Rafael Aguayo, author of Dr. Deming: The American who Taught the Japanese About Quality, described a Deming lecture he attended at Brown University:

“The students were sitting with an air of anticipation, and in walked a man with a large smile on his face and a wonderfully friendly demeanor. He began his lecture [with] ‘What is quality?’ I had been thinking about similar issues regarding work and management. When is a firm getting the best from its people? I felt brave that day, so I volunteered an answer: ‘I think people have to be happy for there to be quality.’ He looked at me and asked my name. ‘Rafael,’ I said. He nodded and then said, ‘Not a bad answer. Quality is pride of workmanship.’ I was stunned. No talk of inspection or of the minimum acceptable level of quality.”

Deming did not believe in inspection as a quality control measure.

At first, American business did not accept this truth, noted the Washington Post:

“Corporate America, after World War II, told Deming to get lost—and he did, in Japan. Deming advised the Japanese, who sought him out, not to copy the American-style inspection system but to incorporate quality control principles into the manufacturing process. He was in the vanguard of American production experts whose advice had been rejected by American managers because they bluntly told businessmen that poor quality products resulted mostly from their own failures, not from worker ineptness.” [italics ours]

As W. Edwards Deming stated: “Quality is pride of workmanship.”

Health-focused cleaning systems help workers take pride in their work and drive quality.