> Perception of quality, too. Honda once released an entire line of automatic transmission (used
> across their entire lineup) that basically grind themselves up every 40k miles. Don't hear much
> about that, though...
That's statistical quality contol at it's finest.
I was working in a garage when that happened. All you had to do was show up at the dealership with a car under recall and they gave you a voucher for any shop in town to install a new redesigned tranny.
Around that time, in Detroit, you didn't want a "monday" or "friday" car... nor wednesday(hump day) and at any other time you were liable to find the random coke bottle welded in a door panel, or the hoseclamps on the firewall never got tightened, or missing (in a random sampling of cars on the line).
More... There's literally hundreds of thousands of individual processes that go into "making a car", any one of which could be fubar.
So... which would you rather? Statistically predictable. ...or random failure?
Deming thought American manufacturers would dig right in to the statistical quality control, and they did, and it was lip service (computer industry too), and it DOESN'T work as lip service, you have to do it all.
Including bonusing your employees as well as you bonus your managers & execs, and give the workers real input into the production process.
Detroit could have been a contenda... too late now.
So long sucka...
Leigh www.leighm.net
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