It was yesterday, a glorious sunny distraction of a day, and while alternately admiring the world outside my window and reading the latest issue of CQI’s Quality World, I came across a plea for help. In the letters section, a reader implored the editor to “help the large number of service industries in the UK to understand how Deming’s work can apply to them.”

The young lady who had written was a bit frustrated about how an article in a previous issue focused on the application of W. Edwards Deming’s philosophies in the manufacturing sector. I can appreciate this young lady’s frustration as there are a great many works about Deming in an industrial manufacturing sense, but far fewer about service. Since I work in a successful service company, perhaps I can assist in providing some relief in the way of an explanation.

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