Re: Misconceptions about Deming

[TQNELSON@aol.com]

Thanks to Charles L. Miller for his thoughtful input. One of the problems 
that he points out is precisely due to the societal failure to understand 
Deming's Appreciation of a System. This highlighted when they refer to 
"their" corporation/company/government/etc. as "a system." They are not. They 
are SUBsystems, i.e., they are parts and their only value derives from their 
contribution to the larger system of which they are components. When such a 
view begins to be accepted then the pure insanity of the "aim" of "maximizing 
the dividends to the stock holders" may begin to be seen as the systemic 
cancer that it is. WED saw this, Ishikawa saw this. 

And long before them, others, too, saw this. Charles' final note that "The 
first  stage of understanding is to realize I am part of the us.  How could 
they know???" can be answered in the service to which he belongs, the U. S. 
Navy, which exists precisely because a group of people DID figure it out. 
They phrased it as "We, the people..." 

Del Nelson
American River College

When "We, the people..."
Are replaced by dollar$, profit$, and greed,
It is time to start over.