Out of the Crisis

W. Edwards Deming could be called the Mozart of quality control, the Shakespeare of business consulting, the Michelangelo of management science. Deming is the sine qua non of modern business thought. He helped engineer the rise of Japanese competitiveness in the consumer goods sector, thereby giving a major prod to globalization. Perhaps his only failure was not envisioning the extremes to which others would later push his ideas of “constancy of purpose” (for example, continuous quality improvement). Then again, their own ideas often come back to haunt prophets and, on most points, Deming passes the test of time with flying colors. In this reprint of his 1986 classic, his eloquent arguments for single supplier sourcing and for leadership rather than supervision, and against production quotas and the absurd practice of management by walking around, ring as true today as ever. getAbstract suggests revisiting this classic often and highly recommends Deming’s seminal work for the wisdom it offers to people at all levels of business and management.