American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan-but they don’t know what to copy!

An additional responsibility of management is to be ready to change the boundary of the system to better serve the aim. Changes may require redefinition of components.

An operational definition is a procedure agreed upon for translation of a concept into measurement of some kind.

Anyone that enjoys his work is a pleasure to work with.

As I use the term here, the job of a leader is to accomplish transformation of his organization. He possesses knowledge, personality, and persuasive power.

Beat horses, and they will run faster—for a while.

Best efforts are essential. Unfortunately, best efforts, people charging this way and that way without guidance of principles, can do a lot of damage. Think of the chaos that would come if everyone did his best, not knowing what to do.

Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

Complaints come in too late… [I]t will not suffice to have customers that are merely satisfied. Customers that are unhappy and some that are merely satisfied switch. Profit comes from repeat customers—those that boast about the product or service. Quality is already built in before a customer complains. Study of complaints is certainly necessary but it gives a biased picture of performance of a product or of a service. Study of costs of warranty have of course the same deficiency. These principles apply equally well to service and to manufactured product.

Data are not taken for museum purposes; they are taken as a basis for doing something. If nothing is to be done with the data, then there is no use in collecting any. The ultimate purpose of taking data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation for action. The step intermediate between the collection of data and the action is prediction.