‘We installed quality control.’ No. You can install a new desk, or a new carpet, or a new dean, but not quality control. Anyone that proposes to ‘install quality control’ unfortunately has little knowledge about quality control.

I read them. Not to grade them. No, I read them to see how I am doing. Where am I failing? What don’t they understand? Why do they give wrong answers? Why do they have some point of view that I don’t think is right? Where am I failing? Where do I need to build up.

The requirement of reliability. Rational planning and action in meeting both business and governmental problems require the collecting of current information. This need for information is often met by the use of surveys. A properly designed survey provides the desired information with known and calculable reliability, and does so within the limitations of time and cost and whatever other restrictions are imposed.

[A leader] is coach and counsel, not a judge.

[A] dissatisfied customer does not complain: he just switches.

[G]ood quality and the right uniformity have no meaning except with reference to the consumer’s demands.

[If you] have work standards, productivity goes down and quality [goes down]. Work standards don’t help anybody – what do they do to you? It doubles your cost.

[M]anagement by numerical goal is an attempt to manage without knowledge of what to do, and in fact is usually management by fear.

[Personal] goals are necessary for you and for me, but numerical goals set for other people, without a road map to reach the goal, have effects opposite to the effects sought.

[T]he prime purpose in carrying out a survey or experiment is to find answers to certain questions in order to provide a basis for rational prediction, usually in order that action may be taken on the sources of the data.