248 Quotes by W. Edwards Deming

Experience by itself teaches nothing.

Understanding variation is the key to success in quality and business.

We cannot rely on mass inspection to improve quality, though there are times when 100 percent inspection is necessary. As Harold S. Dodge said many years ago, ‘You cannot inspect quality into a product.’ The quality is there or it isn’t by the time it’s inspected.

It would be a mistake to export western management to a friendly country.

The individual has been crushed by our style of management today.

Inspection with the aim of finding the bad ones and throwing them out is too late, ineffective, and costly. Quality comes not from inspection but from improvement of the process.

You must have a supplier relationship of constant improvement.

People learn in different ways: reading, listening, pictures, watching.

When asked what single event was most helpful in developing the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein replied, “Figuring out how to think about the problem”.