The Deming Legacy

His 14 points, 30 years on

Michel Baudin
ISBN 978-0-9664186-0-6

©2014 Michel Baudin

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Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Rereading Deming’s 14 Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Point 1: Create constancy of purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . viii

Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

Philosophy and Trains Running on Time . . . . . . . . . xiii
Japan, China, and the Rest of the World . . . . . . . . . . xv
What is the “New Philosophy”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi
Ultimate Meaning of Point 2: Apply the other 13 . . . . . xix

Point 3: Cease dependence on inspection for quality . . . xx

Process Capability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Problem Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Mistake-Proofing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
Autonomous Process Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxii
 Acknowledgments
I am indebted to the manufacturing professionals who commented
on my blog and in LinkedIn discussions on the topics covered in
this book, including

• Mark Barchenko,
• Sal Bocchino,
• Michael Bremer,
• Bill Bryant,
• Stephen Dunn,
• Wayne G. Fisher,
• Jesse Gentile,
• Praveen Gupta,
• Dr. Mirmohamad Rouzbeh,
• Chris Stergiou,
• Gregg Stocker
 Rereading Deming’s 14
Points

Deming’s 14 points

Deming’s 14 points are the best known legacy of his 1982 book
Out of the Crisis. Which crisis? The title begs the question, but the
answer is elusive. When the book first came out, in 1982, the US
was in a recession, and some industries, like steel, shipbuilding, cars,
consumer electronics, and semiconductors, were feeling the sting of
Japanese competition, but the appreciation that there was more to
it than imitation, low wages and hard work was slow in coming.
Based on the copyright date, I thought the book was about how to
get out of that recession, but the title Out of the Crisis was only
given to it in 1986, when the country was booming. The original,
1982 title was Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position, with
no reference to a crisis. So the question remains.
The book now ranks about 20,000-th among books on Amazon,
which is quite an achievement for a 30-year old technical book. 30
Rereading Deming’s 14 Points iii

years on, also, is a good time to ponder how much of Deming’s

advice has been followed and how much is still relevant. Ironically,
my own copy is defective. Pages 81, 84-85, 88-89, 92-93, and 96 are
blank, as if the book itself was meant to illustrate the problems of
American manufacturing, in this case the publishing arm of MIT.
It is from the 12th printing in 1991.

Figure 1. Defective copy of Deming’s book, Out of the Crisis

Deming was in his eighties when he wrote this book. He was a

celebrated figure in Japan but had remained obscure in the US until
1980 when NBC aired its documentary If Japan Can… Why Can’t
We?¹ This book conveys a sense of urgency. Deming obviously felt
he had much to say to American management that was essential
to its future competitiveness, and little time to say it. He couldn’t
afford to sugarcoat his message.
His readers would just have to handle the truth. He is blunt, but
backs up his statements with examples. The reader is told, for
example: “The content of this chapter […] ought to be included in
education in law, engineering, business and statistics” (p. 285). This
is Chapter 9, a detailed discussion of operational definitions, and I
don’t believe Deming’s recommendation here was followed.
Deming is a statistician, and aware of the dilemma that, while you
find academically trained statistical experts with no understanding
of industry and industrial process experts with no understanding
of statistics, people who can effectively apply statistics to industrial
problems are rare. The Six Sigma movement was originally an
attempt to bridge this gap, but it has run its course without reaching
this goal.
¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Japan_can..._Why_can%27t_we%3F
Rereading Deming’s 14 Points iv

In Manufacturing, with the possible exceptions of Semiconductors

and Pharmaceuticals, the divide remains. Deming overestimates the
importance of statistics in Manufacturing, particularly Statistical
Process Control (SPC), but it mostly shows in his choice of exam-
ples. The 14 points themselves make no reference to statistics and do
not recommend any tool, which in fact makes them more durably
relevant than they would have been otherwise.
What are Deming’s actual 14 points? And who are they intended
for? Let us start with Deming’s own summary, from p. 23 of his
book:

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improve-

ment of product and service, with the aim to be-
come competitive, stay in business and to provide
jobs.
2. Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new eco-
nomic age. Western management must awaken
to the challenge, must learn their responsibilities,
and take on leadership for change.
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve qual-
ity. Eliminate the need for massive inspection
by building quality into the product in the first
place.
4. End the practice of awarding business on the
basis of a price tag. Instead, minimize total cost.
Move towards a single supplier for any one item,
on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of
production and service, to improve quality and
productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.
6. Institute training on the job.
7. Institute leadership (see Point 12 and Ch. 8 of_-
Out of the Crisis_). The aim of supervision should
be to help people and machines and gadgets do a
better job. Supervision of management is in need
Rereading Deming’s 14 Points v

of overhaul, as well as supervision of production

workers.
8. Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effec-
tively for the company. (See Ch. 3 of Out of the
Crisis)
9. Break down barriers between departments. Peo-
ple in research, design, sales, and production
must work as a team, in order to foresee problems
of production and usage that may be encountered
with the product or service.
10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for
the work force asking for zero defects and new
levels of productivity. Such exhortations only
create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of
the causes of low quality and low productivity
belong to the system and thus lie beyond the
power of the work force.
11. a. Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the
factory floor. Substitute with leadership. b.
Eliminate management by objective. Elimi-
nate management by numbers and numeri-
cal goals. Instead substitute with leadership.
12. a. Remove barriers that rob the hourly worker
of his right to pride of workmanship. The re-
sponsibility of supervisors must be changed
from sheer numbers to quality. b. Remove
barriers that rob people in management and
in engineering of their right to pride of
workmanship. This means, inter alia, abol-
ishment of the annual or merit rating and of
management by objectives² (See Ch. 3 of Out
of the Crisis).
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and
self-improvement.
²http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_by_objectives
Rereading Deming’s 14 Points vi

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accom-

plish the transformation. The transformation is
everybody’s job.

On the face of it, this is an odd mixture of actionable recommenda-

tions – like “a single supplier for any one item” – with generalities
like “adopt the new philosophy,” and expressions like “a vigorous
program” that don’t meet Deming’s own criteria for an operational
definition (See Ch. 9 of Out of the Crisis). As a consequence, the
summary is not sufficient to understand what Deming actually
meant.
Deming elaborates on each point in the remainder of Ch. 2 but,
contrary to what the reader might expect, the whole book is not
organized around the 14 points. About 20 years after Deming, in The
Toyota Way³, Liker also identified 14 principles, and then devoted
a chapter to each, which gives the reader a sense of structure that
is missing in Deming’s book.
While acknowledging that the book is not exactly well organized,
other readers, who actually heard Deming in person, have provided
alternative explanations. According to Michael Bremer, Deming
worked from a “gigantic stack of 3-ring binder paper… not in a
binder.” Wayne Fisher thinks that Deming wrote this way delib-
erately to force the reader to really think about what he was saying
and that he thought those who wanted everything laid out for them
were lazy and unmotivated.
As an author, I cannot imagine that it was done on purpose. Readers
who commit their money to your book deserve more consideration.
They are your customers and it behooves you to lay out the
materials as clearly and as simply as you can. I also believe in
making it easy for readers to find information, by having a detailed
table of contents, an index, and a summary at the head of each
chapter.
³http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/
ISBN=0071392319/mmtimanufacturinA//mmtimanufacturinA/
Rereading Deming’s 14 Points vii

I will stick with my old-man-in-a-hurry theory. I prefer to think

that way rather than assume that flaws in the book were deliberate
or that the author didn’t know any better. The book is a better read
when you see it as what a man of great accomplishments wanted
to pass on while he could. And you don’t hesitate to cut him slack
that you wouldn’t to a younger author.
In the early 1980s, industries like steel, cars, semiconductors, and
consumer electronics in the US were facing formidable competi-
tion from Japan, but most American managers credited it to long
working hours for low wages and unfair trade practices. The idea
that there was anything to learn from Japan was a hard sell, and
only a few, well-informed individuals like Deming knew that it was
the case. Deming obviously felt he had much to say to American
management that was essential to future competitiveness, and little
time to say it. He couldn’t afford to sugarcoat his message and didn’t
have the leisure to organize it into a neat theory. His readers would
just have to organize the parts themselves.
Deming is often prophetic but, in hindsight from 2014, occasionally
off the mark. He correctly predicted that Japan would achieve a
standard of living on a par with the US and Western Europe, but
he perceived the breakup of the AT&T monopoly as “wrecking our
system of telephone communication” (p.152), which works pretty
well for a wreck.
One criticism I have for all lists of 14 points, whether from Woodrow
Wilson⁴, Deming, or Liker, is that they are impossible to remember.
They should have boiled their lists down to 7 or even 5 points. I will
have more detailed comments on each point in forthcoming posts.
⁴http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson%27s_14_points
Point 1: Create constancy of
purpose
Deming’s full statement is as follows:

“Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of

product and service, with the aim to become competi-
tive, stay in business and to provide jobs.”

We can breaks this down into several components:

1. You should always be improving what your customers are

paying you for, whether goods or services.
2. You do this in order to:
• Compete, presumably against anyone worldwide.
• Stay in business, presumably forever.
• Provide jobs.

The most surprising piece is the mention of providing jobs as

a goal. It is a goal for society at large, but a company creates
jobs when it has to, and does not make it a goal. What Deming
is really after, however, is not job creation but retention. As he
elaborates on this point, he is saying that, instead of worrying
exclusively about quarterly profits, companies should have a longer
term strategy involving innovation, investments in research and
education, and constant improvement in products or services – as
well as internal processes – and that no employees should lose their
jobs for contributing to improvements.
Most of his readers in the 1980s would have readily agreed on
the need for a strategy, but would at best have paid lip service
Point 1: Create constancy of purpose ix

to the need to retain people. 30 years later, the management of

most American companies is even less committed to its work force,
and practices like rank-and-yank⁵ make firings routine, even in the
absence of economic need.
The few companies that have implemented the Human Resources
part of Lean can claim to follow Deming on this point. Although
he does not say it in so many words, it is clear from what he says
in other parts of the book, is that “making profits every quarter” is
not an appropriate purpose, whatever constancy you pursue it with.
Your purpose should be in terms of goods or services provided to
a population of customers, with profits a by-product of doing this
well.
How do you create constancy of purpose? As a necessary condition,
it seems that a purpose would have to be articulated and communi-
cated to all stakeholders, and serve as an overarching hoshin⁶ for
the organization. This is what today’s _Mission Statements _are
supposed to do. Some of them don’t live up to this expectation. GM’s
mission statement, for example, is as follows:

“G.M. is a multinational corporation engaged in so-

cially responsible operations, worldwide. It is dedi-
cated to provide products and services of such quality
that our customers will receive superior value while
our employees and business partners will share in our
success and our stock-holders will receive a sustained
superior return on their investment.”

From it, you would not guess that the company makes cars and
trucks. The statement reads like keywords strung together. The only
specific thing it says is that the company exists to make money for
stock-holders. Ford’s is equally cagey:
⁵http://michelbaudin.com/2012/08/14/metrics-in-lean-alternatives-to-rank-and-yank-
in-evaluating-people/
⁶http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoshin_Kanri
Point 1: Create constancy of purpose x

“Ford Motor Company is focused on creating a strong

business that builds great products that contribute to a
better world.”

A cheese maker could say the same.

Schlumberger, on the other hand, describes itself as follows:

“The world’s leading oilfield services company supply-

ing technology, information solutions and integrated
project management that optimize reservoir perfor-
mance for customers working in the oil and gas indus-
try.”

Neither a cheese maker nor a car company could say that. From
that one sentence, we know which market the company serves and
what it provides. To managers inside the company, it provides a
clear direction on what to pursue and what to stay away from.
This is a company founded in 1926 with over $39B in sales in 2011. 25
years ago, it could not have made such a clear statement of purpose,
because it had diversified into unrelated areas: besides providing
oilfield services, it was making household meters for electricity,
water and gas, smart cards, and semiconductor chips. It has since
then sold off all these businesses and refocused on the activity for
which it had been founded.
Google’s mission statement is also clear and specific:

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s informa-

tion and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Companies diversify to hedge against the instability or cyclicality

of their original businesses. A consequence of diversification it
that it shifts management’s focus away from products and services.
Point 1: Create constancy of purpose xi

Mission statements then can express no other constant purpose than

making money at all times, which Deming brands a deadly disease
in Chapter 3 of Out of the Crisis.
Managers believe they can combine unrelated businesses, because
they think of management as a generic skill, portable from oilfield
services to semiconductors, from sugary water to computers, or
from dessert toppings to floor wax.
There are individual success stories, like Carlos Ghosn going from
tires to cars, or Alan Mulally from airplanes to cars, but it is
a different challenge for a company to take over another in a
different business, and failures are common. If a company operates
by Deming’s 1st point, it has a purpose that can be stated in a
mission statement in terms of products and services. Conglomerates
clearly don’t, but then, neither do Korean Chaebols or Japanese
Keiretsus, and such structures still include some of the world’s best
known companies, like GE, Hyundai, or Mitsubishi.
 Point 2: Adopt the new
philosophy…

Philosophers Old and New

This is the most cryptic of all of Deming’s points:

“Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic

age. Western management must awaken to the chal-
lenge, must learn their responsibilities, and take on
leadership for change.”

This could have been said, with different meanings, at any time in
the past 200 years. It could be said today, about a “new philosophy”
that would not be the one Deming was referring to 30 years ago.
What was new in 1982 or even 1986 may be long in the tooth in 2012.
Also, is there such a thing as “Western management” as a common
approach spanning the Americas and Western Europe?
In the elaboration on this point, Deming asserts “We are in a new
economic age, created by Japan.” Deming’s 2nd point could be
Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… xiii

rephrased as “study and adopt Japanese management,” but it still

would not be specific. It certainly made sense for car companies
to learn the Toyota Production System, as they eventually more or
less did, but Japan is 130 million people and more than 1 million
companies, engaging in all sorts of behaviors, not all of which are
worthy of emulation. In addition, explicit references to another
nation are counterproductive when you are trying to implement
anything, as they instantly elicit the response that “it won’t work
here.”

Philosophy and Trains Running on Time

To make his point, Deming dives from the stratosphere of philos-

ophy to the nitty-gritty of train schedules. Japanese trains, today
as well as 30 years ago, run fast, frequently, and on time, which
certainly enhances your traveling experience.
As a French train engineer told me in 1977, “Japan is a very
interesting country, from a railroad point of view.” When I returned
from Japan 18 months later, I brought him a copy of the latest
schedule, which was sold at newsstands and looked like a small
phone book. 34 years later, I crisscrossed Japan for a week with
tight connections and never missed one. It is radically different from
using high-speed trains in Germany (ICE) or France (TGV).
The Japanese high-speed trains, the Shinkansen, are no longer the
fastest in the world, but what is most remarkable about them is
that, if you stand close to the Tokyo-Osaka line, you see trains of 16
carriages roll by at 150 to 200 mph every few minutes, as shown in
Figure 1. By contrast, TGVs from Paris to Lyon run about once an
hour, and often late.
Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… xiv

Schedule of Shinkansen departures from Tokyo to Osaka and beyond

And punctuality in public transportation in Japan is not limited to

the Shinkansen: if you stand on a country road, with a schedule
that calls for a bus to come by at 4:36PM, you see it coming round
the bend at 4:35PM. One good reason to point this out to American
managers in the 1980s was that such a quality of service could not
be explained by hard work, low wages, or protectionism. It required
advanced technology and management, engagement of the work
force, and attention to details.
Furthermore, from 1964 to 1981, the Shinkansen was the only train
of its kind in the world. While the Shinkansen and its operations
are a wonder to behold, it also has characteristics that have made it
impossible to sell outside of Japan. It uses a wide gauge and cannot
run at reduced speeds on regular tracks like the French TGV or the
German ICE, as a result of which the Shinkansen network requires
many more specially built bridges and tunnels.
Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… xv

Shinkansen tracks versus regular Japanese tracks

In fact, the only stretch on which traffic is intense enough to run

profitably is the original Tokyo-Osaka line, and some lines are
known to have been built because a powerful politician wanted
his district served. Japan is a place where you find the Shinkansen
and many other engineering marvels, but it is not immune to major
errors in business planning and has its share of bridges to nowhere.

Japan, China, and the Rest of the World

Japan is not an ideal society, as Deming must have known, but a

real, flawed one, comprised of fallible human beings. In the US, fear
of Japanese competition peaked in the late 1980s, and ebbed in the
1990s when the country entered a long recession that it has yet to
overcome. In 2012, the focus of attention is China, not Japan.
Not everything about Japan is worth following, and it was a
mistake to believe so, but it is also a mistake to go back to the
1970s and ignore it. In manufacturing, the most advanced concepts
in both technology and management are still found in the best
Japanese factories, and the Japanese literature on the subject has
no equivalent anywhere else.
Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… xvi

What is the “New Philosophy”?

None of this tells us what the “new philosophy” is. By riding

trains and visiting factories, you can observe practices, but not their
underlying principles, or philosophy.
Philosophy is the pinnacle of theory. You have – or should have –
theories for such topics as assembly line design, production control
and logistics, or human resource management… For the application
of all these theories to result in competitive manufacturing systems,
they must all be based on a common philosophy.
And you need to understand this philosophy to develop correspond-
ing practices in other contexts. There isn’t a single one for the whole
of Japan. Instead, each successful organization has its own, which
may or may not be explicitly stated, and if stated for internal use,
is not necessarily shared with the world.
According to Ranga Srinivas, “TPS is a ‘Philosophy’, not a system
(System in TPS is given by Western world). That philosophy is in
their DNA.”
We tend to get carried away with metaphors. In Japanese, TPS is not
only NOT a philosophy, it is not even a system, but just a method!
The term is Toyota Seisan Hoshiki (トヨタ生産方式), and Hoshiki
means “method,” not “system.” When we make more of it, it reminds
me of Louie de Palma, the Danny de Vito character in the series
Taxi, saying about his girlfriend, “She sees something in me that no
one ever saw, something that isn’t there.”

Louie de Palma
Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… xvii

Let us study TPS for what it really is: the best known way to make
cars. And, if Mark Graban can learn from it and improve hospitals,
it’s wonderful. But let us not go to a car maker for philosophy. It’s
the wrong shop.
Saying it’s the best known way to make cars is not talking it down;
it’s what drew me to it. Philosophy is also a wonderful thing, but
corporate philosophy is to philosophy as advertising is to poetry.
If you parse it, it should be to understand the image management
wants to project, not what the company does.
There is a Japanese word for philosophy (tetsugaku, 哲学). Googling
“toyota tetsugaku” yields a single occurrence on the Toyota website,
in one paragraph about “Business strategy” (hoshin), which trans-
lates as follows:

“Toyota aims to be a good corporate citizen through

the provision of clean and safe products, to contribute
to the prosperity of society, and earn the trust of the
international community. I will introduce the vision
for the future and Toyota’s philosophy, which is alive
in the Toyota Production System and the corporate
concept.”

For comparison purposes, this is what GM says about itself on its

website:

“In order to achieve our goals, GM has remained

committed to the following formula for success:

1. Move faster and take risks to achieve sustained

success, not just short-term results
2. Lead in advanced technologies and quality in
creating the world’s best vehicles
3. Give employees more responsibility and author-
ity and then hold them accountable
Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… xviii

4. Create positive, lasting relationships with cus-

tomers, dealers, communities, union partners and
suppliers, to drive our operating success.”

I have the greatest respect for TPS, and have experienced its
adaptability to industries ranging from making frozen foods to
computers and aerospace. And I understand that you can’t go to
a hospital and tell administrators, doctors, and nurses that you are
going to help them with a method for making cars. You not only
have to adapt it, you must also present it in such a way that they
will listen. For 25 years, the word “Lean” has been used for this
purpose. It has also been abused, to leverage the respect inspired by
TPS in order to promote unrelated ideas.
We also need to be careful about references to DNA in this context.
I believe it started with Spear and Bowen Harvard Business Review
Article Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System⁷.
Culture is nurture; DNA, nature. Your culture is the way your
family, school, and society molded you; your DNA, the genetic
program that made you.
Generally, we should treat national culture as irrelevant to manu-
facturing. If Japanese business leaders in the late 19th and early 20th
century had considered it relevant, they would have decided that
manufacturing was a product of European and American culture
that could not be transplanted to Japan.
About housekeeping habits specifically, I remember being im-
pressed, while walking the streets of Rotterdam at night, by houses
with the drapes pulled and the lights on to let passers-by admire
spotless living rooms. What we saw in factories in the same country,
however, told us that the cultural obsession with neatness in daily
life did not carry over to the production shop floor.
DNA is even less relevant. In every society, there are misguided
individuals who believe that having been born into a particular
⁷http://hbr.org/1999/09/decoding-the-dna-of-the-toyota-production-system/ar/1
Point 2: Adopt the new philosophy… xix

group makes them better at some activities; the rest of society

calls them bigots. If DNA had anything to do with manufacturing
excellence, it could not be achieved by learning. You can learn a
method, master a system, and even assimilate a culture, but you
can’t change your DNA.

Ultimate Meaning of Point 2: Apply the

other 13

In_ Out of the Crisis_, the 14 points are the closest there is to the
statement of a philosophy. Therefore, what this point essentially
says is that they the other points should be adopted.
 Point 3: Cease dependence
on inspection for quality
Deming’s 3rd point is the first to mention quality, and it is specific,
even if its implementation is sometimes a tall order. Its complete
statement is as follows:

“Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.

Eliminate the need for massive inspection by building
quality into the product in the first place.”

The idea that quality should be built into the design of the prod-
ucts and into the processes to manufacture them has come to be
generally accepted in the past 30 years, and implemented in many
industries. You never hear anyone arguing against it. At the same
time, final inspection and test has never completely disappeared,
even in the car industry.
Engines, for example, are all tested before moving on to assembly,
even at the best manufacturers, and body paint is visually inspected
by people. In the details he gives about this point, Deming acknowl-
edges that there are exceptions where no one knows how to build
quality into the process.
In particular, he mentions integrated circuits. It is still true in 2014,
and the economic importance of this “exception” has grown in the
past 30 years. There are also other, older technology products for
which there is no alternative to sorting the output. Lead shot, for
example, is produced by pouring molten lead into a sieve, collecting
the solidified drops, sorting the ones that are sufficiently round
based on their ability to roll down chutes, and recycling the others.
Point 3: Cease dependence on inspection for quality xxi

Oddly, Deming includes “calculations and other paperwork” in a

bank among the activities for which mistakes are “inevitable but
intolerable.” Today, an individual using on-line bill-pay to settle a
utility bill expects that the exact amounts will be properly debited
and credited without human intervention. If, on the other hand, you
are occasionally transferring $300K from Russia to the US, you can
expect humans to validate the transaction.
At least in Out of the Crisis⁸, Deming does not distinguish between
inspection and testing. Inspection is a manual process, subject to
human error and to dilution of responsibility when a product is
subject to multiple inspections, which is why he describes it as an
ineffective filter for defectives.
At the end of their process, however, integrated circuits are not
inspected by humans but tested on automatic test equipment that,
if properly calibrated, provides consistent results. The relevance of
these results depends on the human process of programming the test
equipment; the productivity of test operations, on the sequencing of
the tests.
Because inspection and test is perceived as “non-value added,” it has
a bad odor in the Lean community, and is ignored in its literature.
Today, however, it is something we have to do, and we might as well
do it well. Deming discusses it in Chapter 15 of Out of the Crisis; I,
in Chapter 16 of Lean Assembly⁹ .
I have long argued that the only relevant distinction is between
what you have to do and what you don’t. If you establish that an
activity is such that you performance will not degrade in any if you
stop doing it, you should stop doing it. Otherwise, you should worry
about doing it effectively and efficiently, and not apologize about
it.
⁸http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0911379010/mmtimanufacturinA/
⁹http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1563272636/mmtimanufacturinA/
Point 3: Cease dependence on inspection for quality xxii

Process Capability

Problem Detection

Mistake-Proofing

Autonomous Process Completion