly service. Depend no more on mass inspection. North American firms characteristically inspect a product when it leaves the production line or at important stages. Defective products are either discarded or reprocessed; both are unnecessarily costly. End the practice of awarding purchase contracts based solely on price.Purchasing departments have a habit of acting on orders in search of the supplier that offers the lowest price. This often leads to poor quality supplies. Continuously and forever improve the production and service system. Improvement is not achieved right away. Management is required to continually seek ways to reduce waste and improve quality. Institute on-the-job training. Very often workers have learned their jobs from another worker who was never properly trained. They are forced to follow instructions that are impossible to understand. They cannot carry out their work because nobody tells them how to do it. Institute leadership. A supervisor's job is not to tell people what to do or punish them, but to guide them.Guiding is helping people to do their jobs better and knowing who needs individual help through objective methods. Banishing fear. Many employees are afraid to ask questions or take a position, even if they do not understand what the job is about or what is right or wrong. Tearing down the barriers between staff areas. Frequently, department staff sections, sections are competing with each other or have conflicting goals. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and goals for the workforce. These never helped anyone to do a good job. Eliminate numerical quotas. Quotas only take into account numbers, not quality or methods. They generally constitute a guarantee of inefficiency and high costs.Break down the barriers that prevent the feeling of pride that a job well done produces. People are eager to do a good job and feel distressed when they can't do it. Establish a vigorous education and retraining program. Both management and the workforce will have to be trained in the use of the new methods. Take steps to achieve transformation. A team of senior executives with an action plan will be required to carry out the mission that quality seeks. Workers are not in a position to do this on their own.Both management and the workforce will have to be trained in the use of the new methods. Take steps to achieve transformation. A team of senior executives with an action plan will be required to carry out the mission that quality seeks. Workers are not in a position to do this on their own.Both management and the workforce will have to be trained in the use of the new methods. Take steps to achieve transformation. A team of senior executives with an action plan will be required to carry out the mission that quality seeks. Workers are not in a position to do this on their own.
THE SEVEN DEADLY DISEASES
- Lack of constancy of purpose. A company that lacks perseverance in pursuing its purpose does not have long-term plans to stay in business, with an emphasis on short-term profits. Ensuring increasing quarterly dividends undermines quality and productivity. Performance evaluation, merit ranking, or annual performance analysis. The effects of these practices are devastating, teamwork is destroyed, rivalry is fostered, management mobility. Managers who move from one position to another never understand the companies they work for and are never there long enough to carry out the long-term changes that are necessary to ensure quality and productivity. in visible numbers.The most important figures are unknown and impossible to know. Excessive medical costs. Excessive warranty costs promoted by attorneys who work on a contingency fee basis.
CHAPTER 4
The parable of the red balls.
On the second day in the afternoon, Dr. Deming happily conducts his hearings, the experiment he considers stupid promises that they will never forget it. Show off the tools for the experiment: a plastic box with red beads and white wooden peas the size of a pea; a ball with 50 holes the size of a ball arranged in five rows of ten holes; and another plastic box, large enough to fit the ball.
The pellet experiment illustrates in depth how many managers force their workers to keep standards beyond their control: it also suggests how statistics can be applied to search for problem areas.
With this example the audience understands the basic message of the experiment that despite having tools; identical tasks and talents, production inevitably varies. Dr. Deming suggests that managers often blame workers for results that are beyond their control. In addition, whatever the number of workers, some will always be below average, and others will be above.
A system of common or constant causes means stability in the sense that the limits of variation towards the future can be estimated. A national forecast is the one that can be described, it is the one that can be explained. We can rationally predict that if we had another four days of work, the results would be within these limits. As in every parable, there is a moral. The parable of the balls has several morals:
- Variation is part of every process. Planning requires a forecast of how things and people will perform. Workers work within a system that no matter how hard they try is beyond their control.
CHAPTER 5
THE DEMING MANAGEMENT METHOD
Point one: Create consistency in the purpose of improving the product and service.
Management has two kinds of problems, says Dr. Deming: those of today and those of tomorrow, assuming there is a problem tomorrow for the company that hopes to continue in business. Today's problems have to do with the immediate needs of the company: how to maintain quality, how to match production with sales; budget; the job; profits; the service; public relations.
Dr. Deming says that no company that lacks a plan for the future will be able to continue in business. Employees who work for a company that is investing for the future feel safer and less eager to look for another job.
Thinking that you have a statement of constancy of purpose, you recommend companies to think carefully about the future and develop a plan and methods to continue in business. Consistency in purpose means 1) innovation; 2) research and instruction; 3) continuous improvement of the product and service; 4) equipment maintenance and new production aids.
Innovation:
It consists of the introduction of a product, by the mere fact of having something new to sell, it must have some benefit. Every plan must answer the following questions satisfactorily.
What materials will be required? At what cost? What will be the production method? What new people should be hired? What changes will be necessary in the team? What new skills will be required, and for how many people? How will current employees be trained in these new skills? How will supervisors be trained? What will be the production cost? What will the marketing cost be? What will be the cost and method of service? How will the company know if the customer is satisfied?
Invest resources in research and instruction:
In order to prepare for the future, a company must invest today. There can be no innovation without research, and there can be no research without appropriately educated employees.
Continuous improvement of the product and service:
This obligation to the consumer never ends. Great benefits can be obtained through a continuous process of improving the design and performance of existing products. It is possible, and really easy, for an organization to go into decline if it erroneously dedicates itself to manufacturing a product that it should manufacture, even though all the elements of the company perform with dedication and employ statistical methods and all other aids that can stimulate efficiency.
Invest in the maintenance of equipment, furniture and facilities, and in new production aids both in the office and in the plant:
Obviously a company cannot improve its product with equipment that does not work well nor can they launch a new product using obsolete machinery. It is necessary to invest in these areas.
Point two: Adopt the new philosophy.
Quality must become the new religion. There are new standards. We can no longer afford to live with mistakes, defects, poor quality, bad materials, handling damage, fearful and ignorant workers, poor or no training, continuous changes from one job to another by executives and inattentive and sullen service.. Companies rarely learn from customer dissatisfaction. Customers say Dr. Deming, they don't complain, they just change providers. It would be better to have customers who praise the product.
Point three: No longer rely on mass inspection.
The inspection that was done with the intention of discovering the bad products and throwing them away is too late, ineffective and expensive, says Dr. Deming. Quality is not produced by inspection but by process improvement.
As a practical matter, it will always be necessary to exercise some degree of inspection, even to find out what is being done, says Dr. Deming. In some cases, a one hundred percent inspection may be necessary for security reasons. Inspection should be carried out professionally, not by superficial methods, the goal of every company is to abolish quality by inspection. Inspection should not be left to the final product, when it is difficult to determine where in the process a defect occurred.
Point Four: End the practice of awarding purchase contracts based exclusively on price.
It has three serious disadvantages: The first is that it almost invariably leads to a proliferation of suppliers. The second is that this causes buyers to jump from supplier to supplier. And the third, that there is a dependency on the specifications, which become barriers that prevent continuous improvement.
The best way to serve a buyer to your company is to develop a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust with a single supplier, in collaboration with the engineering department and other departments, to reduce costs and improve quality. Working with a single vendor takes so much talent and resources that it is incredible that development can be done with two vendors.
Point five: Continually and forever improve the production and service system.
Improvement is not achieved right away. management is bound to continually improve. Says Dr. Deming, "You have to incorporate quality during the design stage," and teamwork is essential to the process. Once plans are underway, changes are costly and cause delays.
Everyone and all departments of the company must agree to implement continuous improvement. This should not be limited to production or service systems. Purchasing, transportation, engineering, maintenance, sales, personnel, training, and accounting all have a role to play.
Management must take the initiative. Only management can initiate improvement of quality and productivity. There is very little that workers employed in production can achieve on their own. Eliminating an irritating problem or solving a particular problem is not part of improving a process. By using appropriately interpreted data, smart decisions can be made.
Point six: Institute on-the-job training.
It is very difficult to erase inadequate training, says Dr. Deming: This is only possible if the new method is totally different or if the person is being trained in a different class of skills for a different job.
On the other hand, Dr. Deming emphasizes that training should not end while performance has not reached statistical control and while there is a possibility of progress. All employees will have to receive some training in the meaning of variation and this requires a rudimentary knowledge of the control charts.
Point Seven: Institute Leadership
Exercising leadership is the task of management. It is the responsibility of management to uncover the barriers that prevent workers from taking pride in what they are doing. Instead of helping workers do their jobs correctly, most supervisory personnel do the exact opposite. Today, in which work is often as new to the supervisor as it is to the workers, they feel comfortable in a system that imposes on employees amounts or quotas.
The manager's task is to guide, help employees do their jobs better. By hiring them, management assumes responsibility for their success or failure. Most of the people who do not do their job well are not lazy people who pretend to be sick in order not to work, but have simply been misplaced. If someone has a disability or cannot do a job, the manager has an obligation to find a place for that person.
Point eight: banish fear.
People who occupy managerial positions do not understand what their work consists of or what is right or wrong, they do not know how to find out. Many are afraid to ask questions or take a position. People are afraid to point out problems for fear of starting a discussion or being blamed for the problem.
People fear losing their raise or promotion, or worse their jobs. He fears being assigned punitive jobs or other forms of discrimination. They fear that their superiors may feel threatened and retaliate in some way if they are too bold. He fears for the future of his company and for the security of his employment. He is afraid to admit that he made mistakes.
To achieve better quality and productivity, says Dr. Deming, people need to feel safe. Workers should not be afraid to report damaged equipment, ask for instructions, or call attention to conditions that are detrimental to quality.
Point nine: Tear down the barriers between the staff areas.
When departments pursue different objectives and do not work as a team to solve problems, set policies or chart new courses. Although people work extremely well in their respective departments, Dr. Deming says, if your goals are in conflict, they can ruin the company. It is better to work as a team, work for the company.
With this system, supplies arrive as needed, so money and storage space are not tied to inventory. But the just-in-time system won't work without teamwork. Fixing blemishes and calming these fears requires the cooperation of all departments.
Point ten: Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and numerical goals for the workforce.
Slogans, says Dr. Deming, generate frustrations and resentments. A goal without a method to achieve it is useless. But setting goals without describing how they are to be achieved is common practice among American managers.
It is totally impossible for anyone or any group to perform outside of a stable system, anything can happen. Management's task, as we have seen, is to try to stabilize systems. An unstable system makes a bad impression on management.
Point eleven: Eliminate numerical quotas.
Quotas or other work standards such as calculated daily work, Dr. Deming maintains, obstruct quality more than any other working condition. Work standards guarantee inefficiency and high cost. They often include tolerance for defective items and for waste, which is a guarantee that management will get them.
Sometimes Dr. Deming observes, management expressly sets a standard of work at the top, in order to rule out people who cannot meet it. When quotas are set for those who can meet them, the demoralization is even greater.
Incentives stimulate people to produce quantity rather than quality. They include costs of rejected, repeated, or lower quality work as elements of the equation. In some cases, workers are subject to deductions from wages for the defective units they produce.
An appropriate work standard will define what is and what is not acceptable in terms of quality. Quality will increase at an increasing rate from that stage onward. Instead of assigning quotas to a job, Dr. Deming suggests that you study the job and define the boundaries of the job.
Point twelve: Break down the barriers that prevent pride in doing a job well.
As quality improves, so does productivity. Managers are often shocked when they find out what's wrong. The workers complain that they do not know from one day to the next what is expected of them. Standards change frequently. Supervisors are arbitrary. They are rarely given feedback on their work until they know about performance evaluations or pay increases, and then it will be too late.
Nowadays, people consider it as a commodity that is used when needed. If not needed, it is returned to the market.
A smoke screen is a means for the manager to appear to be doing something about a problem. Such programs show a notable tendency to fade, because management never gives employees any authority or acts on their decisions or recommendations. Employees are even more disappointed.
Point thirteen: Institute a vigorous education and retraining program.
Just because you have good people in your organization is not enough. She must be continually acquiring the new knowledge and new skills needed to handle new materials and new methods. Education and retraining are necessary for long-term planning.
As productivity improves, fewer people will be required in some cases. Some posts may be added, but others may disappear. You must make it clear that no one will lose their job due to increased productivity.
Education and training must prepare people to take on new positions and responsibilities. There will be a need for more preparation in statistics, maintenance and how to deal with suppliers. Training in simple but powerful statistical techniques will be necessary at all levels.
Point fourteen: Take steps to achieve transformation.
All company employees, including managers, must have a precise idea of how to continually improve quality. The initiative must come from management. The Deming cycle today constitutes the essential element of the planning process.
- Step 1: The first step is to study a process, decide what change could improve it. Step 2: Test, or make the change, preferably on a small scale. Step 3: Observe the effects. Step 4: What did we learn?
To achieve transformation, it is vital that everyone begins to think that each person's work must provide satisfaction to a client.
- Members of senior management must strive to achieve each of the above thirteen points and to eliminate deadly diseases and obstacles. Members of senior management must feel sorry and dissatisfied with past performance and must have the courage to change. They must abandon the beaten path and start doing new things, even to the point of being marginalized by their colleagues. There must be a burning desire to transform your management style. Through seminars and other means, top management must explain to a critical mass of the company why change is necessary and that everyone will participate in the change. An adequate number of people in the company must understand the fourteen points, the deadly diseases, and the obstacles. Otherwise, senior management would be lost.All activity is a process and can be improved. To work in the Shewhart cycle, everyone must belong to a team, in order to deal with one or more specific issues.
CHAPTER 19
The seven deadly diseases and some obstacles.
- Lack of constancy of purpose: Lack of constancy means ruin for a company. A company that is not consistent in its aims does not think beyond the next quarterly dividends and has no long-term plans to continue in business. Emphasis on short-term profits: The emphasis on short-term profits is fueled by fear of a hostile takeover or, as Dr. Deming says by the equally devastating system of leverage to eliminate a partner. Performance evaluation, merit ranking or annual analysis:Performance evaluations stimulate short-term performance at the expense of long-term planning. They discourage the decision to take risks, foster fear, undermine teamwork, and make people face each other for the same rewards. In a team it is difficult to say who did what. Such evaluations leave people bitter, discouraged, hopeless and, in some cases, even depressed, unable to perform well for weeks after receiving the evaluation result, unable to understand why they are inferior, since they attribute to people who are part of a group, differences that can be caused exclusively by the system in which they work. Merit rankings tend to increase variability in performance,since people with lower ratings try to imitate those with higher ratings.Senior management mobility: Business management schools are devoted to the idea that a good manager can be trained in universally applicable techniques. Mobility from one company to another creates divas that serve to achieve quick results. People need time to learn to work in groups. Running a company based only on visible numbers: Visible figures are, of course, important. Excessive medical costs: In some companies, these are the largest expense. Excessive warranty costs, encouraged by attorneys who work on a random fee basis.
Some obstacles:
- Neglect of long-term planning and transformation - Assumption that problem solving, automation, mechanical or electrical developments, and new machinery will transform the industry - Outdated instruction in schools - Depend on control departments of quality. Blaming the workers for the problems. Quality by inspection. False departures. The computer unguarded. Meeting the specifications. Inadequate testing of the prototypes.
CHAPTER 20
Doing it with data:
For the Deming method, base decisions as much as possible on accurate and timely data, not on wishes or hunches or experience. Statistical methods are essential for the transformation of North American companies.
Statistical methods help understand processes, control them, and then improve them. Otherwise people will be eternally "putting out fires" instead of improving the system. What statistical methods do is point to the presence of special causes.
Seven useful charts:
Cause and Effect Diagram: Also known as a fishbone for its shape, or Ishikawa diagram, in honor of Kaoru Ishikawa, they are used in brainstorming to examine factors that may influence a given situation. It is a desirable or undesirable situation, condition, or event produced by a cause system.
Minor causes are often grouped around four basic categories: materials, methods, labor, and machinery.
- The process of creation itself is educational. It sets off a discussion and they learn from each other. It helps the group focus on the topic at hand, reducing complaints and arguments that are not relevant. It results in an active search for the cause. data must be collected frequently. This shows the level of understanding. The more complex the diagram, the more specialized the workers will be with regard to the process. Can it be used for any problem?
Flowchart: The flowchart is an extremely useful method of delineating what is happening. One way to start is to determine how the process should work, and then graphically plot how it is actually happening. By doing this, flaws such as redundancy, inefficiency, or misinterpretation can be immediately discovered.
Pareto Diagram: Pareto diagrams are among the most commonly used graphical techniques. People often talk about "applying pareto" or say "Let's stop it." This diagram is used to determine priorities. The pareto is sometimes described as a way to separate the "vital few" from the "trivial many."
Line Charts (Trend): A trend chart is perhaps the simplest of statistical techniques. The data is presented in graphic form over a period of time, in order to look for trends. In analysis of monthly sales over a year it constitutes a typical application. A trend graph can be used to find out how many minutes it takes to get to work.
Histogram (frequency distribution diagrams): A histogram is used to measure how often something happens. A well-defined curve can be seen in a histogram.
Scatter diagram : A scatter diagram is a method of graphically representing the relationship between two variables. In a scatter diagram the two variables show a clear relationship.
Control Charts: The need to use control charts to analyze processes is frequently referred to. Preventing people from chasing causes control charts are easy to use, and certainly not beyond the capabilities of most workers. But sometimes even experts find that they are extremely difficult to interpret.
A control chart is simply a process chart with statistically determined upper and lower limits, plotted on either side of the process average. The upper control limit and the lower control limit are determined by allowing a stable process to proceed without external interference and then analyzing the results using a mathematical formula.
Control charts come in two broad categories, and their use depends on the nature of the data. One is for data that can be measured: length, temperature, volume, pressure, voltage. The other is for data that is not measurable, and that in many cases can be counted: defective components, typographical errors, mislabeled articles. The control charts graphically show that there is variability in every process.
HOW TO MAKE THE DEMING METHOD WORK
CHAPTER 21
The Deming Prize.
What is the Deming Prize? It is an award that has to do with statistics and graphics. It is a prestigious distinction well established by sales managers, administrative staff, manufacturing engineers etc. Since the Deming Prize winners are at the forefront of the Japanese quality movement. The award was established in 1950 by the UCIJ with the product of reprints of reprints of lectures given by Dr. Deming. It has two categories: the award for individuals and for companies:
Beginning in 1950, the prizes were awarded to companies that showed great ability in combining the statistical techniques of the CEC or statistical quality control. In the 1970s, quality had become an all-encompassing approach that was consistent with Deming's 14 principles. Which the Japanese called total quality control.
What is total quality control? It is the quality of the work, of the service, of the people, of the company, of the executives. It is a revolution of objectives. It is a revolution in managerial thought.
DFC "Quality Role Deployment" evolves for two reasons: Firstly, because problems had been created in Japanese companies, where everyone was working assiduously at the CTC. Read education and changes in the organization had ensured that all cells of the company had a mission based on quality.
Second, the Japanese were shocked by the amount of time it took to correct the differences when launching a new product. So they created a new chart and graph system so designers could identify and correct potential problems even before production started. This Deming in 1950 emphasizing the need for a high-level management structure dedicated to continuous improvement. The Deming Prize award committee is under the supervision of the UCIJ, it is made up of university professors.
- Policy and planning: What is the company's policy regarding quality and statistical quality control? How are the policies and objectives established and communicated and how are the results evaluated? What relationship exists between short and long term plans? Administration: What is the chain of responsibility? How is authority delegated? How are divisions related to each other? What role did the committees play? How are staff members used? How effective are the activities of the quality control circles? Education:What are the activities of the cia. including those related to the area of quality control and statistical methods? How widespread are they and what is achieved? What instruction is available for CTC circles and subcontractors? What suggestion system is used? Analysis: What is the quality of the analysis in terms of the problems that were addressed, the methods that were used and the results? Standardization: How are the standards applied and revised? How are statistical methods used? What has been achieved? Control: What system is used to control quality? How well are standardization methods used? Assurance:What are the procedures for developing new products? For the control and improvement of processes ?. Effects: What are they and how are they measured? Future plans: What plans exist to alleviate the problems and promote the interests of the partner? What are the long-term plans?
If these requirements are not met, companies will not be taken into consideration since their management is not unwaveringly committed to quality, and does not have an extensive quality circle system. Total quality control requires such a great effort that many companies are not willing to do it until they are under pressure.
In 1976 the Kayaba Industry decided to adopt the CTC giving good results. In 1977 he developed a structured CTC plan and expanded the teaching of quality methods and other techniques to include certain key plants. In 1978 he used simulation techniques to identify the quality and technology needs to produce new products. In 1979 he began to see results in his sales and in 1980 Koyaba won the Deming Prize.
CHAPTER 22
Changing course: The Ford Motor Company. Dearborn, Michigan.
In 1973 the Ford Motor Company was in serious difficulties since the oil embargo had stimulated the demand for foreign vehicles, the Americans bought Japanese vehicles in greater quantities, it was evident that the company had to change course in order to survive.
In 1978, Chairman of the Board Philip Caldwell announced that quality would be the primary focus. In 1979 Ford issued a document known as Q101, a quality specification manual for suppliers, but it was all in vain.
After seeing Dr. Deming's video, Scollard asked Ford's quality department to contact the quality expert. But at Dr. Deming he did not abandon his conditions just because Ford called, he would only work where there was commitment from senior management and refused to go, unless the company president requested his presence.
In 1981 Dr. Deming arrived at Ford to meet with Donal E. Petersen, then President of Ford, and senior officials. Dr.'s ideas were so foreign to the way the auto industry operated.
Subsequently, a Ford delegation visited the Nashua Corporation where employees routinely used control charts. Later in November 1983, Scollard and a group of 16 senior officials from Ford's major suppliers visited Japan; They toured factories and attended various quality award ceremonies, including the Deming Prize.
After Dr. Deming met with Petersen, he began visiting Ford several days a month, gave seminars for senior executives, visited various operations, met with workers, engineers and supervisors, and made recommendations for changes as to his 14 points.
Dr. Deming's 14 fatalities and 7 fatal illnesses became the basis for a review of Ford's philosophy by the company's top officials. They worked for three years to adopt the new philosophy, as Dr. Deming arranged in point two.
Since Dr. Deming partnered with Ford, the following changes have been made:
- Maintain quality: Production plants now close for two weeks during the summer. Ford had opposed such suspension of activities since it would represent the loss of 100,000 to 200,000 vehicles. Suppliers as partners. Ford invited key operations officials from major suppliers to attend the Deming seminars: it then offered seminars for engineers and QA people. Inspectors began working with suppliers to improve quality in accordance with Dr. Deming's principles. Three-year operating budgets. They replace annual budgets to allow long-term planning. His support for quality came from the most educated level of the company.
The «Taurus Team»: Moving towards quality.
When Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable were named, the cars were front-wheel drive. The traditional way of designing a car used to require a sequential flow diagram. The production people worked directly with the design, engineering, sales and purchasing, legal, service, and marketing people. The Taurus Team included Ford's legal and safety advisers, who provided advice on future trends in the laws, so we could take them into account in the design, rather than having to patch up later. At Ford, Smith and other vendors' relationship to the Taurus Team approach was rewarding.
Windsor Export Supply - Where paper was the product
In October 1984, at the request of the statistical methods offices, Dr. Deming visited a Ford facility called Windsor Export Supply, located on the banks of the Detroit River. Windsor Export operates as a company within a company and its 250 employees receive orders from Ford's manufacturing and assembly plants abroad. Over the years Windsor Export came to occupy a somewhat enviable position within Ford.
Dr. Deming met with the 250 Windsor employees, finds it helpful to conduct such sessions that are videotaped and later screened for supervisors, makes workers talk about things that keep them from doing the right job, which is expected of them.
In order to increase sales with Windsor, it had to supply facilities other than Ford's, which would require a change in the statutes, which had to be approved by the international headquarters. When Dr. Deming invited the workers, Richard wished the supervisors, especially his own, to be present so that they could tell them what is wrong… because they still don't know what is wrong.
In less than a year of Deming's visit, things had improved and Windsor seemed to have reversed the course of his descent. Dr. Deming's visit was, in some respects, the turning point in an effort that had begun a few months ago. The person most aware of Windsor's solemn commitment was John McRae, the director of manufacturing and supplies for Latin American automotive operations, who had recently been entrusted with responsibility for the export operation. Statistician Ed Baker was also interested.
Baker discovered that he had an ally in the financial organization named Harry Artinian, whom he would later recruit for the statistical methods office; He needed all the help he could get against the entrenched Windsor management whose members were about to retire. They made innovations in the packing and dispatch areas; Windsor had no problems, but they had a lot of hidden costs and they were facing the problem that they had to be competitive enough to win contracts outside of Ford. Windsor did not have a physical product that moved step by step from one workstation to another; the product was software - invoices, reports, designs - that traveled by hand, by mail or by computer for unknown purposes or destinations.
The problem was how to transform Deming's philosophy into action when people don't produce hardware - when something tangible didn't exist. If one wanted to use statistics, one had to find out what one had to measure. As the flow charts would show, the procedures that had been developed over the years were often bogged down by obstacles. they had all those limitations, all those barriers, and so it was impossible to circulate the information. There also had to be a change in what they called management by exception.
With McRae's approval; Baker and Artinian organized a two-day training session to instruct 40 Windsor employees in basic statistical concepts, preceded by a half-day seminar for managers. Training must be part of an organizational change strategy.
CHAPTER 23
Spreading the Deming message.
Growth Opportunity Alliance of Greater Lawrence, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
One day in October 1980, Dr. Deming received a phone call in his office from the industrial relations manager of a Lawrence, Massachusetts textile firm named Bob King.
King explained to Dr. Deming that the city of Lawrence had formed a coalition of companies to improve quality and productivity and that this coalition had decided to seek the help of Dr. Deming.
Dr. Deming said he would be happy to help them. Weeks later King calls Dr. Deming again to arrange the first seminar for the group known as the GOAL (Growth Opportunity Alliance of Greater Lawrence). Later they became a focus of Deming's activity.
In 1979 unemployment in the city spread. Lefebre the mayor of the city when seeing this situation wanted to establish in Lawrence the same conditions that Jamestown had. Lefebre approached Malden Mill, a family-owned textile company, as it had managed to survive the fall of the textile industry because of its strong customer orientation and diversified manufacturing processes. The ideas of both used to coincide. The price of enthusiasm is commitment. King became the co-director of the board of directors of the group that took the name of GOAL.
GOAL tried to establish labor-management committees in each participating company, but did not take into account that very few of the companies associated with GOAL were unionized. Without a formal work structure, it was difficult to establish committees. And the factories that were unionized were generally divisions of larger companies, which meant that any arrangement was subject to national negotiation.
In April 1980 King attended a business administration conference at which NBC found out that a special report was being prepared, and set out to see it when it aired in June. He was so impressed that he suggested GOAL members focus on quality and productivity rather than on workforce-management relationships.
Consulting his schedule of commitments, Dr. Deming told King that he could give his course in four days, inviting him to attend one that he was going to give in January of that same year in Nashua, New Hampshire to so that you could become familiar with the arrangements.
King was captivated. the registration attracted 18 people out of 35, including the president and those in charge. The first point that the committee addressed was the need to start statistical capacity. So Dr. Deming provided a list to GOAL so that they could consult the statisticians.
As Dr. Deming returned again and again to organize seminars, the committee grew. The organization was enhanced by volunteers whose companies gave them the time to participate. GOAL's problem was reaching senior management, so he began scheduling executive officers' breakfasts with lecturers on various topics. When companies began to have success stories to tell GOAL, they developed a case study program in which some companies used to meet for a day or an afternoon to share their experiences.
What characterizes GOAL is that its workers enrolled with such enthusiasm in worker mental health programs, but did so to feel frustrated when they saw that very little had changed. GOAL became a Deming resource center. With written material, videotapes and educational programs. However in 1984 an effort to establish a Deming Prize similar to that of Japan but sadly failed for reasons that are instructive. The award committee that was not worthy of the award. Instead GOAL organized a conference in which the users of the Deming method present their cases.
GOAL set three priorities for spreading the Deming message in the second five-year period of the 1980s. The first was to help establish similar efforts spanning wide areas. The second was to create a supplier institute to help the largest companies. Finally, another of GOAL's objectives was to translate the quality material written in Japanese.
CHAPTER 24
Deming to the rescue: Malden Mills, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
The first company to benefit from the partnership between GOAL and Dr. Deming was Bob King's employer, Malden Mills. When the economy fell into recession, Malden was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, causing the company to start worrying about quality and productivity.
At the time, Malden had 4 divisions: Flock yarn, fabric, and fur. All were affected to some extent by the recession, but the fur division that made luxury high-skin synthetic fabric bore the brunt of the impact.
At the beginning of 1951 there were slight indications that something was wrong. Orders were not arriving with customary promptness; But the company thought the problem lay in high interest rates, which made buyers reluctant or held inventories longer than necessary.
In September 1981 the company filed for protection by invoking Chapter II bankruptcy. Malden's financial difficulties coincided with the appearance of W. Edwards Deming on the Lawrence stage. After Flock's division manager attended the seminar. He decided to launch a total campaign for quality by means of which the stoppage of the activities of the leather division would drag the entire company.
In the late 1970s Flock was affected by a turnover rate of 250% per year. Flock's production lines were a very unpleasant place to work, due to annoying odors. These causes were the factors for the workers to leave and the enthusiasm to stop.
The task of introducing the Deming method was entrusted to Hudson, an industrial engineer. While attending Dr. Deming's seminars, he became more interested in emphasis than the use of statistics, rather than 14 points and other worker-related materials. Hudson was forced many times to play the role of uncompromising boss, the wise man who shouted at problems.
Hudson's first formal step in the division was to organize an initiatives committee to select projects for teams to work with. The committee met once a week and reviewed three projects.
A personnel coordinator was assigned to each division to serve as a buffer between management and workers and to assist workers in both personal and work-related problems. Communication between employees and management increased 150%. The company kept workers informed of what was happening that way, since they no longer operated in the dark.
CHAPTER 25
Adopting a new philosophy. Honeywell Information Systems, Lawrence Manufacturing operation, Lawrence Massachusetts.
Cutting in the 80s style Stanley Marsh was one of the key figures in removing the factory from the old culture that had prevailed since the Industrial Revolution. Marsh said it was an autocratic culture. The Honeywell plant went to great lengths to do this by establishing training programs.
In 1985 the quality levels improved markedly. Honeywell's experience demonstrates that a typically North American production system that relies on authority, quantity, and speed can become a quality-oriented environment of participation as long as there is an entirely new approach.
Starting the training: When Dr. Deming made his appearance on the Lawrence scene through GOAL, a delegation of 10 Honeywell officials from various departments attended one of the first seminars.
The plant manager showed up to their ideas and approved the hiring of Paul Krensky, a statistician recommended by Dr. Deming to teach a 6-week course in statistics. At the Lawrence plant, a labor participation program called "CDM" was started for reliability, availability, and maintenance. But it is considered not to work, so Honeywell commissioned two of its employees to develop a group dynamic.
The management group took the course in four days of intense work. They then decided to train all salaried employees in group dynamics before training the 900 hourly workers. In 1983 following the Krensky model. Honeywell developed a statistics course developed for all salaried staff, plus there was a new approach to quality at the corporate level.
With the workforce steeped in group dynamics and basic statistical knowledge, Lawrence launched a wave of temporary project teams geared toward specific tasks that intersected between different departments. When communication between the various departments began, some of the difficult problems disappeared.
In addition to formal training, a campaign was launched to educate people on the use of their product, the internal relationship between the customer and the provider referred to by Dr. Demig and in which the customer is the next person in the production process.
Marsh says performance evaluations were viewed with suspicion and rightly in the old culture, but in the new Deming culture, people are shown that performance is related to the CIA's financial position.
In the old culture, when there was a drop in business, workers were temporarily fired. Today Lawrence management prefers to hire people on a temporary basis during cyclical downward movements.
Also in the old culture, people were chosen in recognition of their achievements. Judgments were inevitably subjective and those that were ignored. In the new culture, a rewards program was established.
CHAPTER 26
Towards a critical mass. American telephone & Telegraph, Marrimack Valley Works, North Andover, Massachusetts.
Robert E. Cowley, general manager of the plant, believes that like Dr. Deming, the role of a company is to stay in business. I was very impressed with Deming's mandate to create a top management structure.
AT&T, was experiencing strong competitive pressure for the first time, on the first day of January 1984 was ordered by court order to leave possession of its 23 companies. In 1982 some of the members of the quality control department became adepts of their methods at a seminar sponsored by GOAL.
The statistical techniques that were carried in AT&T were losing popularity. Managers had begun to use them punitively, it was not to find flaws in the system but to signal to workers that they required "corrective" action.
Cowley was concerned about quality when he took over the Merrimack Valley Works in early 1982, and his concern was heightened by a trip he made to Japan with several colleagues. The illustrations given in Japan suggested to Cowley that his division was probably also using inventories as a crutch, there were reasons to have inventories since without them a production line could be shut down. Inventory was the form of protection against the possibility of an item running out when the supplier did not fulfill the order, for whatever reason.
Cowley attended a business breakfast offered by GOAL, Dr. Deming annoyed Cowley with his callous manner and message, which gave the impression of insult rather than teaching, but Cowley did not profit from it. affair. Deming's disciples did not give up. Encouraged to attend a full four-day Deming seminar, Cowley agreed, on the condition that another hundred AT&T volunteers could be recruited. That first seminar was held at the Sea Crest Hotel in Capecod.
In the four-day seminar, a format was developed that would become standard in subsequent AT&T sessions. This first seminar was the beginning of a harmonious relationship between Cowley and Deming, which would be full of mutual respect from part to part. The seminars continued at the rate of two or three per year. The seminars Dr. Deming scheduled exclusively for the Merrimack Valley seemed to be the most effective.
CHAPTER 27
The Philadelphia Model: Philadelphia Area Council for Excellence, Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
On July 3, 1985, a group of bankers, lawyers, parliamentarians, executives of large companies and union leaders all met in the city of Pennsylvania in order to sign a "2nd Declaration of Independence" a document whose content It was similar to Dr. Deming's 14 points.
The statement said: "Let's adopt a new philosophy for the future economy." "We will be consistent in the purpose of improving products and services." "Terror is essential in order to foster a creative environment."
After a few words from Wilson Goode, those present approached to sign the document. Edward Tooney AFL-CIO President Philadelphia Counel said the following: "We will fully follow the above principles."
This was due to the work of Mari Ann Gould, chair of the board of directors of an organization called the Philadelphia Area Council for Excellence (PACE). The resemblance of that statement to Dr. Deming's fourteen points was neither coincidental nor accidental since Mary Ann Gould was a fervent disciple of Deming; and she was successfully employing the doctor's methods in her own company.
At Gould's insistence the chamber of commerce had mounted a great campaign for quality, sponsored several seminars; Deming established a coalition between nine companies known as the Quality Roundtable, which worked with a consultant approved by him.
A coalition of business and civic leaders agreed to mount a campaign to attract new business, but Gould argued that the first step had to be a campaign to help existing industries prosper. He reasoned that unless the area had a healthy economic base, the chance of any other company establishing itself would be greater.
The chamber organized a program called the Business Improvement Council, which had the mission of helping companies established in the Delaware Valley to create and prosper, and to place the latter in the leadership position.
To achieve this they decided to focus on a single course of action so as not to fragment the effort. Considering Gould's position for Deming and his first-hand knowledge, it was not surprising that quality became that trail.
Gould said there was an environment in which Deming could be more easily accepted and since jobs were being lost, managers were willing to listen and act.
Meanwhile in the Greater Philadelphia area chamber of commerce, the idea of excellence was advocated, which meant absolute quality in manufacturing, service, instruction, and state organizations.
Mary Ann Gould hired Dr. Deming on January 19, 1984, who conducted several seminars for four days, which were very successful. The chamber also hired speakers who had already applied the Deming method and seminar on statistics and quality.
Gould realized that there was a difficulty in applying the methods, she visualized the companies working together exchanging experience, for this she hired Joiner Brian from Madison Wisconsin, hiring a partner Peter Sheholtes, she had experience in group dynamics leadership and development training organizational.
Gould, Joiner and Sheholtes believed that they should approach the path from top to bottom.
The companies that made up the Quality Roundtable organized by PACE were, in a way, more prepared than the rest of the private companies in the United States: they recognized the need for change. At the start of the program, they outlined the new phase approach.
- First phase: Education or re-education of senior management in the Deming method. Second phase: Systematic review of opportunities for improvement. Third phase: Planning for initial projects. The first initial project is selected and planned in detail. Fourth phase: Execution of the initial project. A project team is established and instructed in the Deming method. The team studies and defines your project and begins to work. Fifth phase: Other preliminary projects are planned and carried out. Steps from phases three and four are repeated until the management team is convinced that it is ready for an extensive plan. Sixth phase:Senior management develops an extensive plan, imagine waves of projects throughout the organization. Seventh phase: The first wave of large-scale projects begins. Previously, one or two projects had been executed at the same time. Eighth phase: Successive waves of projects were carried out. Every year another wave of projects begins. Annual planning processes are integrated. Phase 9: Institutionalization. This occurs when all of Deming's fourteen points have become the natural way to execute operations. Extensive, permanent improvement and constancy of purpose is a way of life.
CHAPTER 28
The evolution of a company converted to the Deming philosophy: Janbridge, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Janbridge has sought to practice the Deming method as much as any other company in the country, or more so. Thanks to that commitment, Janbridge is currently a beacon in an industrial setting that is otherwise rather gloomy. In 1985, a year in which the printed circuit industry globally suffered a 30 percent drop in addition to massive layoffs, Janbridge's sales volume and productivity increased by nearly 20 percent, and new jobs were created during the process. And the company was looking forward to another year of growth.
At the same time, the company became the number one supplier of printed circuit boards to most of its customers. He had developed an enthusiastic and cooperative workforce through participation in decision-making and the stability that comes from working in a growing company that has a bold new policy against temporary layoffs.
Janbridge is a testament to the Deming chain reaction, in part because the size of the company allowed him to move quickly, but mostly because of the imagination and Gould's unwavering determination to adopt and adapt the Deming method: salt improve quality costs are reduced and both productivity and market share are improved.
In the spring of 1981 Mary Ann Gould was attending an industry convention in Washington at which Deming was scheduled to speak on quality. Gould had never heard of Dr. Deming, but quality was very important to her company, so she decided to attend.
When he returned to Philadelphia, he reflected more carefully on what Dr. Deming had said. Mary Ann Gould believed that Janbridge had to change. The organization of the company was a triangle in which it seemed that all matters came to be decided, while everyone else waited for something to happen.
Gould felt that there were too many rules without principle to abrogate them. If there was a corporate value structure and long-term goals to guide decisions, then there was no need to set rules for everything.
Deming took a four-day seminar and visited the AT&T Merrimac Valley Works in order to speak directly with the people who were working on the fourteen points. In addition to meetings within the company, there were four conferences held on weekends elsewhere.
Discussing the reasons why supervisors did not seem to take the initiative through this they concluded that they themselves had to change first. Through these conferences a vision was developed. It incorporated new technology, a set of business values, an operating philosophy, and a firm commitment to Dr. Deming's methods.
Janbridge sent senior and mid-level managers to the four-day Deming sessions and dedicated himself to training supervisors in the company itself to see themselves not so much as bosses but as leaders whose job it was to help workers do their jobs., as suggested by Dr. Deming. Janbridge hired Phyllis Sobo to advise people on basic supervisory skills.
In 1983, Janbridge implemented a new policy that abolished temporary layoffs. Janbridge entered the PACE-sponsored Quality Roundtable, which had been founded by Mary Ann Gloud and others in 1984.
Janbridge first promoted short-term projects that could be accomplished in a span of sixty or ninety days, and thus created a series of successes that demonstrated the goodness of the Deming method and brought confidence to team members.
Janbridge had developed its own test method that allowed all the characteristics of the most demanding boards to be evaluated, thus ending destructive testing. This and other changes in the coating that emerged during the project had generated an annual saving of US $ 70000 and a 30% increase in productivity.
CHAPTER 29
The Transformation of a North American Manager: Microcircuit Engineering Corporation, Mt. Holly, New Jersey.
The Microcircuyt Engineering Corporation (MEC) had started in 1967. Stalnecker, a 48-year-old man, had attributes that were not negative in themselves such as a passion for detail and organization. But he also believed in discipline and was not, as he himself admitted, "a very open person."
As there were problems at the MEC with both productivity and the workforce. Stalnecker was more than interested in finding out what Dr. Deming had to say.
The manager held meetings with the workers who complained about the working conditions. Stalnecker realized that it was impossible to continue ignoring the feelings of discontent that existed. Joan Stalnecker was learning about her husband's business problems. Joan Stalnecker listened to what for her was a radical message »The most formidable resource that North American management has its manager».
Stalnecker, who had just posted an ad in the cafeteria announcing that the MEC had shipped a record number of 3,085 screen printing plates in a single week, had not anticipated this reaction.
"We have this fantastic product and these amazing processes and this great team," his wife told him.
He was more excited when Joan Stalnecker informed him about statistical techniques. "It seemed to me an extremely reasonable thing," he said, "the fact that you could keep track of certain things and give people the answer on a concrete basis." This also made sense for Stalnecker, who had already used control charts for some operations.
"I believed in Deming, and I wanted to do something, but I didn't know how… When people came to present problems to me, I felt overwhelmed."
But her husband was gradually beginning to believe in the need for reform.
MEC became a founding member of the Philadelphia Quality Roundtable. At last someone was going to help MEC carry out the methods, "For better or for worse," said Joan Stalnecker, we simply did what we were told to do.
Following the Joiner model, what until then had been known as the "staff", changed its name to "management team". It included Stewart Stalnecker as President and Joan as "Execution Coordinator", plus screen and photographic operations managers and sales, personnel and accounting managers
Joan was alarmed. She made excuses to the supervisor and invited her to the first meeting.
Adopting the name START, which stands for Statistical Techniques and Proper Teamwork, the team was formed with the division production superintendent, a statistical coordinator, the order intake clerk, a screen printing division supervisor, the design department supervisor of the photographic division.
John Criqui, the statistical coordinator, was supposed to teach the team members, (Brian Joiner called it "just-in-time training.")
The mission of the project was to identify the delays in the serigraphy plate's journey through the eight stages of the production process.
Since there were five kinds of plates, each had to be identified separately.
“We realized that people were going to be afraid to fill out the travel ticket. So the team decided to invite everyone who actually handled the orders to a meeting - seventeen people. ”
«I had to say it three and four times. The project team told him: You will have to say it many times, because they will not believe you.
The project team took six months to collect the data. The Pareto chart obtained as a result of that work indicated that the plates spent most of the time in the department where they were covered in emulsions.
Instead of feeling attacked, the coaters, Joan said, were flattered because "someone really thinks we know something about what we do."
As the team from the plate division met week after week, the photographic division was demanding more and more, and it only employed thirty people, but it still suffered from an inferiority complex.
Suddenly there were teams everywhere. Joan called it a "adopt a team" philosophy.
In fact, eight of the coaters attended the MECnic - more than everyone remembered seeing at any event hosted by the company.
In unsigned surveys that were done after the tour.
Another ended by saying: «I think that if everyone does the tour, they and their supervisors will be informed about the other areas and will be able to appreciate their work more… Keep working like this… Partners! Nothing can stop us now! ».
The MEC produced an underground newspaper called The Merri-MEC.
Issue number four spoke of a quality enemy named "MEC-ness Monster", but reported: "There is still hope.
In The Merri-MEC, Stalnecker was known as "Sigis" and Joan was "Jips". The newspaper had a cartoonist. "Wunuv Armen" (One of Our Men), whose character, a huge walking foot with sunglasses, was called "Blind Baby". Wunuv Armen loved to paint Sigis in checkered (Scottish) pants. I had five pairs.
In early 1985, the first project team asked Stalnecker to speak to all MEC employees. The project team had grown weary of trying to explain to others what they were doing during the meetings and during the mysterious trips to Philadelphia to attend the PACE Roundtable. They felt, Joan said, "as if no one believed it was really going to happen as a result of their activities." They wanted Stalnecker to make it clear that he supported the program. "So the team asked Stewart to give a talk on the Fourteen Points."
CHAPTER 30
Lew Springer- The Role of a Fanatic Believer: Campbell Soup Company, Camden, New Jersey.
The senior vice president at Campbell Soup Company gave a brief presentation of what Campbell was doing to carry out the Deming method: 210 senior managers had been sent to the four-day Deming seminar: Fifty-five people had been enrolled in the University of Tennessee to take a course in statistics: 2,000 workers per hour had undergone a four-hour Deming summary that included the basic principles of statistical methods, and there were plans to include another 8,000.
"We want them to understand what we are doing," he said. "We don't want him to think we have developed a new system to kick them out."
Campbell had established a team that included a statistical coordinator, engineer, and systems manager to introduce the Deming method.
George Hettich of the Vlasie Foods Division at Campbell. As vice president for production technology, one of Hettich's first assignments was to attend a Deming seminar. He became a believer almost immediately. In the first two days everything seemed very confusing, Hettich reported. But suddenly the light comes on and you say. This guy has something to offer.
Springer, for his part, had discovered Dr. Deming when he appeared in Philadelphia in January 1984. At the time, Campbell was promoting quality control circles among hourly workers. Campbell also wanted to penetrate the Japanese art of inventory management just in time.
The Deming method linked employee participation with long-term planning. It offered statistical methods that would remove obstacles from production processes so that it could function just in time.
Such leaders had to be people with fervor, knowledge, and enough influence to spark and keep alive the interest of others. They would have to be persistent, skillful and capable of overcoming many obstacles. The advisers suggested several names: Promoters, champions, even fanatical believers. That was Springer perfectly. It had become a living example of Deming philosophy.
It was one of the many sessions in this class: a blitz of the Deming method. That method, Springer was saying enthusiastically to Campbell employees, is not a nebulous human resource issue… It is a very, very disciplined way of solving problems.
Springer introduced Deming's rule 85-15, which holds 85 percent of the problems are within the system, and management is responsible for them, while workers are responsible for just 15%. And he aired Dr. Deming's aversion to the MBO, or object management, in which goals are set and rewards are distributed as achieved.
He spoke about the Deming chain reaction, in which improved quality leads to lower costs and higher productivity, and enables companies to capture new markets, stay in business to provide more and more jobs. And he outlined the following points from Dr. Deming's teachings.
Title: THE DEMING MANAGEMENT METHOD
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