Re: Drucker, Deming and Quality

["jsdwd@ispwest.com" <jsdwd@ispwest.com>]

> Have not read "The Toyota Way". Perhaps the speech that follows is the same?

May I again suggest that  you read the book and the speech and then make up your mind.   There is no 
need to guess about either if you are truly interested as both are easily available.   The Matsushita quote 
has been around for years.  It is uncharacteristic of the Japanese and inflammatory.  Seems more like 
some kind of braggin than anything else.

The Taylor quote needs to be seen, as I have said before, in the context of his time.  Consider the state 
of manufacturing in America when he did his work.  Who was in the work force?  A large percentage were 
illiterate farm works who had never worked in an organization of any size and were used to operating 
independently by their own rules.  Consider Taylor's level of sophistication at the time (he had not much 
to fall back on - we have the history of the last 70 years of mass-production).

I realize that he comes across as unecessarily autocratic by today's more empowerment operating 
standards, but that level of sophistication is relatively new - certainly since WWII.  The Toyota Way book 
is interesting because it emphasizes the system that needs to be in place in order for the tools and 
techniques to be successfully used.  That is what Deming was advocating with his SOPK and what 
American management seems to want to overlook.

John Dowd
jsdwd@ispwest.com