DEN demise

[John <jsdwd@ispwest.com>]

Author's note:  This ends up being a bit of a rant for which I apologize,
but I do think that some of the issues I raise may help explain the waning
interest in the DEN specifically and Deming in general.  My thanks to Ed
Baker, Jim Clauson, Marc Hersch, Dan Robertson and Al Wiswanathan for their
thoughts.



On 6/20/03 3:55 AM, "Kromkowski@aol.com" <Kromkowski@aol.com> wrote:

I appreciate Mr. Kromkowski's comments (although I didn't agree with all of
them) and think he's raised some important issues for the group.
> 
> It's patently obviously that something has changed in the
> process such that special cause investigation would likely
> be worth the effort.  September 2001 is an obvious point
> out of control, but before any one suggests the events of
> 9/11, trending signals might suggest looking as far back as Feb of 2000.  A
> visual representation is rather stunning.
> 

I do think that the climate in America has changed dramatically since 9/11,
but with the exception of the Middle-east I don't know that it has changed
that much anywhere else.  In Thailand and much of S. E. Asia (excepting
Indonesia) the SARS events have had a much more profound effect.

I have tried on at least three different occasions to raise the relevancy of
the Deming material, by proposing that is germane to the rich nation/poor
nation problem that is such a breeding ground for anti-western sentiment.
There have been no follow-ups either private or in the forum, so I've
supposed people would rather pursue the discussion of six-sigma's
shortcomings Ad Terminem than to wonder how Deming's teaching might be used
to solve an important economic problem in today's world.  I've given up
trying to get anyone interested from this group.  I thought it a new,
important and relevant use of Deming's ideas that offered an alternative to
trying to explain the obvious to American managers.  I guess I failed to get
that across or there just isn't any interest.

In the few posts I have made I have not been particularly helpful and have
been criticized for it (justifiably, I suppose). So I've given up posting
almost entirely.  I also erase a lot of the emails without reading them.
I'm just not interested in many of the topics although I suspect that's true
of many people who are in many different types of groups of this sort and
not particularly 'Deming related'.

As an alternative theory to Kromkowski's, perhaps the group has served its
purpose and is dying a sort of natural death.  The interest and enthusiasm
for Deming's ideas is just not around.   It's alive and well in some limited
venues, but basically the number of people in business in America who have
ever heard of Deming (which has never, in my experience, been a high
percentage) is clearly going down.   Not only do most business people not
think he's relevent, they don't even know who he is.

The ongoing efforts to keep Deming's ideas in the mainstream have been a
disappointment.   It retrospect it might have been done differently with
less emphasis on control of material and more on spreading the material
around, but hindsight, as we all know, is always 20/20.  I am not hopeful
however that there will be change such that a new broad distribution of his
Teachings will bloom in America or elsewhere.  Who would do it?  The opinion
I've gotten from a number of formerly interested persons is that his ideas
need to be 're-cast'.  Re-cast into what?  By whom?

I am also pessimistic about America and even more so about any potential
role in its revival for Deming's ideas.  Not only is the country unravelling
as we watch with both the President and Vice President being essentially
little more than business opportunists running close to the line (and
sometimes over it; I mean, a multi-billion dollar no-bid contract to
Halliburton to do a job that many other companies could also have done?),
but also the countries contact with its citizens is a shambles.  Power has
become more centralized and most people feel helpless in the face of it, as
I suppose they are.

The so-called American Dream which was real to my parents and to me is
virtually gone.  Work hard all your life and now you end up with your
pension having been hi-jacked, your social security unable to afford even a
a middle class lifestyle, and little or no security against the health
ravages of old age which will affect as all.  Many people - many people -
are really faced with the choice between medicine and food.  These are not
indolent people, they are Americans who have worked hard all their lives.
It is shameful.  It is unnecessary.  Who has presided over it other than the
congress and the executive.

Our leadership problem is not lack of Deming.  It's an over abundance of
greed and a fundamental lack of courage.

The most disheartening issue, in my mind, is that the country has also sold
out it's capacity to get itself out of the mess.  Public education is a
shambles, the free press is a corporate voice box and the congress, the
peoples' guardians in the marketplace, has sold out.  Even Adman Smith
recognized that the capitalist systems had to be restrained.  The three main
building blocks of that restraint in American Democracy; the congress, the
free press and public education are simply not doing the job.

Who has time for why three sigma limits are better than two sigma limits?