I learned about Deming in undergraduate Industrial Engineering courses, learning that he had been more or less run out of the United States after the war because there was no incentive to adopt his ideas and that the Japanese embraced him and immediately began implementing his ideas in their economy (Toyota Production System is, I think, heavily based on Deming's principles).
With many, many years now of work experience as both a worker and as an engineer, I think Deming's ideas are transformative and timeless. We would have better jobs, better products, and a better economy if we lived by and practiced his principles.
I learned about him after attending a course on alternative ways to implement workplace safety. As opposed to having a risk and hazard tickbox, tell the engineer that he is competent and if he feels unsafe, he needs to find the right information from his peers etc. Treat them like grownups and not children that have to follow tick boxes.
I have tried to implement many of Deming's Principles in my career, but like him I feel that management is often obstinate and they don't seem to understand that too much rigor and overmeasure is not only not useless but kills creativity.
"Rigor and overmeasure". Are these indicators that management today has no way to implement accountability? Accountability ties directly to your point about being treated like an adult, and is sorely lacking across the board today. Nobody wants to be where the buck stops and to be the person who bears the responsibility for a decision at the end of the day.
I am a retired airline industry person. I once made a presentation to a medical group about handling risk in the airline industry.
The example of nuclear power safety was used to introduce the topic of risk management to the group.
There are many examples of accidents in aviation. This led the industry to develop a Risk Management Model, CRM. The aim was to develop a common sense approach to risk. One of the best known examples was an aircraft that landed in the Hudson River near New York City.
Nowadays monitoring of most airline type operations is the norm. The problem is that this has lead to an ever present oversight in the aircraft. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of this.
there is another good book on how common sense was replaced by this tickbox mentality called "voltaire's bastards", it also goes into why the Vietnam War was lost, because of hit ratios, body counts etc as opposed to relying on common-sense.
I learned about Deming in undergraduate Industrial Engineering courses, learning that he had been more or less run out of the United States after the war because there was no incentive to adopt his ideas and that the Japanese embraced him and immediately began implementing his ideas in their economy (Toyota Production System is, I think, heavily based on Deming's principles).
With many, many years now of work experience as both a worker and as an engineer, I think Deming's ideas are transformative and timeless. We would have better jobs, better products, and a better economy if we lived by and practiced his principles.
I learned about him after attending a course on alternative ways to implement workplace safety. As opposed to having a risk and hazard tickbox, tell the engineer that he is competent and if he feels unsafe, he needs to find the right information from his peers etc. Treat them like grownups and not children that have to follow tick boxes.
I have tried to implement many of Deming's Principles in my career, but like him I feel that management is often obstinate and they don't seem to understand that too much rigor and overmeasure is not only not useless but kills creativity.
"Rigor and overmeasure". Are these indicators that management today has no way to implement accountability? Accountability ties directly to your point about being treated like an adult, and is sorely lacking across the board today. Nobody wants to be where the buck stops and to be the person who bears the responsibility for a decision at the end of the day.
I am a retired airline industry person. I once made a presentation to a medical group about handling risk in the airline industry.
The example of nuclear power safety was used to introduce the topic of risk management to the group.
There are many examples of accidents in aviation. This led the industry to develop a Risk Management Model, CRM. The aim was to develop a common sense approach to risk. One of the best known examples was an aircraft that landed in the Hudson River near New York City.
Nowadays monitoring of most airline type operations is the norm. The problem is that this has lead to an ever present oversight in the aircraft. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of this.
there is another good book on how common sense was replaced by this tickbox mentality called "voltaire's bastards", it also goes into why the Vietnam War was lost, because of hit ratios, body counts etc as opposed to relying on common-sense.