Remember that great concept called ‘quality circles’. The Japanese were very big on it from the 1970’s onwards. Problem today I think is we’ve tied ourselves up in Knotts with all these different standards that really don’t consider how people see their roles - and whatever a factory operative does, quality is part of it.
However, if the top execs are raking it in and stock price is their prime focus, I’m afraid corners will be cut. No exec deserves to earn 100’s of times more than the folks on the factory floor and that’s where the problems also lie.
I remember visits to a Toyota factory in Nagoya and a Ford factory in Melbourne; there was a suggestion box in each. Toyota's box had around 90% constructive suggestions and each month there was a winner and corporate recognition. Workers were valued and treated well.
At Ford, which at the time seemed to treat workers as a disposable commodity, around 80% of suggestions were to "Get - - - ".
Guess which plant produced higher quality cars.....
Geoff
Not exactly a shock, as their production model was probably straight from the UK.
jeff
I am not surprised that the Ford suggestion box was full of GF’s. It’s part of the culture today in English speaking countries. Two fingers up at organisational and knowledge authority. In the latter case, Feynman, Asimov and Sagan warned about the direction of drift decades ago. Add to that the fact that everybody wants to be a rebel.
I cannot imagine stuff like this happening in Germany or Japan.
I cannot imagine stuff like this happening in Germany or Japan.
Whole regions of the US become impoverished by the shifting employment landscape in the US. It gets built up and then all the jobs disappear. Detroit is the most well known example of this phenomenon.
It's called the Rust Belt. The Midwest was a manufacturing powerhouse and now there is virtually no manufacturing. All the jobs went to Asia. What's left behind is shattered communities and wrecked lives.
Drinking to death is not an unusual response to this. Look at what cities like Detroit, Gary, and Cleveland were at one time. Then look at what they are now; they look like a war was fought on the turf.
It's called the Rust Belt. The Midwest was a manufacturing powerhouse and now there is virtually no manufacturing. All the jobs went to Asia. What's left behind is shattered communities and wrecked lives.
Drinking to death is not an unusual response to this. Look at what cities like Detroit, Gary, and Cleveland were at one time. Then look at what they are now; they look like a war was fought on the turf.
German car makers have/had a bonus scheme for constructive suggestions by their workers which either increased quality or reduced costs.
They were quite generous and a few workers became millionaires due to their successful suggestions.
It's not so simple. Because we have to look at what built those cities into powerhouses of manufacturing to begin with: the destruction of Europe and Asia in WWII. Without that, the US would NOT have been a manufacturing giant and those wouldn't have existed to begin with. The only thing that happened is that the rest of the world rebuilt.
Now, could our illustrious "leaders" over the decades have lessened the blow? Absolutely. But in THIS country more so than any other, money is first, everything else is second. And they keep us voting for this by selling the fantasy that anyone can be a millionaire and that socialism is bad. Meanwhile the elites of both sides (democrats and republicans) reap the benefits of corporate socialism
We (the "little" people) will always lose because we vote for liars, cons and "saviors" because we're too stupid.
Want to make America great for its people? Don't vote for anyone who's campaign isn't built on unions, pensions, corporate taxes, massive taxes for the rich.
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Quite right, it is therefore strange that German makes are usually towards the bottom in reliability and owner satisfaction surveys.
Geoff
Blame all the plastic parts they put on the engines. And not using hi-temp. o-rings.
jeff
In the US of A you would be called a communist for saying that. We have a culture of revering our oppressors. Big corporations and rich people are coddled by gubment and not allowed to fail. Working class people have to live an austere lifestyle of rugged individualism, often with the slightest bump in the road (like a layoff) causing major personal catastrophes like eviction, foreclosure, auto repossession, etc.
It's odd but people are brainwashed with the so-called "trickle down" economics that's been peddled for the last 50 years. Many of us are still waiting faithfully for the trickle to start.
Oddly enough I've been on US BMW sites where it was said that their 4L V8 was very unreliable. I then went on European BMW owner sites who were of the opinion that the same 4L V8 is probably the finest most reliable engine they ever made.
The typical fault experienced in North America was witnessed precisely once in Europe in a car that had never been serviced since new.
The typical fault experienced in North America was witnessed precisely once in Europe in a car that had never been serviced since new.
And that's exactly why in the US of A the middle class barely exists anymore. Because when America was Great, everybody was in a union, had a pension, and corporations and elites payed high taxes.
And it's why I have zero empathy for average US worker who's getting screwed. Because that's what he/she is voting for.
Because he/she is too lazy to understand how the world works and prefers to be fed "knowledge" by "authority" figures who naturally don't give a darn about them. Quite the opposite, they're using them.
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Getting back on topic, I find it really sad that a company which produced such great airliners like the B707 and B747 is now at the point where many people think twice about flying on their products.
Trust takes a long time to build up - decades, even - and can be undone in hours. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Boeing can do to try to claw back that trust.
I had to fly on a DC-10 just a few weeks after the Air New Zealand Mt Erebus tragedy; the rumour mill was rife with what had gone wrong. I'd always loved flying but was very nervous about the journey. Unfortunately, the airline only operated DC-10s on the selected route.
The wife of my German teacher at school had lost her life in the dreadful Turkish Airlines DC10 crash some time before that, so the DC-10 wasn't my favourite airliner anyway.
Geoff
Trust takes a long time to build up - decades, even - and can be undone in hours. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Boeing can do to try to claw back that trust.
I had to fly on a DC-10 just a few weeks after the Air New Zealand Mt Erebus tragedy; the rumour mill was rife with what had gone wrong. I'd always loved flying but was very nervous about the journey. Unfortunately, the airline only operated DC-10s on the selected route.
The wife of my German teacher at school had lost her life in the dreadful Turkish Airlines DC10 crash some time before that, so the DC-10 wasn't my favourite airliner anyway.
Geoff
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