S3 E9 - Bill Bellows - Genichi Taguchi and Quality - Part 2
In this second part of a two-part series, I speak with Bill Bellows about W. Edwards Deming's influence on Japanese manufacturing, specifically Toyota. We discuss Deming's relationship with Genichi Taguchi and how their quality philosophies intersect and complement each other. We explore Deming and Taguchi's differing notions of quality - meeting specifications versus minimizing loss to society. Bill's LinkedIn can be found here:
Resources and Keywords:
"Profits in the Dark" by David Kearns - A book about the transformation of Xerox, available as a paperback on Amazon.
Library of Congress - Contains Deming's archives, including napkins with his notes and trip reports.
"The Deming of America" - A documentary by Priscilla Petty, featuring interviews with Deming and various executives. Available at priscillapetty.com (though the exact URL wasn't specified).
"The New Economics" by W. Edwards Deming - Mentioned for its coverage of the Taguchi loss function in the last chapters.
Deming Prize - An award given by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE).
Toyota corporate headquarters - Mentioned in relation to a story about photos of Deming (though the accuracy of this story is questioned in the transcript).
"An Immigrant's Story" - A documentary about Joseph Juran.
John’s Japan study trip blogs.
Article "Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg" by John Willis - Discusses the history of Denso and its relationship with Toyota.
Transcript:
John Willis: [00:00:00] Hey, this is John Willis, another episode of Profound. I got a really cool guest now. I've been fortunate since the book came out to start meeting a few more people. In the traditional Deming world and just some fascinating people and here's one of them. I just I'm gonna play up a little bit bill but like there's there's certain people when they talk you feel like you have to take notes faster and they can talk but I've been fascinated by everything I've heard from bill and I thought it was a It'll be awesome for y'all to get the, to hear Bill and meet Bill.
And what we're going to try to do here is a multi series cause I think limiting his knowledge to one podcast would be a crime in my opinion. So we're going to cover, and we're going to, we're going to sort of dance around some really cool topics.
Bill Bellows: Most organizations, they would, they'd say their goal is zero defects.
And, and they say, we, we want very, very little variation around zero. And, [00:01:00] but as soon as you're talking good and bad, now we're in the black and white world of precision inaccuracy, which is, which is good. I'd never thought about it in that way, but you're right. Precision inaccuracy applies there, but it also applies within the realm of, of shades of gray.
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think because then you're, and, and, and, and, and that's where I, I, what, what I saw then on that second page where people get confused. Relative to the shades of gray precision accuracy is that they're focusing on precision and haven't figured out accuracy and and so that and that's and that's this process capability index, which is the heart of six sigma quality.
I mean, the whole phrase six sigma quality is that the average value. Of that cluster is six standard deviations from the closest spec. So, so precision is built into the [00:02:00] term that we want to, we want to be incredibly close together and, and so, so it's, you know, six standard deviations from the nearest tolerance.
And none of that says anything about what's the ideal value within the limits. Because there's not an awareness.
There's an organizational settings. This is fun and organizational settings. There's not an awareness that it makes any difference to be anywhere within requirements, which is why question one dominates. Have it hasn't met requirements. We don't say that it meet requirements on the high side of the middle.
We just say how to met requirements. But here's what's fascinating for our listeners. When I discovered this in partnership with our now 30 year old son, it just blew me away. So when he was, let's say, three years old, we were doing some woodworking in the garage, and he marked on a piece of wood, literally about this size.
So it's like half inch by one inch. So for [00:03:00] whatever reason, I had a piece of wood like this, and He drew a line by a pencil, and then I would cut to the line, then they did it again, and after a few cuts, it dawned on me, that's how I cut wood at home. That's what he's doing. That's how everybody does things, right?
He saw me do it, but I'm sure I saw my father do it. You draw the line, you cut to the line. And so what's fascinating about that is, you know, I've asked people in class, you know, if you're cutting a piece of wood to a given length, How many lines do you draw fully across the top face fully across because when you say fully across they'll say one line if you say how many lines do you draw they'll say two and they mean a tick mark so I say how many lines do you draw fully across the face then they will say one every single time but if you don't say fully across they may say you know two lines or three lines so I've learned one line and then I'll say to them and I'll draw you A piece of wood [00:04:00] on the whiteboard.
I'll just draw this rectangle and I'll say, and I'll draw a line and I say, like this. Yeah, just like that. Then I'll say, does it matter what side you cut to? And they'll say, yeah, if I want the left side, then I want to cut to the right side of that line. Okay. Got it. And then I say to them. Have you ever at home in the garage drawn two lines and then I'll use a different color and I'll say, have you ever drawn two lines?
So I'll then draw a line with a different color to the left of the right of that one line. And I say, have you ever at home in the garage drawn two lines? And then said to yourself, cut anywhere in between. And I'll put my hands over my eyes and I said, cut them cut anywhere in between. Doesn't make a difference.
And then what's funny is John, I don't know if you've done those with people, you're going to look like, what are you crazy? Okay. Are you from Mars?
John Willis: I try to teach that in, you know, I've given you a whole bunch of so you've been giving me a stack of things to read. But a good friend of mine was a physicist wrote a book about how physics works and it's called the search of certainty.
And he talks about the [00:05:00] sort of how you look at things like if you look at a fabric. You know, if you look at fabric, it's sort of 20, 20, but then you put it on a microscope, they look like gigantic, but in the real world, if you could, you would always write make 2 lines. I mean, that's the whole point of variation, right?
You would never have, you know, in the world of physics where there is no such thing as 0, and it's always infinite. You would, like you said, and then the simplest way I describe that is why do carpenters say measure twice cut once. I mean, that's that's the credo of a carpenter is measured at once because and that that still doesn't answer the question you're saying, which was, if you really had a microscope and you really needed precision.
And you were going to cut the piece of wood, you would take some fine, fine tune marking and you would like the, the outer and the upper and lower control limit. And then you'd say, okay, you're safe. Well, it's 2
Bill Bellows: lines. Well, I would say a couple of things there. So, 1 is when I ask people, how many lines do they draw if they're at home working on a woodworking project, [00:06:00] they'll say 1.
If I then say to them, have you ever drawn 2 lines and said anywhere in between, and they look at me like, do what? When I then say, is that what we do at work? Do we draw 2 lines and say anywhere in between? And they'll say, yeah, those are tolerances. And so then my question to them is, so at home you aim for the line, and at work you aim for anywhere in between.
All right. And so I had a, I think it was, I'm pretty sure I asked this question to the machinist. So I said, why at home do you aim for the line and at work anywhere in between? And he said, because at home I cut wood and at work I cut metal.
I said, I don't think that's the explanation. I said, I know at home we're usually cutting wood and I can believe at work you're usually cutting metal, but I don't think we use two lines for wood, two lines for metal and one for wood. So my explanation to him was. Who designed it at home? He says, I did. So who bought the, what, who bought the wood?
I did. Who cut the wood? Maybe he said, who's putting it, who's putting these pieces together? Me. Then who's [00:07:00] using the final project? Me. So who designs it at work? He said, somebody else who does final assembly. Somebody else who uses it. Somebody else. So I said, I think the difference is at home, you are the one that does the before and the after and the after and the after, and at work.
We hand off to the next person and then people will say,
yeah, but that's, that's making one, if you were making a lot of them, you use requirements. And I'd say, I mean, I've had people argue that if we're making a lot of these at home, we might use two lines. And I say, I don't think so. Well, I mean,
John Willis: I mean, again, you wouldn't because of convenience and you're right, you're the sort of, but I mean, like I said, I, I, the measure twice cut once is, you know, that's, that's a variation of using two lines.
We don't just measure. I don't just measure and say if a carpenter will because once you cut, you've wasted the wood if you got it wrong,
Bill Bellows: but my interpretation of the measure twice. Cut once is they're measuring twice hoping that the 2nd measurement is the 1st measurement [00:08:00] and that's the line or in which case, or
John Willis: if you go back to Deming's example, I forget which book it is where he's they want to audit a plate glass for the.
You've got a fine table with a, with a plate glass in the middle and you want to order, so he's, his example is you would measure that multiple times because you didn't want, it had to exactly fit in the table. Well, that's, that's different.
Because it goes back to the variation that no, like, even in your, the machine with the, the hemoglobin machine, right? You sort of made her do it two and three times because she knew it was going to come out different. And it's some accuracy and I think the point of why you would draw two lines anywhere and I totally get your point about and I love your whole thing and the, you know, I totally recommend people to listen to that whole series because it's brilliant where you talk about, you know, stuff you do at home, you're, you know, you're sort of the input, you're the executor, you're the output, you know, and that is the systems part where you don't have that luxury at work.
But I still think it all boils down to the same concept of [00:09:00] accuracy. Of like, if you really, depending on, like, I'm building molding, wood molding for my, my, my, my ceilings and, and the more accurate I am, the more likely it's not going to leak or it's not going to fall apart or it's not going to fall off or it's just not going
Bill Bellows: to look crappy.
Yes. Oh, absolutely. And that's the point is that
in the world of. In the world of meeting requirements, which is question 1, a quality when I say is question 1, a quality management. Does it meet requirements? Yes or no, that is a focus on the quality of the part, but not how it's used that that's looking at the part in isolation and saying, that's a good part.
When you put those two pieces of molding together. And so now you're, you're drawing a line and you're looking for, you know, 45 degree angle perhaps. And then you want this piece to be 45. And if they're both really, really close to 45 and you join them. There's no gap, but if one's a little high, the other [00:10:00] one's a little low.
Now you don't get a nice clean edge. Now you're in there using putty or doing that. And that extra effort is done by you, John, right? That extra effort at work is done by somebody else. And that extra effort is the loss that Taguchi is talking about. Oh, so what I think, what I think is when we are at home, We feel the loss immediately, and we, based on experience say, I don't want to, I want a really nice corner, or I want these, I want these things to go together really nicely.
And I know at home, the closer I am to that line, the better these pieces come together, and anything short of that. I am banging it together using wood putty or I'm, I'm compensating for not being on the ideal value. Right. And '
John Willis: cause I'm the producer and consumer. And, and your point is [00:11:00] the loss function takes into account of the, the producer and the consumer
Bill Bellows: are difference.
Yes. Well, the, and the difference is at home I am the producer and the consumer. Right. I, I. Design the thing, make the pieces and put them together. So at home, I naturally look at things as a system, even to the point of.
At home. I know how all those, I know this go, I have a, this goes here mindset. I know that these are not parts. They're part of the, of at home. I know there's an of, at work, there is no of, at work. It's a part at home. I don't have it makes sure all
connected.
John Willis: And I think if I get this, right, I think we could go back to the original Taguchi quote that you said, right?
Like, at first, you didn't understand it, but it was a different world. Yes. Oh, yeah.
Bill Bellows: Like, quality is a minimum of loss [00:12:00] imparted to society. By a product after it's shipment to the customer, I mean, that's a producer
John Willis: consumer problem. Yeah, that's beautiful, right?
Bill Bellows: That is but even but let's go one step further at home and I really like what you said at home Society is me Because the other thing I'd say is part of it I'd like people to realize is when Takuchi's using that quote The quality is the minimum of loss imparted to a side by a shipment, by a product after a shipment to the customer.
That's when I looked at that and I thought, that's, you know, that's society stuff, that's, that's too big for people. But, if I bring it back home to quality is the minimum of loss imparted to my co worker. Or to the
John Willis: consumer, if I think of everything as simple
Bill Bellows: as a producer, but it's understanding that the consumer is the person sitting in the next cube that receives my report that was receiving
John Willis: the next part in the system.
Bill Bellows: Right? Yeah. Well, and even and I'll go 1 step further than this [00:13:00] is people talk about. Well. Well, that's I'm talking about the inside customer versus the outside customer. I'd say let's blur that when you hand off, period. And that's part of the problem. I think I think with the when to go, she's talking about, you know, lost to society.
Let's that's way out there. You know, after shipping to the customer, that's way out there. And what we're talking about is when I'm trying to get those two pieces at 45 degrees to come together. So I got this spectacular molding. I am the next person and and I think when the sooner we realize that as soon as what I deliver is used somehow, that's the consumer,
John Willis: right?
Exactly. Yeah. I think of it as the next part in whatever the. And,
Bill Bellows: you know, I just don't, I just don't want people to think that consumer is the outside customer and I think people
John Willis: who listen to this will know what I'm saying. Produce fantastic. We're talking about sort of really [00:14:00] transactions, you know, so yes, so.
Boy, I think we probably should end now, but you know, I, I keep thinking about the ultimate example of that Taguchi quote is your story about the guy from Ford who took apart all the, you started buying Toyota cars and took them apart and put them back together and like,
Bill Bellows: yeah, in the book profits in the dark by David Kearns, who was a CEO of Xerox up until I think 1989 or so profits in dark, you can buy that as a paperback on Amazon.
It was his story, the transformation of Xerox, and I was being mentored by a very senior Xerox executive who reported to Kearns, and so he had all these great stories about Xerox, and so I went off and started reading everything I could about Xerox, including Kearns book, and then within the first 50 pages, there's a story of a guy named Frank Pipp, who was a, worked early in his career as a forward plant I'm [00:15:00] There's a Ford assembly plant somewhere.
He was a manager there. He might've been the general manager for all I know. And he had his team for some, some reason. And I'm, I'm so bummed that I didn't try to reach out to him. He died a few years ago. He died maybe five years ago. So he was in his nineties. So I could have spoken with a guy. Yeah. So what, what triggered him to buy a competitor's cars and take them apart?
Because he knew within Ford in the 60s, whenever they put the mating parts together, most of the time rubber mallets were used to bang them together. But every now and then within Ford, two parts went together because there's variation of things that are good. And, and they get now and then two parts without a mallet.
And so now and then mallets was the norm. Malice was the norm. Now and then they go together without malice. So I got
John Willis: to stick in just the middle because I was listening to your podcast and I wanted to like shout out loud because there's the famous story. And maybe he got this idea because apparently when the first couple of [00:16:00] engineers from Ford and General Motors went over to Toyota, they had asked the question, how can you guys imagine the translation issue of how come you guys don't use a hammer to put the door in?
And, you know, the translation ultimately turned into mallet and there was this whole, like, what are you talking about a hat? Why would you hit the door with a hammer? And then it was like, okay, rubber mallet. And then they're like, oh, no, we don't need to do that. They fit, you know, so that's a famous story of like, that there was a dialogue between the sort of the, the, the American engineers and the people on the line.
And they're asking him, where are the mallets?
Bill Bellows: How come? Yeah, there's a story. Yeah, there's a story of. Yeah, there's a story about people putting doors on and, and they're asking the Japanese folks, where, where's the mallet to bang the door together and said, we don't, we don't, we don't use hammers, but this would have been this story of PIP was 1969.
I mean, this is 1969. This is, this [00:17:00] is, and so PIP. But the Toyota cars
John Willis: weren't even that great back then
Bill Bellows: though. Well, it was. It was the late sixties when Toyotas were first being shipped. I mean, Toyota motors USA is late sixties. So Pip is on the leading edge of looking at a, I mean, so this is what I find fascinating is he knew Ford's assembled with mallets most often.
And according to the book, I mean, the fact that he bought Toyota's means he was buying competitors cars, right? Which is awesome. It doesn't say he bought Chrysler that he bought GM. But he had to. He wasn't, I mean, for the person to have the insight that this is what we do, what do they do? He must have, this is what I would have loved to have a conversation as to, you know, what did you learn from Ford?
I mean, as we're doing it from Ford, but he had to. It had to be that the GMs and the Chrysler are all the same. They all come from the same thought processes. So then he, he buys a [00:18:00] Toyota, and it doesn't require any mallets to assemble. He doesn't believe the team. He has them taken apart again. It assembles twice without mallets.
And somewhere, Curran's explanation is that they were, he thought they were hallucinating. Now he calls out someone from Ford Corporate Headquarters to come see this. And when that person comes in, what caused Pip to leave and go work for Xerox is, is Pip told Kerns that what The executive heard the story, met with the team, heard about how great it was assembled.
And the executive's response to the team was, The customer will never notice the difference. And then Pip said, Pip told Kearns that they nodded in a sense, Yeah, yeah, you're right boss, you're right boss. And he said, quote, they trotted off happy as clams. And Pip, inspired by that disconnect, Decided to leave Ford and go work for Xerox.
Oh, that's an amazing story. But again, that [00:19:00] was, this is 10 years before people know who Deming is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you're right.
John Willis: Deming is already, I mean, they're already in, you know, if I was in 1960, I think, or 1965, Toyota wins the Deming prize, right?
Bill Bellows: Exactly. Exactly. So they have, and also for our listeners, I've heard from people in the.
In the inner Taguchi community, you know, Dr. Taguchi, not from Taguchi himself, but from his son and others, there are stories that he was working with Toyota as far back as the fifties. I've, I've, so I've heard that. That was called, you can call that hearsay. I've not seen that in writing. I've not seen, I've not seen any firsthand account documented.
But I, I think that's very likely to, I think that's very likely the case at least I think between, I mean, we know Deming was over there in Japan and we know Taguchi was over there in Japan. [00:20:00] We know that Dr. Taguchi was honored for the Deming prize in literature in 1960 for his work on the loss function.
So the loss function was alive and well in Taguchi's work in Japan. And, and I just have to believe that that influenced people within Toyota.
John Willis: No doubt. And I think, didn't Taguchi, I don't know, I thought Taguchi worked for one of the tier one suppliers too, so, but I, I don't know that for a fact either.
But, you know what, I, you know, we should, I should wrap, I'll probably turn this one into a two parter, but. Sure. Did you ever get to ask Taguchi what he thought about Deming
Bill Bellows: in your conversation? Yes, I did. Yes, I did. What was his sort of broad stroke? What was his sort of general? I. My question to him, relative to your question is, I said, I can look at Dr.
Deming's work and see your influence on him. You know, there's a lot, I mean, the, the, the last 4 or 5 pages of the [00:21:00] 2nd edition, 1st and 2nd edition of the New Economics, which had 10 chapters, the last Five pages of the last chapter. Chapter 10 in the original new economics is all about the last function.
Now, the 3rd edition has chapter 11, not written by Dr. Taguchi, and this is what got my attention with Taguchi with Deming is that the last few pages of his last book were all about Taguchi's work. So my, my comment, my question to Dr. Taguchi and And I, I can, I know exactly where it happened. And when I asked him and I said it so I could see the influence of Dr.
Deming's work, of your work on Dr. Deming. I said, what would you say is the influence of his work on you? That's brilliant. And you know what he said? He said, I think not. Really? Yeah. He said, I, I, I don't think there was any influence. It's interesting. Yeah, no, it's fascinating. It was, and I,
So I know they, they, they met back in the fifties. There's a big [00:22:00] statistical conference in India, 1955, 56. And there are photos of the two of them at this conference. Yeah. So 1956, Dr. Taguchi would have been 32 years old. He was born in 1924. So, so they met way back then, you know, I don't, I don't.
Another thing I'll add, I think it ties in well with the question you just asked me. So Taguchi won the Deming Prize in literature in 1960 at the Deming Prize ceremonies, and Dr. Deming was there. So Dr. Deming, as, as you know, every time he went to Japan, supposedly he made seven trips to Japan, and he collected all these notes.
If you go to the Library of Congress, you can see the napkins that he wrote on. And what's on the napkins made it into his trip reports so you can see on a napkin and he's at some
and at a bar area and there's drawings of a, you know, a circle [00:23:00] and who's sitting where that's all sketched out on a napkin. And those napkins are at the Library of Congress and the Deming archives. And then those notes made it into a volume, you know, let's say, 50, 60 pages that he would send to friends.
And so I I did a bunch of research. I mean, the Library of Congress has a couple of those volumes, the original, well, at least he made copies. I don't know where the actual originals are, but he made copies to distribute them to his friends. And so one of the first things I looked for when I went to the Library of Congress was I want to see the report from 1960.
I want, I want to see his impression of Dr. Taguchi. What did he say about him? Well, the report's not there. So I asked his daughter, Diana Cahill. And she gave me a copy. She has a copy of the 1960 report, and there's nothing in there on him meeting Dr. And I thought, I thought there would be some, you know, big couple pages and all these exclamation marks.[00:24:00]
Now, the exclamation marks are, you know, the last few chapters, the last few pages of chapter 10. And you don't have to go far to find Dr. Deming drawing the Taguchi loss function on a view graph at a four day seminar. He did it all the time. Well, you know what's interesting
John Willis: is the one thing I found, you know, I consider myself a latecomer to this whole Deming discussion, but there seems to be a lot of influential people who are annoyed about all the attention Deming got.
And it seemed to create this back. And I'm not saying Taguchi was one of those guys, but Sharson, you know, and, and what's his face, why am I forgetting his name right now? They they're. Sorry, I just had a brain fart there. Duran, and, and, like, they just seem to go out of their way to diminish, and even that book you sent me that, that I got where this guy, like, has this whole set of paragraphs about, like, Deming was okay, but let me tell you why he really wasn't, and why he got way [00:25:00] more
Bill Bellows: credit.
And I just The only thing that really made a difference was was Yeah, it was William Susui's book. No, what I would say, I'm just wondering if he
John Willis: was, like, maybe was just to the point where he was so tired of hearing this, like, and people have, Nancy Manns and all of them, they, like, I mean, when you look, when I wrote my book, the one thing I tried not to be is a sycophant.
Even though I am a Sekka fan, right? And I, and I, and I wanted to be really clear about, like, you know, Deming didn't create the miracle in Japan. The Japanese created the miracle in Japan. I wanted to be, and, but I mean, you read, you go back and read some of these sort of original disciples of Deming and they talk about, like, he was magical and mystical and he, and I don't know, I just wonder how many people like Taguchi and like Duran and all just got so bitter about, you know, even, and even.
Toyotaro said Deming had no influence on Toyotaro, which was just Sure. Bullshit. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know. That's just another. [00:26:00]
Bill Bellows: She was not. That was not. Okay.
Taguchi was not a, that I never saw any influence. No, but what I will say, what I will say is,
I think,
I mean, there's a lot of stories, you know, Deming changed, you know, even this story of, I mean, Peter Senge tells the story of. And I've heard him tell this story several times, and I don't know who he heard it from, or if they heard it from him, but the story was, if you go to the Toyota corporate headquarters, in the lobby, there's three photos on the wall.
The, the, the, the main photo in the middle is the, the founder of the Toyota Motor Company, and then to the left is another Toyota, his son, and to the other side is Dr. Deming. You know, three photos on the wall. I've never seen a photo of the three photos. And you would think there are people around the world that admired Deming that may have done a mission to go over.
So I think it's kind of interesting that there's, there is no photo. I mean, I, I went with friends to where Deming [00:27:00] was born. I spent a day and a half in his hometown. Well, he was born in Sioux city, Iowa, but at the age of four or five, he went to buy that
John Willis: house for like 40 grand, by the way.
Bill Bellows: Well, I, I, I, with a couple of friends, we spent a day and a half in Powell, Wyoming, we went in to the second house.
The first house, as he says, in the economics is a tar paper shack, or he would say, and somebody is a tar paper shack. The tar paper shack doesn't exist anymore. You would say, you know, he's born, you know, he's lived in a tar paper shack about the size of a boxcar. That's gone. Then they moved into the second house is, I mean, it.
So they had a tar paper shack, I guess that his father built. And then the stories of him hugging this cat state, you know, he loves cats as opposed to cause the cat kept him warm. So the second house his father built, I visited and spent several hours there with a couple of friends from rocket time. And we were on a study mission to, we knew where he was and I had some business in that area.
So we went up there [00:28:00] and we met a husband and wife who showed us the deed. And they were like the third owners of the house. So they had the deed for the property that had Deming's father's signature. And then the signature of who he sold it to, because when he sold it, he built the house next door, which is, so those two houses are there.
His parents and his brother and sister are buried in a huge cemetery in Powell. It's a really cool place. But anyway, I say this because. I don't, I don't know that there's really a photo in the lobby. So, so I, I think people in the States have, people have made up this, I mean, Deming impacted Japan. Have you ever seen the documentary that Priscilla Petty did called the Deming of America?
No, no. She produced this herself. She spent several years going around with a camera, interviewing Deming, interviewing [00:29:00] others on her own dime. And then produced a video one hour long, the Deming of America. She has a website. I think it's Priscilla petty. com. And the early days, the video, the first copy I bought of the video was 700.
That's a lot, but it was worth it. You can now buy it. I, I've, when I still worked at Rocketdyne, I bought DVD versions for a hundred. I bought a bunch of them. And there are, there are interviews of her with. Executives, David Kearns, so it's her in some high level people in the military and corporations and her one on one with Deming.
And you get the feeling that these are not scripted conversations. She'll ask him a question and he gets fluttered and, and, and, and so the, the, you can tell by the animation, she's I mean, she's poking him in a way that he would poke executives. So why do you say that you [00:30:00] imagine him saying, John Willis, what business are you in?
What business will you be in five years from now, 10 years from now, you're kind of poking it. Well, she's poking him in a way that he would poke others, which is, which is really fascinating, but there's a scene of the two of them at his home. It would have been in Washington, DC, and he's holding the. The honor he received from the Emperor of Japan as you know, the, the honor of the sacred heart, whatever, you know, only given out of the highest levels.
So he's so she's watching him hold it. Right. And she says to him, something like, how did it feel to receive this from the Emperor of Japan? And he said, something. I was humbled. I was He, he didn't say, I did it all. No, not at all. He, what you get out of that, and I have written about this, what you get out of, I mean, he wasn't in tears, but, but he was, it's a, it's a bit, there's a bit of a an emotional [00:31:00] moment.
And what I got out of it was, he knew he contributed, but no way would he believe. That he did it all and that becomes, you know, what others have done, you know, there's easily Deming consultants out there to say, well, you know, why should you hire me? Because Deming changed Japan. So, so I would say, John, how, how much of that.
Elevating Deming is is consultants. So yeah, no, I'm not playing it back. Hire me because Deming changed Japan.
John Willis: Oh, you know, it's like Stephen Spears says, you know, that, you know, when he was asked one time in a video, I sent you and said like, what did we get wrong about lean? And he said, the people that started writing 14 steps to lean, you know, you know, like the, the industry itself.
Became the industry of you sell, but but you know, the point I make and I've gotten pushed back on this and it is that I seem to read a lot from Duran that's anti Deming. I read like I've gotten into professors from Saracen about like, people have written whole [00:32:00] papers about how Saracen really did everything.
And I've gotten into these long debate arguments with a professor in Australia about this. But my argument is, I don't find anything Deming talking bad about Duran or Saracen. Or anybody else, right? Like, so why, like, why are they, they're always complaining about him, but you never see, I
Bill Bellows: think, no, there is no doubt.
There's no doubt that
there's jealousy, but I think what you see in that video is, I think at the end of the day, he was, he was doing everything he could and he knew he was not, it wasn't, I mean, he, he, and also I think in the video, I think she says to him something like, you How do you wanna be remembered? And he says something like, as, as someone who was
he, he didn't, he felt there was like, this su, you know, this US industry is on this suicide thing. Yeah. And he was just trying to prevent this suicide. You know, he was a very proud American and very, [00:33:00] to me, he, he's just a contributor. But you're right there. There absolutely is this jealousy, animosity. And I've, I mean, there's videos that I've seen of Duran and people interviewing, there's, there's a video out there of Steve Jobs being interviewed.
And so what were Duran's contributions to Apple or where he worked? What was it? Apple was next next. And then I realized those interviews were part of a hour long documentary. On Duran. I think it's called an immigrant story or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Duran did amazing things. Amazing
John Willis: guy.
Right. That's what a lot of people did. Like, there's, you know, everybody, I mean, source and turn the lights on. Deming got the senior leadership to understand that they could do great things and Duran basically taught middle management how to implement it. I mean, if I want to make it that simple, but, you know, I'll tell you 1, I might have said this to you.
I got to do a Japan study trip earlier this year. Right? And. Oh, wow. And I got, oh, it was fascinating. I have a whole set of blogs on it. So, you know, I can point you to them. But the, I got to meet a guy who basically had four [00:34:00] decades of working at Toyota starting in 66. Oh, wow. And in fact, he was the counter, he was the counterpart to John Shook for the NuMe project.
Yeah, it was Yoshino, Yoshino, Mr. Yoshino, ICO Yoshino. I got to interview him. I, I, I need to do it again so I can make it public because we really just recorded it and I didn't, you know, I didn't like, it didn't say, hey, I'm doing this as a podcast, but I asked him Deming's influence and he, so he worked with, He worked directly for, with, in parallel with Masayo Nomoto, who's a fascinating story if you haven't read about him.
Toyocho Ono, Shingo, I mean he was there. He, he hired on in 66, and he said Deming, the impact of Deming, he went on and said that he taught us how to understand data. He said that everybody in management knew his impact. He just went on and on about like, you know, so like any debate, this is a guy that's there in 1966, you know, so when I listened to these lean guys [00:35:00] talk, diminish, you know, ah, Deming had nothing to do with Toyota, like, yeah, this guy was there.
He was there in 1966. He worked. At a, at a peer level with Yoshino and, and not, not Yoshino, Shingo and, and all those guys worked for Masayo Nomoto, right? Like, so anyway, no good stuff. So someday we should do a Deming discovery in Japan. I'd love to
Bill Bellows: do that.
Yeah. Well, the study mission in Japan that I would love, I don't think it's possible. I would love to go deep into Toyota to see how he influenced them. Cause the. The late, well, the Toyota died in January, I think he's about 92. He was one time chairman of the board or chairman of whatever, you know, the highest person and his father started Toyota and I believe he had a brother.
And he was, he received the Deming medal from JUSC thing in 1990 or so. [00:36:00] And he's quoted as saying, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about Dr. Deming's contributions to Toyota. Well, what I would love to find out is. Tell me more. What, what do you mean? What does that? So, so I would like to go and find, you know, the Deming papers within Toyota.
I have friends who believe that they're deeply in there and they won't be shared. There's this inner sanctum where they're not gonna, you know, they only reveal a little bit. I don't know. I don't know. But I thought people is I, I buy Toyota product. My wife and I only buy Toyota. We don't buy the first model.
You read bad luck once and been warned. Don't ever buy anybody's first model. You're
we left. We love Toyota is for the reliability. And what I will say is, and we can talk about this and another serious is. I, I have yet to find that I've looked and I've looked. Anything within lean that explains reliability [00:37:00] of, of Toyotas. Yeah, we've had an incredible good fortune with me. I replaced the battery, but I've never replaced the starter.
I've never replaced a water pump. I've never replaced an alternator. I I've the only components I've replaced in a Toyota and we run them for 200, 000 miles.
Okay. One that we have with nearly 200, 000 miles, we had the engine torque mount replaced, but I can see that, you know, that wears out. Okay, fine. But what I find amazing is the major components, the air conditioning never had an air conditioner leak. And so when it comes to things with moving parts inside, I've never had to replace a fuel pump, an oil pump, none of that.
And so to me, that's reliability as a closing thought, I would say to me. That has got to have something to do with question number two. . Yeah. And, and precision that [00:38:00] within Toyota and denso, they are focusing on how, just like your corner molding, they're focusing on how these parts come together. I, I, I think den plans be reliability.
John Willis: Denzo is the key. I, I'll I'll post the, I'll send you a link. I did just a little bit of research. I wrote an article called, which came first, the chicken or the egg and it, and it talks about dso. And, and Denso, and Denso started with the mon, Heizutsu, whatever, roughly translated as performance depends on our people.
And, and so all, like a lot, it's sort of the history of Denso, and, and they were really the founders of the original TQC. Okay. And so it's actually, it's just, it just touches the surface, but I found like there was, seemed to be, the whole, my whole point was I was trying to open up a, a conversation of like, you know, is it Denso or is it Toyota?
I'll send you that link.
Bill Bellows: Well, okay, well let's They won the first,
John Willis: they also won the first Demi Prize too,
Bill Bellows: Denso. Oh, oh, before Toyota? [00:39:00] Yeah, they won
Well, like you said, you said, you said Denso was a, a parts spinoff of Toyota, right? Yeah, they, they basically,
John Willis: it was known originally as Nippon Electric Equipments Limited. Denso was founded as a standalone company separate from Toyota Motorsports, but later they changed their name to Nippon Denso. And today they know it as Denso.
But there's some point, I don't know, I'll have to go back and find the, but they, they had one, one of the earliest. And TPM was a total productive maintenance, which was, you know, it's a, I, I didn't have time to go too deep into it because I didn't figure it could fit in the book. You know, at this point, my editor is telling me no more stories, no more stories.
All right, but I'll send you a link to that, but I think that that's probably a place where you could probably find a lot of where. And again, I think I don't know this 1, I'm like, I'm having sort of cloudy brain, but I thought that maybe Taguchi work with Denso too, but I'm not sure.
Bill Bellows: Oh, I wouldn't be surprised.
I wouldn't be surprised. Alright, we
John Willis: better, I don't even know if this [00:40:00] recording may take an hour to just edit and download it, but This was great. I hope you had as much fun as I did.
Bill Bellows: Oh yeah, that was great. We'll do it again. Yeah, we'll definitely
John Willis: have another. I'll probably break this up into a two parter and Just one thing, just some people How did people find you?
Or, you know, if there's
Bill Bellows: Good question, John. Thanks. Have them find, they find me on LinkedIn. Okay. And there, there are, there's more than one Bill Bellows on LinkedIn. There's a professor. I think it's Bill Bellows Deming. But if they search for Bill Bellows, only one of us will find Deming or Taguchi. So that'll.
Yeah, if
John Willis: you put Bill Bending, I did that before earlier. I wanted to check your background again, but Bill Bellows and then space Deming. You come right up.
Bill Bellows: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That'll work. That'll
John Willis: work. All right. Well, thanks. This was great.
