QUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES

1
 THE BACKGROUND

re characterized by:

narchy of the marketplace,” each company determines which products it will make o

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 THE BACKGROUND

e national boundaries then prevailing in Western Europe—passports, customs office

by the apprentice. A major force for assuring quality of product was the village f

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 THE BACKGROUND

nt.” The basic concept was the separation of planning from execution. This separat

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 WORLD WAR II AND ITS IMPACT

carried out its responsibility and delivered the result to the next function in

ok the rest of that decade (the 1940s) for supply to catch up with demand. In the

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 THE JAPANESE QUALITY REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT

ced with converting to civilian products. The chief obstacle to selling these pro

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 RESPONSES TO THE JAPANESE QUALITY REVOLUTION

rices.

to establish restrictive import quotas and tariffs. They urged

iled civil lawsuits on the grounds of unfair trade practices. They appealed to the

an. Such companies responded by moving their production to low wage areas, includi

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 INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE QUALITY

e primary cause of their company’s quality problems was the carelessness and indif

ular label for this training.

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 INITIATIVES TO IMPROVE QUALITY

le quality improvements while others did not. The decisive variable was the exten

ess. The poor results were due mainly to poor choice of strategies and to poor exe

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 LESSONS LEARNED — THE CORE STRATEGIES

tion to identify: who are the customers, internal as well as external; what are the

extended to include internal as well as external customers.

fect, the upper managers took charge of quality by accepting responsibility for ce

meet the goals. However, the lessons learned from the role models are that the ab

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 LESSONS LEARNED — THE CORE STRATEGIES

elated goals. These goals are then “deployed” to identify the needed actions and r

g processes. It should also include service companies and business processes.

aste, no field failures, and so on. As upper managers were drawn into managing for

t had been done before.

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 LESSONS LEARNED — THE CORE STRATEGIES

gers and specialists. The useful many projects were carried out at lower levels, i

end, they mandated that goals for quality improvement be included in the annual

hread their way through multiple functions. Every microprocess has an “owner,” but

also defined the responsibilities of an owner, including responsibility for impr

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 LESSONS LEARNED — THE CORE STRATEGIES

h the proliferation of inspectors and inspection departments, there emerged train

quality should not be confined to the quality department—it should be extended t

rovement.

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 LESSONS LEARNED — THE CORE STRATEGIES

uality at the business level: customer satisfaction, competitors’ quality, performa

r than empiricism. The approach is to discover, for the process under study, what i

rkers. The word “empowerment” has become a label for such transfer. Empowerment tak

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 LESSONS LEARNED — THE CORE STRATEGIES

There is also some resistance from labor unions. They sense that empowerment est

ues, ceremonial dinners, publicity, and so on. Generally, they did this with skill a

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 LESSONS LEARNED — THE CORE STRATEGIES

sary to apply the lessons learned (from the role models) to all functions and all

n of the criteria used by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NI

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 PROGNOSIS

as the emergence of role models, and identification of the strategies they used t

lity, notably the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Self-assessment against

ty to their quality managers. As a result, the upper managers were, in the true se

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 PROGNOSIS

se of quality to a position of prominence in the public mind.

at turning radius. Most companies have a sizable backlog of needed quality improve

roductive country on earth, thanks in part to adoption of the Taylor system. Produ

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