Talk:W. Edwards Deming

Article improvements
Some users would like to upgrade this article to become a good article or even a (gasp) Featured article. If you would like to assist in this project, please check the "To do" list (add to it if you think it necessary) and sign on below:
 * Sunray 02:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Leaders100 15:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Hummm, that wasn't a big response. It will take longer with only two.  Perhaps we plug away and see if anyone will join in. Sunray 18:30, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * VinceHK 17 August 2006
 * crinoidgirl 07 October 2006
 * DCDuring 03:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Removed commercial sites
These sites seemed to be links to commercial ventures without adding any biographical detail. I have removed them on this basis.
 * Deming Scholars MBA Degree Fordham University MBA course contents, promoting the MBA
 * Deming Library Videos Videos for sale
 * Summary & reviews The New Economics 2nd Edition 1993. Amazon link duplicating biography section

These sites require subscription and so are not terribly useful for the reader.
 * Obituary from Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 1993

-- Ashley VH 16:25, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
 * the Inquirer is free. It should be rsstored. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Just tested the link again and you can only see a preview for free. You can subscribe to a free trial but the link in Wikipedia ought to take you straight to the article. Perhaps you can suggest an alternative link? -- Ashley VH 16:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Rating and Importance
This article was started in 2002, and still noone has decided how to rate the importance of the subject within the business and economics Wikiproject?? This defies belief. --12:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the importance should be determined by the impact Dr. Deming has had on the world, and not on whether or not someone disagrees or likes his philosophies. Landroo 16:18, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The above paragraph does not appear to parse as a reply to the paragraph above that again. Care to eludicate? Specifically
 * * Who questions the impact of Dr. Deming?
 * * Who in this discussion has brought up (dis/)agreements and (dis/)likes with his philosophies?
 * --18:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm kind of new at this, but I've been spending a lot of time on Wikipedia lately, so let me venture an opinion. Perhaps the article is perceived as too close to being a promotional piece for the Deming Institute. It is not really quite NPOV. Is there some way to get some discussion of criticisms of something about Deming's work? It would make it seem a bit more "balanced". IMHO, the article is strikingly better than most of the other articles on quality. (Some exceptions: Shewhat, SPC) Perhaps it would be good to spend a little effort on bringing some of the weaker ones up closer to standard and including references to as many of them as would be consistent with a good article. I'm going to wait a few weeks and ask about the evaluation process, unless the weight of opinion is against. DCDuring 03:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The importance of a person is entirely independent of the quality of any article about this person. Adding a criticism section just for the sake of bringing in a perceived neutrality is kindest described as a novel form of wikipedia related political correctness. For instance the Cyberpunk article has such a section that simply had to be taken out to be shot. All in all I think it would be more productive if you itemised the instances of weaknesses you find and then we can hammer it out here. --12:20, 12 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.177.149 (talk)

Gingrich
Newt Gingrich considered himself a pupil of Deming and borrows many of his ideas, as evidenced in "To Renew America" JFW | T@lk  08:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Readability
The sentence under "Overview" begins very poorly. If you are going to improve the concise nature of this article the very first sentence of this section should be changed. As of right now it starts "Ford motor company was simultaneously manufacturing a car with transmissions made in Japan and the United States." When were they manufacturing these simultaneously? This reads quite poorly in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.136.104.21 (talk) 21:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation
Is it "Deeming" or "Demming"? Maybe someone who knows can insert a pronunciation at the beginning. 173.16.252.144 (talk) 15:04, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * According to https://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/deming, it's "Demming" (and has the emphasis on the first syllable). I won't add it now as I don't understand WP's preferred phonetic markup. Pastychomper (talk) 08:54, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-Automated, not Fully Automated
Dr. Deming lamented the problem of automation gone awry ("robots painting robots"): instead, he advocated human-assisted semi-automation, which allows people to change the semi-automated or computer-assisted processes, based on new knowledge. Compare to Japanese term 'jidoka' (which can be loosely translated as "automation with a human touch").

There is no citation for this point, and the Japanese translation is suspect. The JDICT entry for jidouka says automation, plain and simple. 自動化(P); 自働化(iK) 【じどうか】 (n,vs) automation;

I propose to remove the latter sentence if no one provides some justification for it. 98.217.134.243 (talk) 20:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Seven Deadly Diseases
Point 7 in "A Lesser Category of Obstacles" states that "the system desired by management is responsible for 85% of the unintended consequences"; shome mishtake, shurely? Wouldn't designed be more apt? Leptosome (talk) 16:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Fixed broken link
Fixed broken link in Note 1. The article was moved to deming-network.org. The original footnote text was wrong. It was a 1950 lecture, not a 1912 lecture. Mediasponge (talk) 21:12, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

copy edit

 * I reworded some phrases and edited for grammar, it should be ok now so I removed the copy edit request.Meatsgains (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate external links
I have moved the following links from the article's External links section. They are inappropriate as ELs but could be useful as sources to support article content. Jojalozzo (talk) 15:59, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
 * W. Edwards Demings' Contributions to Toyota
 * W. Edwards Deming Founder of Statistical Process Control for Quality Management
 * "Quality As Defined By Deming": Lecture by Newt Gingrich
 * Obituary from Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 1993
 * The Deming Prize
 * The Deming Forum home page
 * Deming Scholars MBA Program at Fordham University in New York City
 * The Deming Collaboration

PDCA vs. PDSA
The tenth bullet under Quotations and Concepts, titled Deming Cycle, contains the phrase "Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA), also known as Plan-Do-Study-Act or PDSA". But it's wrong according to the paragraph "PDCA myth" under Deming Philosophy Synopsis, which credits Dr. Deming for PDSA and calls PDCA "a corruption". I don't know how to resolve this but I'm flagging the disconnect. Sooku (talk) 00:41, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Ackoff
His interactions with Russell Ackoff - census in 1950's and otherwise need to be documented. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:301:77A3:8810:6C81:8A8C:88A0:1750 (talk) 01:32, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Writing Style
I actually like the writing style for this article. Just a quick opinion. Allen750 (talk) 07:38, 2 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I second the motion! I love this page. Such a great hero hardly anyone knows about =/ Out of all the things to talk about in regards to his influence I love that he is the fundamental reason why Japanese automobiles are much more reliable than American or European ones. Void burn (talk) 05:40, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Deming philosophy synopsis
This section could use some citations / pruning. For example, who are these 'Japanese proponents' summarising Deming's philosophy? Also, it's unclear whether that formula for quality came directly from Deming or the aforementioned proponents. Frankly, it makes no sense (and conveys a false sense of precision). For instance, it suggests that quality will always rise when costs are reduced. That can't possibly be true, and it's hard to see why there would be some immutable linear relationship between the two. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.128.188 (talk) 18:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on W. Edwards Deming. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070312105954/http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-press.pl?&&20012513&ND&&SME& to http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-press.pl?&&20012513&ND&&SME&

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 13:08, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Got Data?
Deming is famous for saying "In God We Trust. All Others Bring Data!"

TODO: it would be great to highlight this insight and tell the story behind it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brutzman (talk • contribs) 17:07, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Why does this article of Deming hide American industry rejection?
according to Time mag 2005 "Deming was a modern illustration of the biblical truth that a prophet is without honor in his own land. Educated in mathematics and physics, he worked with Bell Labs' Walter Shewhart during the 1930s developing quality-control theories that stressed achieving uniform results during production rather than through inspection at the end of the production line. During World War II Deming successfully ; applied his approach to the making of airplane parts. Ignored by postwar American industry, the irascible Deming took his gospel to Japan in 1950, where it was embraced. His ideas finally took root in the U.S. in the 1980s, when the Detroit auto industry asked for his help in competing with the very Japanese firms he had inspired" 216.130.55.162 (talk) 00:29, 29 February 2024 (UTC)