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Emerging from cataclysmic WW II destruction, Japan adopted quality standards of continual improvement that propelled the country into the international marketplace. The system's architect was the mercurial W. Edwards Deming, who in 1950 began to help Japan to change its industrial management methods. The next year, the Japanese government created the prestigious Deming Award to honor corporate quality successes. Dobyns and Crawford-Mason ( Quality or Else: The Revolution in World Business ) describe Deming's didactic teaching methods and 14 points of quality: break down barriers between staff areas; eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets; institute education and self-improvement; etc. "The Deming management system takes years to implement because it is a philosophy, not a technique," stress the authors, who collaborated with the late Deming on the Deming Library, a 15-volume videocassette series. They here present an effective work about one of the major management thinkers of this century. Illustrated.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Irritatingly superficial and discursive evangelism from a
pair of lay preachers touting the quality gospel of W. Edwards
Deming as the salvation of a backsliding US.
Deming (who died at 93 in December) was a consequential
prophet largely without honor in his own country until Dobyns and
Crawford-Mason featured him in a 1980 NBC-TV documentary on the
emphasis on quality in Japanese business management (Deming was
considered a national treasure in Japan). At any rate, the
authors became apostles, eventually writing a book about the
master's teachings (Quality or Else, not reviewed). In April,
moreover, the PBS television network is slated to air a program
on Deming, which will be narrated by Dobyns and produced by
Crawford-Mason. Viewers and others seeking profounder detail on
the Deming canon (which is rooted in statistical-sampling theory)
won't find it in the reverential text at hand. After opening with
a paean to the all- encompassing virtues of quality assurance,
the authors offer a once-over-lightly interpretation of the
deceptively simple Deming credo, which sets a demanding 14-point
agenda for corporate executives and other managers sincerely
committed to renewing and transforming, not simply changing,
their organizations. Using past competitions for the Malcolm
Baldridge National Quality Award as a reference point, they go on
to cite as object lessons the variant fates of two commercial
enterprises that embraced Deming's precepts (constancy of
purpose, continuous improvement, elimination of numerical quotes,
etc.). These true believers close with a hit-or- miss survey of
the socioeconomic benefits that can accrue from adoption of
Deming's principles in business, education, government, health
care, and even the media.
Paradoxically, perhaps, if the authors had adhered to
Deming's philosophy in their own work, it might well have been
worth a look. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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