What is the Purpose of Dr. Deming's Theory of Management?

By ERNIE A. CEVALLOS
(This document was submitted to Professor Howard Gitlow of the University of Miami as a term-paper for MAS 610 Statistical Analysis for Decision Making Process -- Paper has been edited for shortened Blog publication)

Background

After World War II American industry returned to the peacetime production of consumer goods, for which there was unparalleled demand and no competition. Untouched by war, the industrial heartland produced cars, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, mixers, lawnmowers, refrigerators, furniture, carpet, and all the goods for the growing postwar suburbs inhabited by a generation of prosperous Americans.

The American corporation had fulfilled the promise of ‘scientific management,’ formulated by an influential industrial engineer named Frederick Winslow Taylor more than three decades earlier. Taylor had held that human performance could be defined and controlled through work standards and rules. He advocated the use of time and motion studies to break jobs down into simple, separate steps to be performed repeatedly without deviation by different workers. Minimizing complexity would maximize efficiency, although it was as bad to overperform as it was to underperform on a Taylor-style system.

Deming's 14 Points & System of Profound Knowledge

Deming's 14 Points
(Excerpted from Chapter Two of OUT OF THE CRISIS by W. Edwards Deming).

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age. Western management must awaken to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership for change.