Top 200 W. Edwards Deming Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “To optimize the whole, we must sub-optimize the parts.”

— W. Edwards Deming

52. “There must be consistency in direction.”

— W. Edwards Deming

53. “All models are wrong; some models are useful.”

— W. Edwards Deming

54. “The customer is the most important part of the production line.”

— W. Edwards Deming

55. “What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis.”

— W. Edwards Deming

56. “Lack of knowledge – that is the problem.”

— W. Edwards Deming

57. “We are here to make another world.”

— W. Edwards Deming

58. “Information is not knowledge. Let’s not confuse the two.”

— W. Edwards Deming

59. “Stamping out fires is a lot of fun, but it is only putting things back the way they were.”

— W. Edwards Deming

60. “Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.”

— W. Edwards Deming

61. “Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.”

— W. Edwards Deming

62. “Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.”

— W. Edwards Deming

63. “Sub-optimization is when everyone is for himself. Optimization is when everyone is working to help the company.”

— W. Edwards Deming

64. “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth.”

— W. Edwards Deming

65. “The main difference between service and manufacturing is the service department doesn’t know that they have a product.”

— W. Edwards Deming

66. “Many people in management are being paid to produce waste.”

— W. Edwards Deming

67. “Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.”

— W. Edwards Deming

68. “You can only elevate individual performance by elevating that of the entire system.”

— W. Edwards Deming

69. “Meeting specifications is not enough.”

— W. Edwards Deming

70. “3% of the problems have figures, 97% of the problems do not.”

— W. Edwards Deming

71. “A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system.”

— W. Edwards Deming

72. “The worker is not the problem. The problem is at the top! Management!”

— W. Edwards Deming

73. “We cannot rely on mass inspection to improve quality, though there are times when 100 percent inspection is necessary. As Harold S. Dodge said many years ago, ‘You cannot inspect quality into a product.’ The quality is there or it isn’t by the time it’s inspected.”

— W. Edwards Deming

74. “The result of long-term relationships is better and better quality, and lower and lower costs.”

— W. Edwards Deming

75. “Without theory, there are no questions.”

— W. Edwards Deming

76. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

— W. Edwards Deming

77. “People work in the system. Management creates the system.”

— W. Edwards Deming

78. “Scrap doesn’t come for free, we pay someone to make it.”

— W. Edwards Deming

79. “It is not enough to just do your best or work hard; You must know what to work on.”

— W. Edwards Deming

80. “Monetary rewards are not a substitute for intrinsic motivation.”

— W. Edwards Deming

81. “Confusing common causes with special causes will only make things worse.”

— W. Edwards Deming

82. “A leader’s job is to help his people.”

— W. Edwards Deming

83. “A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves in the Western world, components become selfish, competitive. We cannot afford the destructive effect of competition.”

— W. Edwards Deming

84. “Plants don’t close from poor workmanship, but from poor management.”

— W. Edwards Deming

85. “You must have a supplier relationship of constant improvement.”

— W. Edwards Deming

86. “The only useful function of a statistician is to make predictions, and thus to provide a basis for action.”

— W. Edwards Deming

87. “The transformation will come from leadership.”

— W. Edwards Deming

88. “Change the rule and you will get a new number.”

— W. Edwards Deming

89. “We must understand variation.”

— W. Edwards Deming

90. “A leader knows who is outside of the system and needs special help.”

— W. Edwards Deming

91. “Management’s job is to optimize the whole system.”

— W. Edwards Deming

92. “New product and new types of service are generated, not by asking the consumer, but by knowledge, imagination, innovation, risk, trial and error on the part of the producer, backed by enough capital to develop the product or service and to stay in business during the learn months of introduction.”

— W. Edwards Deming

93. “People need to know what their jobs are.”

— W. Edwards Deming

94. “Competition should not be for a share of the market-but to expand the market.”

— W. Edwards Deming

95. “You do not install quality; you begin to work at it.”

— W. Edwards Deming

96. “A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system.”

— W. Edwards Deming

97. “Don’t expect smart people to listen to you without proof.”

— W. Edwards Deming

98. “I am not reporting things about people. I am reporting things about practices.”

— W. Edwards Deming

99. “We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing.”

— W. Edwards Deming

100. “A leader must have knowledge. A leader must be able to teach.”

— W. Edwards Deming