W Edwards Deming1. What are the remains of enduring value?

When properly understood and applied, the theories and teachings

like PDSA or 14 points for management transformation of Dr.
Deming help to achieve some of the most inspiring and sought after
goals of any organization or individualcontinual improvement and
working together with the aim for everybody to win. As such, they
remain as relevant and influential today as when they were first
introduced.

2. Are they culturally specific?

Demings 14 point philosophy and PDSA cycle is not related to any
specific culture or any particular industry, though there application
can vary from industry to industry or culture to culture as they all
emphasised on how companies can improve their quality according
to their standards.

3. Were the writings designed to meet particular problems in

a historic time scale?
No the writing of Deming was not related to any industry or
company specific of old times nor for only for the quality problems
of current time instead it focuses on long and continuous quality
improvement process. As the Deming suggested that the
management to be responsible for the 94% of quality problems and
if we look this concept was not only applied in past but also today,
business provide trainings to their employees from top to bottom on
quality management from the long term perspective. As a result,
employees understand the key areas for quality improvement and
they work accordingly.

4. How applicable are the concepts to service industries such

as education, health, social services?
Demings principles are widely used in service industries like health,
education and social services. His principles likeEducation Industry

Consistency of purpose- everyone involved in the delivery

of programmes and services to the campus population must

understand and accept fundamental importance of providing

exceptional customer services at every available opportunity.
Eliminate unrealistic targets- although it sounds good to
say that 100%
Student satisfaction is our goal, in reality this is impossible to
achieve. For instance, holding a faculty responsible for a fact
that not all of their students feel that they are doing an
acceptable job is unfair and unrealistic. Recognition should be
given for efforts and not just results.

Health Industry

Eliminate slogans, quotes and management by

objective- A survey of patients treated in the department
indicated that the most significant factor was the waiting
time due to understaffing. So to increase customers morale
they put some slogans like The patient is our first priority
but it didnt helped the department to improve their score.
Once the department identified evaluated the understaffing
problem they were able to reduce the customer waiting
time and increase the productivity.
Institute on-the-job training- OJT and education have
always been an important part of health industry. With the
volume of medical research and publishing increasing
rapidly. So healthcares are required to provide OJT to its
employees regarding any new development related to
patient care to increase the productivity.

5. Who are the customers?

There are no specific customers of Demings philosophy, it can be

applicable to a wide range of industries but originally it was made
for the manufacturing industry.
For example- think from Marutis prospective who have large
number of supplier for different parts. If it wants a smooth supply
chain then it can use Demings principles like Drive out the fear so
that everyone can work effectively for the company, break down
barriers between departments people in the design and production
and suppliers must work as a team to avoid the problems in
production.