Improvement Insights Blog
Deming on Total Quality Management (TQM)
I took Deming’s workshop back in the 1990s. When asked about Total Quality Management (TQM) Deming said…
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“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].
“Back in the 1990s when I was first getting involved with Quality, I went to one of [W. Edwards] Deming‘s four-day seminars. Somewhere in there, somebody asked him about Total Quality Management.
“Deming said, ‘I have no idea where the word ‘total’ came from. That’s just wrong. It’s Quality Management. You manage the things that need to be managed, not everything.’ Right?
“If you think about Pareto’s rule, the 80/20 rule, 20% is causing the problem. If you think about my 4-50 rule, you narrow that way down. 4% of what you’re doing is producing over half the mistakes and errors. That’s not TOTAL quality, we just need to manage the 4% that’s really eating our lunch.
“So stop thinking about Six Sigma as something that has to be done everywhere all the time by everyone, and everybody has to be trained… that’s a giant waste of time and energy. Narrow your focus. Fix what’s really broken. Worst first, then the next worst, then the next worst, then the next worst, and eventually everything smooths out.
“That’s my Improvement Insight. Let’s go out and improve something this week.”
