Skip to content
Rethink Society

Biography · Noble People · 99 / 100

W. Edwards Deming

1900–1993 · Statistician and quality theorist

Portrait of W. Edwards Deming
FDA · Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Bio

American statistician whose teaching on statistical process control and systemic quality management was widely adopted by Japanese manufacturers from 1950 onward and is associated with the post-war rise of Japanese industrial quality. His later work, including the fourteen points for management, argued that most defects originate in systems rather than individual workers. Japan's Deming Prize is named after him.