Speed of change

[David Kerridge <dfk@rsc.co.uk>]

On Sun, 14 Mar , "Michael Dietrich" <webmail@javanet.com>
asked:

>In today's business environment, are Dr. Deming's principles
>moot (purely academic)? To implement a Deming culture into
> an organization takes time; it takes a lot of time.....

 The original message was headed "Competing on Internet time";
 but the internet is only one of the many factors that is creating
 this frantic speed of change. So it is a good idea to look again
 at the principles of the Deming Philosophy. Is the "long term"
 now redundant? I believe that the speed of change is the reason
 why we *must* adopt the Deming Philosophy.

One reason why many people find the Deming Philosophy
difficult (and other things more attractive ) is that it does not give
recipes or quick fixes. That is frustrating when you face immediate
pressures, as we all do. But the speed of change means that today's
problems will be next week's history. It is useless to set up an
elaborate system to solve today's problems. We have to set
up a system that will deal with (or better still prevent) problems
we cannot even imagine yet, let alone analyse.

If you read the first chapter of "The New Economics" you will
see that this is what Deming is talking about: "We must keep asking
What product or service would help our customers more? We must
think about the future. What will we be making 5 years from now?
10 years from now?"

That is why he criticised the "Zero Defects" approach: not just as
a slogan, but as a way of thinking.  In fact, Michael Dietrich could
almost be quoting Deming when he says:

>Companies that spend large amounts of resources to engineer the
> ultimately refined automobile, for example, only face others copying
>the technology and replicating it in six months.

There certainly is a time and place for fine-tuning a product, to achieve
quality and reliability. But that is only one aspect of the problem.

Again, in chapter 6, Deming points out the need for speed and
flexibility in development.

"The drive for reduction in time for development of a new product,
 or of a method to produce cheaper and faster an existing product,
 is important mainly for reduction of cost.....


.. Americans invented the video recorder and FAX, the Dutch
 invented the CD player, but all three have become Japanese products.
 The moral of the story is clear. He that can make a product cheaper
 can take it away from the inventor. The course for America that
 was right in 1960-development of new products-may not now
 be right."

This again, is exactly what Michael Dietrich is saying.

Please don't think I am criticising in any way. This has
happened to me so very often. With great effort and analysis I
have come up with what I thought was an improvement on
Deming, only to find that he has got there first. In one case,
when I got very excited about a new idea, I found it was in
one of his early papers: in another case, in "Out of the Crisis".
How was it that I hadn't seen it, when I read it? This seems
to be a very strange thing. Until you are ready for the idea,
you can't see it, however clearly it is stated.

But this kind of challenging and re-analysis is vital. It is the
way to develop our understanding, and who knows, one day
we really will go beyond Deming. If we don't, he has failed.

Best wishes
David
dfk@rsc.co.uk

Moderator's Note: Doesn't this fit well with Henry's "4 Prongs of Quality"
take on Deming's work??
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