But while caution is good, we see something for nothing, in exactly the same sense, every day. It comes from increased knowledge, and innovation. Telephone engineers are busy replacing copper cables with optical fibres. They are cheaper, carry more information, and are better in every way. Duplicators with wax stencils and messy ink have given way to the Xerox, and the telegram to the fax.
Advances are endless, and all come from research and new ideas.
The Deming Philosophy is a far greater breakthrough than the personal computer. It originated from Walter Shewhart's scient- ific research on variation, it was tried, tested and developed in Japan. Not many people yet understand why it works, but few people could explain a fax or a personal computer. The new ideas work because they are scientific, which means based on facts rather than opinion. Many of the ideas appear to contradict common sense, or at least existing practice.