Maginot Line thinking is when you expend considerable resources in an effort to counteract a past threat.

The idea of ever-improving coupled with what they learned from Deming—especially the Theory of Knowledge and shorter feedback loops via the PDSA loop, as well as the Theory of Variation and the accompanying statistical process control—let them succeed in their failure. Kaizen.

Deming referred to Ford and Taylor’s influence as “living in prison under the tyranny of the prevailing style of management.”

Shewhart gave us a way to continually improve a process. •Deming gave us a way to continually improve a system. •Shewhart showed us how to optimize an existing process. •Deming showed us how to rethink the process altogether. •Shewhart used statistics to improve manufacturing. •Deming used statistics to improve everything.

In 1962, Karou Ishikawa introduced “quality circles” and offered a course through JUSE. You might think of it as a kaizen continuous-improvement club. Workers whose jobs overlapped would work together to increase productivity flows between each other.

A strong component of Deming’s approach to management is called MBM, or management by means, the counter to management by objectives (MBO) and management by results. The key difference between MBMs and MBOs is Deming would ask by what means did you achieve your goal? If you don’t know how you achieved your objective, how do you know if you can do i

A deeper look into Alcoa’s story reveals that not only was it a story of cooperation and transformation but also of exhibiting all four parts of Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge: the theory of knowledge as opportunities were identified and converted into nuggets of knowledge, variation to measure what they were learning, human psychology to un

He wanted to equip the people inside the company with the tools they needed to profoundly change the way Ford worked.

Dr. Deming and fellow engineer and statistician Dr. Genichi Taguchi founded what would become the American Supplier Institute.