W. Edwards Deming has been dead for almost 16 years. In my opinion, he and Joseph Juran were the true quality giants of the 20th century. No one seems to talk about Deming much any more except to relate stories from the past and pine for the “good ol’ Deming 4-day seminar days.” (I don’t. Nor do I think he would want us to.) He also seems to have a fundamentalist cult following who revel in smug running commentary, quoting chapter and verse a la Deming on any current quality effort.

I’m going to say a couple of things that might not make me popular. However, I’m also going to preface these remarks with my utmost awe and thanks for the extraordinary influence Deming has had on my career, including a warm hand-written personal note of encouragement at the low point of my career 25 years ago. I feel that all the current improvement manifestations come directly from Deming theory—with a healthy dose of Juran’s practical wisdom—but they are missing the point, which is what he tried to put in context at the end of his life with his system of profound knowledge. (See my column “TQM, Six Sigma, Lean and…Data?” www.qualitydigest.com/july06/departments/spc_guide.shtml.)

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