“People with targets and jobs dependent upon meeting them will probably meet the targets – even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it.”

Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.

If you don’t understand how to run an efficient operation, new machinery will just give you new problems of operation and maintenance.

American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan. But they don’t know what to copy.

I am forever learning and changing.

The big problems are where people don’t realise they have one in the first place.

Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.

When a system is stable, telling the worker about mistakes is only tampering.

No one knows the cost of a defective product – don’t tell me you do.

You can not define being exactly on time.

Customer expectations? Nonsense. No customer ever asked for the electric light, the pneumatic tire, the VCR, or the CD.

People don’t like to make mistakes.

Quality is everyone’s responsibility.

Customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.

In 1945, the world was in a shambles. American companies had no competition.

My mother was my biggest role model. She taught me to hate waste. We never wasted anything.

The prevailing system of management has crushed fun out of the workplace.