Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1503998
16 PCB007 MAGAZINE I JULY 2023 Feature Interview by Nolan Johnson I-CONNECT007 Chris Chapman is a Deming management method practitioner and consultant who pub- lishes "e Digestible Deming" blog on Sub- stack. Chris has been a student of Deming's agile, Lean, and related methods since 2007. With his soware and data background, he brings something of a 21st century perspec- tive to quality. In this conversation, we explore how data and AI might be changing how we approach quality. Chris, as we talk about TQM, I'd like to ask you to consider the amount of data that we now have available. Our ability to collect data, implement sensors, get real-time data from the manufacturing floor, analyze it, and Data, Analysis, and TQM make it available to upper management has increased. What would be Deming's perspective on this amount of data? Back in his day, surely, they didn't have this much data to roll up. ere's a fantastic little quip in Dr. Joyce Orsi- ni's book, e Essential Deming. Joyce was one of Deming's PhD students and worked with him right up until the end. In one chapter, he com- ments on the data that was available to man- agement back then. He says, "Tons of figures, no knowledge." It was the idea that, even 30 to 40 years ago, you could have huge amounts of information that would overwhelm man- agement—never mind what we have access to today—without any real methodology to inter- pret what you were seeing. e key is to distin-