Tom Peters Quotes

Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process.

The best American manufacturers customize products to meet customer needs, reduce the time required to make them and constantly improve their design.

It is in Toyota's DNA that mistakes made once will not be repeated.

We got to this point by constantly perfecting our products.

There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.

The emphasis on innovation and technology in our companies has resulted in a few of them establishing global benchmarks in product design and development, manufacturing practices and human resource capabilities. However, there is no room for complacency.

The long and short of it is, we need more rigor in all kinds of programs.

Learning to see waste and systematically eliminate it has allowed lean companies such as Toyota to dominate entire industries. Lean thinking defines value as 'providing benefit to the customer'; anything else is waste.

Back in 2005, I introduced a thing which, I don't mind saying this - I mean, we stole it, at least in its basic form, from Toyota - it's called World Class Manufacturing. I mean, it's this pretentious title for something which really involves the revisiting of the manufacturing processes of dedication to the removal of waste.

We are constantly reviewing our processes to identify areas where we can learn and improve.

The "patron saint" of Japanese quality control, ironically, is an American named W. Edwards Deming, who was virtually unknown in his own country until his ideas of quality control began to make such a big impact on Japanese companies.

Many good American companies have respect for individuals, and practice Kaizen and other TPS {Toyota Production System} tools. But what is important is having all of the elements together as a system. It must be practiced every day in a very consistent manner–not in spurts–in a concrete way on the shop floor.

Process improvement is most valuable in raising the floor of a community's practice.

Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow; you get somewhere.

Quality management is needed because nothing is simple anymore, if indeed it ever was.

Inspection with the aim of finding the bad ones and throwing them out is too late, ineffective, and costly. Quality comes not from inspection but from improvement of the process.

When I am there at our global product development centers, I am meeting with the design team and reviewing design work being done there and meeting with engineers responsible for work being done specific to that region, meeting with purchasing team.

A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships.

To measure is to know. If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.

There is a higher degree of operational excellence and rigor demanded of Stripe than of most companies.

For decades, the pace of technological change in manufacturing has outstripped that in the economy as a whole. And, so, firms - manufacturing firms - have found it easier to continue producing by - with - reducing their workforces.

Even a small reduction in errors and rework can have a significant impact.

An exceptional company is the one that gets all the little details right. And the people out on the front line, they know when things are not going right, and they know when things need to be improved. And if you listen to them, you can soon improve all those niggly things which turns an average company into an exceptional company.

We can always improve everything.