Quality Improvement People Unisex T-shirt Featuring Deming & Ishikawa

Not available in stores.

Cheers to quality improvement people. 

Edwards Deming and Kaoru Ishikawa, giants of quality improvement, clinking frothy mugs of beer, toasting you with a glint of pride in their eyes will delight industrial engineers, six sigma green belts and black belts, auditors, inspectors ... the entire team. Please don’t ever forget the frontline crews. We’re nothing without them. 

This high-quality shirt is a one of a kind gift you won’t find anywhere else. It's offered exclusively to QI Curiosities customers for a limited time only.  

We didn't include "improvement" in the design because we wanted to link QUALITY and PEOPLE, the twin cornerstones of our work, whether you call it process improvement, continuous improvement, operational excellence, Op-Ex, or six sigma. Toyota says continuous improvement and respect for people are their pillars. 

Deming and Ishikawa both emphasized quality improvement and people, which is why both are celebrated on this vintage style painting, brought to you by brilliant Brazilian artist, Denio Viana.

Our comfy t-shirt is soft and lightweight, with the right amount of stretch. We have decided the steel blue is our favorite for Denio's design, but they all look amazing. Watch for the QI Curiosities logo on the back.

#IYKYK

If you don’t know, here’s a little background:

Edwards Deming is the biggest American name in the quality movement. He wasn’t the first. We all stand on the shoulders of giants, including Deming. As an electrical engineer turned industrial engineer (not to mention something of a management philosopher), he was our man in Japan, answering to General MacArthur. The folklore around Deming is that his goings-on about quality improvement annoyed post-war industrial leaders and so he was sent off to Japan. Ostensibly he was sent to teach the Japanese how rebuild their infrastructure. In fact, he wound up learning from them and he spent the last half of his career bringing that wisdom to American industries. He’s often mis-credited with developing PDCA, which he called the “Shewhart cycle.” He just changed it to PDSA.

Kaoru Ishikawa was trained as a chemical engineer who spent the war years working for the Nissan Liquid Fuel Company. After the war Ishikawa was on the ground floor for the so-called Japanese Economic Miracle. He is credited with working Deming’s and Joseph Juran’s management concepts into Japanese industry. In fact, Juran delivered his eulogy. Ishikawa is credited with creating the fishbone diagram and popularizing the Pareto diagram, two of his seven friendly tools, which were part of his efforts to make quality improvement user friendly.

• 100% combed and ring-spun cotton (Heather colors contain polyester)
• Fabric weight: 4.2 oz./yd.² (142 g/m²)
• Pre-shrunk fabric
• Side-seamed construction
• Shoulder-to-shoulder taping
• Artist: Denio Viana
• Blank product sourced from Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras, or the US

This product is made especially for you as soon as you place an order, which is why it takes us a bit longer to deliver it to you. Making products on demand instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!

Size guide