tarabell
03-22-2006, 05:29 PM
To provide some additional perspective on quality (re: the recent post about Ms. Xcel's recent ASQ certification) I wanted to share the following recently sent to me by a quality expert I work with.
One might get the impression [e.g. from the recent Consumer Reports top auto picks] that quality might be linked to Japanese culture uniquely. It isn't. Almost all the ideas came originally from Americans. When Japanese companies open factories in the U.S. and other countries they get comparable quality to the Japanese factories. There is usually a time lag though. The Japanese factories in Japan will always have a marginal edge due to the fact that investment is always done first in the home country. I've also read about similar experience with poor Japanese quality, cleanliness, and production from Deming and Juran. Ishikawa (fishbone diagram, 7 principle quality tools) said he got many of his original ideas from books by Henry Ford.
Here is an article about Japanese industry in the 50's before the introduction of modern quality practices by Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum and others. It can clearly be seen from these practices that quality engineering and practices has nothing to do with culture.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20000525.html
One might get the impression [e.g. from the recent Consumer Reports top auto picks] that quality might be linked to Japanese culture uniquely. It isn't. Almost all the ideas came originally from Americans. When Japanese companies open factories in the U.S. and other countries they get comparable quality to the Japanese factories. There is usually a time lag though. The Japanese factories in Japan will always have a marginal edge due to the fact that investment is always done first in the home country. I've also read about similar experience with poor Japanese quality, cleanliness, and production from Deming and Juran. Ishikawa (fishbone diagram, 7 principle quality tools) said he got many of his original ideas from books by Henry Ford.
Here is an article about Japanese industry in the 50's before the introduction of modern quality practices by Deming, Juran, Feigenbaum and others. It can clearly be seen from these practices that quality engineering and practices has nothing to do with culture.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20000525.html