I recently ran across a great quote in Quality Progress by Govind Ramu of SunPower Corp. He wrote, “Processes without results are useless, and results without processes are unsustainable.” (“Experts and Answers,” Quality Progress, December, 2012). Ramu is correct, of course, but his quote prompted me to think about the rest of the story.

One of the contributions Dr. W. Edwards Deming made to quality and to western style management was his focus on process. Before then, we thought about process a little bit, but mostly did things like repair the damage, tighten specs, change job descriptions, remove people from their jobs, and change specific activities with little regard to the larger system whenever we ran into a problem. Deming’s insight that rework is wasteful, frequently accepted as a given, and part of a larger system that needs to be changed, was and still is profound.

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