Deming's 14 principles were the basis for the modification of American industry. Adopting and acting on the 14 points is a sign that management intends to stay in business and aims to protect investors and jobs. They serve anywhere, both in small and large companies, in service companies and in those dedicated to manufacturing.

The principles were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis.

Deming's 14 points represent a transformation in organizations, however, along with this transformation, the so-called 7 deadly diseases of management appear that oppose change.

There are diseases and obstacles, the difference between the two is due to the difficulty of eradication, and the severity of the damage inflicted.

In addition to these diseases, we find a "minor category" of obstacles that includes:.

The Deming Prize is the most prestigious award that a Japanese company can obtain. It is awarded, once a year, to the company that has made the greatest advance in quality, based on standards so demanding that they far exceed ISO 9000 or any other standard in this regard.[5]​.

He was born in Sioux City, Iowa, and his family moved to Powell, Wyoming when he was seven years old. Deming left Powell at the age of 17 for Laramie, to the University of Wyoming, where he finished his degree in 1921 with a B.Sc. in electrical engineering, in 1925 he obtained a master's degree in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Colorado and in 1928 he obtained a doctorate from Yale University in Physics where he was a professor.

Later he worked for the Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C. and as a statistical advisor for the United States Census Bureau, during this period Deming discovered the work on statistical process control created by Walter A. Shewhart who worked at the Bell Telephone Laboratories (Bell Labs) of the telephone company AT&T, which were the basis of his ideas, ideas that went unnoticed in the United States.

In the US he was tasked with improving the quality of weapons factories during World War II. At that time the workforce available was exclusively women, since the men had enlisted, the majority of whom had never worked. Deming ensured that the weapons and war material were of the best quality possible at that time, far above that of the Germans.

In Japan they were paying close attention to Shewhart's techniques, which was not done in the United States, and as part of Japan's reconstruction efforts they sought an expert to teach statistical control.[2]​

In 1950, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) invited Deming to Tokyo to give talks on statistical process control (a man who knew Japan). Between June and August 1950, Deming trained hundreds of engineers, managers and students in statistical process control (SPC) and quality concepts. His lectures were copied, edited and printed in Japanese, thousands of copies were sold. The Japanese attempted to pay him the copyright, however Deming rejected the offer, proposing to use the money to create a prize for companies that demonstrated exemplary behavior in improving quality. Japanese companies added funds and today the Deming Prize is considered number one among quality awards. For this reason the Japanese call Deming "The father of the third industrial revolution." This reputation is fair since it showed them that when quality is relentlessly pursued, resources are optimized, costs are lowered and the market is conquered, going against the classical economic theories according to which the economic policies adopted by Japan were a mistake.[3]​.

Deming received many other awards, including the Shewhart Medal from the American Society for Quality Control in 1956, and the Samuel S. Wilks Award from the American Statistical Association in 1983. The Metropolitan Section of the American Statistical Association established the annual Deming Award for Quality and Productivity Improvement in 1980.

W. Edwards Deming was elected in 1983 to the National Academy of Engineering, and received honoris causa doctorates in Law and Science from the University of Wyoming, Rivier College, Ohio State University, University of Maryland, Clarkson College of Technology, and George Washington University.

Deming's greatest contribution to quality processes in Japan is statistical process control, which is a mathematical language with which managers and operators can understand "what machines are saying." Process variations affect the fulfillment of the promised quality. With the application of this process they observed that the results were encouraging, indicating that productivity actually progresses by reducing variation, where Deming calls it "Shewhart Cycle"[4].

From these results, the following chain reaction was engraved in Japan as a way of life and came to be on every whiteboard in every meeting with Japanese managers from 1950 onwards:

Once this chain reaction was adopted, all managers in Japan had a common goal: quality. Since there was no pressure to obtain dividends, the search for quality became a close link between management and workers.

Deming presented the PHVA cycle, plan, do, check, act in the 1950s in Japan, although he noted that the creator of this concept was W. A. ​​Shewhart, who made it public in 1939, which is why it is also called "Shewhart Cycle" or "Deming Cycle" interchangeably.[5]​ In Japan the PDCA cycle has been used since its inception as a continuous improvement methodology and is applied to all types of situations. Subsequently, the Americans, faced with the push of Japanese industry, recovered these concepts that had gone unnoticed in the figure of Deming himself and his most outstanding classmate.

Deming's main contributions:

1. Change of focus: Deming proposed a change of mentality in the way of managing quality. Instead of focusing solely on inspection of the final product, he promoted the idea that quality must be planned and built into each stage of the process.[6]​.

2. The 14 principles of quality are directly related to W. Edwards Deming who had a degree in engineering, a specialist in the application of statistical sampling techniques.

Deming's 14 principles were the basis for the modification of American industry. Adopting and acting on the 14 points is a sign that management intends to stay in business and aims to protect investors and jobs. They serve anywhere, both in small and large companies, in service companies and in those dedicated to manufacturing.

The principles were first presented in his book Out of the Crisis.

Deming's 14 points represent a transformation in organizations, however, along with this transformation, the so-called 7 deadly diseases of management appear that oppose change.

There are diseases and obstacles, the difference between the two is due to the difficulty of eradication, and the severity of the damage inflicted.

In addition to these diseases, we find a "minor category" of obstacles that includes:.

The Deming Prize is the most prestigious award that a Japanese company can obtain. It is awarded, once a year, to the company that has made the greatest advance in quality, based on standards so demanding that they far exceed ISO 9000 or any other standard in this regard.[5]​.