The 14 Points for Management

Over the years, Deming distilled his observations into a set of 14 points for management. These 14 points are based on more than a half century of observing and working with business. According to Dr. Deming, the 14 points have one aim to make it possible for people to work with joy. We will briefly discuss each of the points with some reference to its application to safety.  

Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive, stay in business, and provide jobs. Constancy of purpose is the conceptual framework that gets everyone in the company moving in the same direction. 

It establishes priorities and guides decision making. With regard to safety, constancy of purpose is established when every person in the company knows that safety is an important priority, and that the ultimate goal of the operation is constant improvement toward zero accidents. We shall see that management cannot establish constancy of purpose for safety just by talking about it. Management must personally d onstrate their conunitment to safety in order to establish constancy of purpose. 

Cease dependence on mass inspection to achieve quality. Improve the process and build quality into the process in the first place. 

This is an exceedingly difficult concept to grasp. The analog in safety to mass inspection is the safety audit. Inspection will not improve quality, because quality comes from the manufacturing process. The inspector may eliminate some poor product but can never eliminate aU of it. Even when it is found, it must be discarded or reworked, adding cost. The challenge is to improve the process so that defective products are not made in the first place. 

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W. Edwards Deming offered 14 key principles for management to follow for significantly improving the effectiveness of a business or organization. Many of the principles are philosophical. Others are more programmatic. All are transformative in nature. The points were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis. Below is the condensation of the 14 Points for Management as they appeared in the book. 

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