W. Edwards Deming Quotes about Quality

Improve quality, you automatically improve productivity.

Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process.

Inspection with the aim of finding the bad ones and throwing them out is too late, ineffective, and costly. Quality comes not from inspection but from improvement of the process.

Quality is everyone's responsibility.

If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.

Understanding variation is the key to success in quality and business.

Uncontrolled variation is the enemy of quality.

Quality is pride of workmanship.

Quality starts in the boardroom.

Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.

We cannot rely on mass inspection to improve quality, though there are times when 100 percent inspection is necessary. As Harold S. Dodge said many years ago, 'You cannot inspect quality into a product.' The quality is there or it isn't by the time it's inspected.

You cannot inspect quality into the product; it is already there.

Quality is made in the board room. A worker can deliver lower quality, but she cannot deliver quality better than the system allow.

You do not install quality; you begin to work at it.

Quality begins with the intent, which is fixed by management.

It is not enough that top management commit themselves for life to quality and productivity. They must know what it is that they are committed to - that is, what they must do. These obligations cannot be delegated. Support is not enough; action is required.

Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.

Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride.

The emphasis should be on why we do a job.

The result of long-term relationships is better and better quality, and lower and lower costs.

The job can't be finished only improved to please the customer.

Failure of management to plan for the future and to foresee problems has brought about waste of manpower, of materials, of the machine-time, of all which raise the manufacturer's cost and price that the purchaser must pay

Mere allocation of huge sums of money for quality will not bring quality.