that CEOs (chief executive officers) all too often fail to provide "unwavering leadership" in the area of quality improvement (Hammonds and DeGeorge, 1991, p. 34. Conflicting goals and priorities often mean that quality takes a back seat, once the big announcement is made of a company's renewed emphasis on quality.
While the Deming system of quality control demands a commitment from the highest management levels, it depends upon the participation of personnel from all levels of the organization involved in the production process. Participation means more than input from production workers. It also means that managers must be a part of the production process, as opposed to being separated from it.
In the last years of the twentieth century, Edwards Deming continues to preach effective quality control as a salvation for beleaguered American companies (Industry Week, 1991, p. 91). The 14 points in the strategy Deming offers now are quite close to the strategy he proposed in late 1940s. Deming' current 14 points are as fo
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