14 Principles of Quality Management

Although William Edwards Deming published his work on total quality management almost 30 years ago, the principles remain as relevant as ever today. Instead of only Japan posing a serious threat however, today competition is fierce and widespread, making quality management more important than ever. According to Deming, “the transformation can only be accomplished by man, not by hardware; a company cannot buy its way into quality.” Following are the 14 Points that Deming proposed:

1. Create constancy of purpose for continual improvement of products and service to society, allocating resources to provide for long range needs rather than only short term profitability, with a plan to become competitive, to stay in business, and to provide jobs.
   
   
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We can no longer live with commonly accepted levels of delays, mistakes, defective materials, and defective workmanship. Transformation of Western management style is necessary to halt the continued decline of business and industry.
   
   
3. Eliminate the need for mass inspection as the way of life to achieve quality by building quality into the product in the first place.
   
   
4. End the practice of awarding business solely on the basis of price tag. The aim is to minimize total cost, not merely initial price. To learn more about cost vs. price, click here.
   
   
5. Search continually for problems in order to improve every activity in the company, to improve quality and productivity, and thus to constantly decrease costs.
   
   
6. Institute modern methods of training on the job for all, including management, to make better use of every employee.
   
   
7. Adopt and institute leadership aimed at helping people do a better job. Improvement of quality will automatically improve productivity.
   
   
8. Encourage effective two way communication and other means to drive out fear throughout the organization so that everybody may work effectively and more productively for the company.
   
   
9. Break down barriers between departments and staff areas; all areas must work in teams to tackle problems. Why?
   
   
10. Eliminate the use of slogans, posters and exhortations for the work force, demanding Zero Defects and new levels of productivity, without providing methods. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships; the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system, and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
    
    
11. Eliminate work standards that prescribe quotas for the work force and numerical goals for management. Substitute aids and helpful leadership in order to achieve continual improvement of quality and productivity.
    
    
12. Remove the barriers that rob hourly workers, and management, of their right to pride of workmanship. This implies, among other things, abolition of the annual merit rating (appraisal of performance) and of Management by Objective.
    
    
13. Institute a vigorous program of education, and encourage self improvement for everyone. Advances in competitive position will have their roots in knowledge.
    
    
14. Clearly define top management’s permanent commitment to ever improving quality and productivity, and their obligation to implement all of these principles. Support is not enough; action is required!