I remember back in the early 80’s when Lee Iacocca had a TV spot telling us to Buy American…Within months after that TV spot came out…My brother-in-law was in charge of re-fitting one of Chryco’s biggest assembly plants with Japanese made Robotics (at a cost of about $1million each).
“…a quality race where some Japanese manufacturers are ahead of the game…”
I would say, “were ahead of the game.”
Ford was able to leave the money on the table because they sold everything they owned to build a cash base for this moment. It turns out they made a wise move.
It’s not a switch that you turn on and off.
I have to disagree…Look at GM and their infamous intake manifold gasket problem. They had this problem for OVER a decade. They knew it was causing engine failures at least 5 years before they did anything about it. They choose short-term profit over long term profit and customer loyalty. Meanwhile during that period I’m sure they lost many customers who’ll NEVER buy a GM product again.
I’m also happy that one old and ancient car company was in reasonable health in these trying times. Ford can do one favor for me if they can find out why their heater cores usually leak after 60,000 to 90,000 miles. They can fix it too. It’s the only beef I have about Ford, what with all the horse meat that has been put on the market from Chrysler and GM. When I buy my next (first) Taurus, I’ll be asking about the extended heater core warranty.
How many years ago was that?
Local Ford salesman said he’s sold a few vehicles just because they haven’t taken the bailout money.
Yes, US automakers found themselves trying to catch up beginning in the late 80’s and early 90’s. At that time the perception grew that Japanese cars were higher quality, and at the time they were. That perception has stuck and is firmly cemented in a majority of peoples minds. For the most part, that perception is no longer reality. Now that US automakers have caught up quality wise, their image is being tarnished further by their financial woes. Hopefully they can all survive and come out leaner and more efficient and finally catch a break.
from 1995 to 2006
Wow, this thread has inspired some interesting discussion.
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I will concede that my example may be outdated. When I worked for the Toyota assembly plant in California a number of years ago, our engines and transaxles were made in Japan, and it was common knowledge that the price of those components was set so that our plant would just break even. No one I know had a problem with that. If I had been in charge, I would have done it that way. If that practice has changed, I would assume it was because of changes in tax law or relative manufacturing costs.
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I also mentioned that UAW has been hard on the US manufacturers’ competitive position. I was non-union, so I did not get involved with the details, but I understood that our UAW contract was VERY different from the UAW contracts with the Big Three. I don’t know whether the more recent US assembly plants are union, but if they are, I expect that they have contracts that are similar to the one at the plant where I worked.
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Not that it is at all relevant, but I am not Hispanic, nor have I ever lived in Mexico.
Docnick, I respect your opinion but this caught my eye and made me chuckle out loud:
Expensive high tech items, however, are often made half way around the world, such as in China, where the cost is low, quality high, and transportation cost minimal.
After the last couple of years, with melamine in food, lead in paint on toys, cheap junk metal in their brake rotors, cardboard used in baked goods, etc I hardly think people associate China with high quality. They really have an image problem and it’s deserved IMHO.
JT, I’ll add this as a new reply rather than have it get lost in the middle.
You mentioned Statistical Process Control (SPC). It’s actually far more sophisticated than finding and monitoring the critical parameters. It’s a “process” culture that uses applied statistics.
SPC looks at the distribution curves of the critical parameters. From that it determines
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is the process output varying only due to “normal” variation or does it have anomolies affecting the curve that need to be rooted out and changed?
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once the process is exhibiting only normal variation, is it capable of producing the desired output, or does its mean or median needs to be moved, or perhaps the variation need to be reduced? Perhaps a better machine is needed, or even a better casting process (for example).
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once that’s accomplished, Upper and Lower Control Limits can be statistically established and the process monitored over time. When it begins to wander too close to the limits, adjustments can be made such that it never produces a bad part…the “sanpshot” of the distribution curve (seen on a “bar-X chart”) should never go outside the limits. Sincethe limits are determined by the processes normal variation, and the process has been refined to minimize that and to distribute the output well within the range of the desired output, a nonfuntional part is never produced.
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Operators can then be trained to recognize the trends displayed on the charts and make adjustments as the process operates.
A true quality culture also encompasses techniques like Design for Manufacturing. Properly applied, this reduces tremendously the opportunities for error as well as the costs of procurement, inventorying, handling, throughput, and…I could make a long list.
The Quality program then expands its practices to its vendors, a process known as “flow down”, and the quality builds.
Obviously I’ve simplified the post for brevity. And this is just one part of a quality culture. I could go on and on about the design facets and the management processes and decisiions and their effects. It IS highly possible to build a piece of junk with extreme consistancy.
In summary, building quality product requires true culture change. That requires lots of training, education, leadershp, technology investment, and constant reinforcement. You cannot turn quality on and off.
The high tech items designed by US or Japanese engineers and manufactued in China with Western or Japanese quality control are world class! I have a Chinese IBM (Lenovo) computer, 3 telephones, 2 CD players, 3 calculators, color laser printer, etc,; all great products.
I also have a Chinese designed/made bird bath in the back yard. The bath itself sits at an angle, so we had to slant the base so that the water would be level in the bowl! The birds like it better that way.
You’re probably aware that Japanese goods went throught this cycle as well.
Chinese electronics are now better than European ones, thanks to Japanese style quality control and design.
IBM’s Vice President of Purchasing lives in China!! Most of his work involves working with Chinese suppliers of the electronic components IBM uses.
I’m the luckiest guy in town! I have a 1998 Regal with the 3.8L engine and never had a problem. My FIL has a 2002 Buick LeSabre with the 3.8L and he’s never had that pesky gasket problem, either. I never heard about it until you started harping on it.
Good post, Mountainbike. I assist many firms in creating quality products and services.
The first requirement is to start with the definition of quality, “fitness for service intended”.
To that end, the first task is to design and test the prototype to be robust, long lasting, and easy & cheap to maintain. This does not apply totally to throw-away products, of course.
European companies got on the statistical quality control bandwagen without having a good design to start with. ISO 9000 was created to have uniform, repeatable and predictable manufacturing processes. In many cases the products came out UNIFORMLY BAD!!!
The Japanese learned Statisticial control from Edward Deming, but soon discovered(30 years ago) that the design quality had to be improved as well through proper engineering, materials selection, and designing in maintainability.
This recognition catapulted them to the top of the heap in cameras (much to the chagrin of the Germans), cars, electronics, and many other products. Komatsu used to make really crappy, short lived bulldozers and other construcion equipment. Once they took apart a few Caterpillar (the world leader) models and went through design upgrades they are now a force to be reckoned with.
Agree that quality requires a culture change from “good enough” to “what can we possibly do to make it better?”. Continuous Improvement (Kaisan in Japanese) and a Total Quality Approach will get us there. Toyota employees EACH submit an average of TWO suggestions per month to their employer!
Compare this with the British car industry where employees were actually sabotaging the manufacturing process if they did not feel right.
Compare this with the British car industry where employees were actually sabotaging the manufacturing process if they did not feel right.
I applaud you guys for typing all this out. These are not easy subjects to summarize so briefly.
This last sentence from Docnick hits on what I see as the problem with US manufacturing in long serving sectors like automotive production. It’s an US versus THEM adversarial relationship (between unions and the business) rather than a WE attitude where the employees feel like a valued part of the company and act accordingly to insure success. Certainly, in a world class arena, you will never be successful against your competition unless your entire workforce is working in unison toward a common goal and you leverage all of your assets.
Agree; when Ford launched its capaign of “Quality is Job 1” it set itself on the path to employee participation in the quality of the assembly process. They have been the most successful of the Detroit 3. Even the Mexico plants (Hermosillo) produce very good quality cars; somthing that has eluded Volkswagen at Puebla, who has been there a very long time.
The process of shifting costs within related enterprises to minimize taxes is called transfer pricing. My daughter does this for multinational oil companies while trying to keep them out of jail, and it is a recession-proof way to make money. If you are a chronic insomniac, or addicted to mind-numbing complexity, try reading Internal Revenue Code Section 482 and the IRS regulations. It will cure the first condition and exacerbate the second. And ltsanders, thanks for the “Beg 3” automakers.
Thanks guys.
I used to tell people in my organization that the difference betwen quality and failure is that a quality product is one where the customers can
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ASSUME that the product will reliably meet their needs without even thinking about it,
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assume that it will be delivered promtly as expected (which may mean scheduling to service JIT needs…but that’s another post)
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will know that the product will be better than the competition
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will know that customer service will be proactive and efficient
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and knows from experience that the price will be fair and reasonable. (price is at the bottom of the list as long as it’s not unrealistic).
ANY activity in the entire organization that does not comtribute to accomplishing these goals (except those required to meet regulatory requirements) needs to be reevaluated as to its need.
In reality it’s all about the culture that the senior management creates. They need to understand, promote, support and lead in these directions. The SPC, the DFM, the Lean, the JIT, Value Stream Engineering, these are all only tools. Give a man a $10,000 tool chest and unless he understands cars and desires to fix cars no problems will get fixed. The aforementioned tools are no different. They fix nothing by themselves.
Agree; I did business with 20 ongoing customers for 10 years. My best client was very demanding, but we did nearly $100 million business per year with them. On their bid evaluations they used the K-T method and evaluated on technical backup, employee skills, safety redord, ability to respond to emergencies, for a total of SEVEN weighted criteria. Price was only #7; this company operated in a difficult and hazardous environment valued trust and competence & responsiveness over all other values. Money was only #7.
I rebid this contract 4 times and each time were NOT LOW BIDDER, but got the contract!