Mary Walton was/is Deming's official biographer and has written a number of readible books on Deming's work. While easier reading than Deming's own books, they lack the depth of Deming's originals. However, a good number of people are not willing to wade through the original Deming works. If you want background, go with a Walton book. If you are actually implementing ideas read Walton, but also read Deming.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84570 in Books
• Published on: 1988-11-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Book Info
Whether you're the owner of your own small business, a middle manager in a mid-sized company, or the CEO of a multinational corporation, this book can show you how to improve your profits and productivity. Paper. DLC: Contributions in management.

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Customer Reviews

Deming's message was profound
It is said that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants like Frederick Taylor, the Toyoda Family, Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo, and of course Edwards Deming. The trouble is that we too often mistake the content for the context, or as Taylor said, the mechanism for the essence.

Mary Walton achieved in this book a rare insight into the essence of Deming's approach. Having lived and worked in industry in Japan and knowing the difference between Western and Eastern approaches I can only say that this book written more than 20 years ago is as important today as the day it was written.

People who truly want to understand Deming's message, the context or the essence of that message, ought to beg, steal, borrow, or preferably buy a copy of this book. We can't go back in time and interrogate the participants, but we have a faithful record here.

A Prophetic Message that Americans Still Don't Understand
When I purchased this book in the late 80's I thoroughly enjoyed the story-telling approach of this book. It was a philosophical awakening. Oh, I'd heard of Deming, studied statistical process control, and even read portions of his famous "14 Points for Managers." I often wondered why these ideas never caught on in American.

Later, while working for a Japanese company, Kao, I had what alcoholics called a moment of clairvoyance. An American manager and a Japanese manager were jointly leading a meeting to find the cause of a production problem. The American manager lunged into the old familiar blame game. The Japanese manager calmly turned to his colleague and said politely, "The purpose of our meeting is to find the cause of the problem and develop countermeasures (a Japanese management term)." This brought this book clearly in focus for me. The Japanese got Deming because they were focused on the process of making a better product. American managers, especially MBAs, are focused on the product: selling it. They don't understand the process and won't bother to learn it let the engineers do that. The Japanese and Germans strive to continually improve products beyond the control limits set by the customers; they understand the value of providing a product a customer can't live without. It is my opinion that the Japanese methods have gone well beyond Deming. I don't think recent attempts such as ISO-9000 and six-sigma can match these revolutionary, philosophical changes. Deming had it right in the beginning: statistical process control alone won't improve quality. That's all ISO-9000 and six-sigma are: tools for engineers, not managers.

After the biographical information on Dr. Deming, Mary Walton sits through one of Deming's leadership courses. The red bead experiment was an enlightening, and humbling experience for managers who attended these seminars. It gave them an appreciation for how their people, working with poor equipment and inadequate instructions turn out their products. This situation is familiar to most engineers. The author's writing style is very personable with text that is chock full of quotes from Deming himself and others.

From there, the book follows a logical pattern through all fourteen points and seven deadly sins. Then, it's on to numerous examples of how American companies such as Ford Motor Company and Campbell Soups have adopted, or attempted to adopt, Deming management method.

This books is dog-eared now after 20-years for faithful service. It has been my guide through many management positions. After years of thought on the subject, I feel that Deming's methods are an ideal and that companies must strive to follow them or ignore at their peril.

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Mary Walton's Deep Understanding
Mary Walton has a deep understanding of W. Edwards Deming. This book is a good place to begin. The great men of the Toyoda Family got an understanding of him because they knew how important it was to consistently make incremental improvements in their processes. You can do that also from the shop floor where Deming and the Toyoda men were most comfortable and respected. If you do not want to be there then forget this book. I also recommend you purchase "The Toyota Way" by Jeffrey K. Liker as a companion to "The Deming Management Method".