Word: american
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...established by Congress to motivate U.S. companies. Given for the first time last year, they have already become a sought-after prize in corporate America. Collecting the other 1989 award: Milliken & Co., a leading textiles manufacturer based in Spartanburg, S.C. Bush, who has seized the quality banner to promote American competitiveness, presented the awards at the Commerce Department before 500 business and Government leaders...
Declaring that high quality in U.S. goods and services is a top national priority, the President maintained that companies like Xerox and Milliken are leading a comeback from the days when many American products were being shunned because of a well-deserved reputation for shoddiness. Said he: "No competitor gave them a tougher time than they gave themselves. Both of these manufacturing firms were well-established leaders in their markets, and yet both were being steadily squeezed out by the intensive foreign and domestic competition. And in the midst of this crisis, the men and women of these companies found...
...great degree, American business has turned to its principal competitor, Japan, to learn how to restore quality. Ironically, what U.S. executives think of as "the Japanese method" was pioneered largely by an American statistician, W. Edwards Deming, 89, who began preaching the quality gospel to receptive Japanese industrialists in 1950. During the 1980s, thousands of U.S. companies borrowed the so-called quality-circle concept, in which teams of employees are encouraged to participate actively in monitoring and improving their part of the production process...
Hewlett-Packard got the message when its Japanese partner, Yokogawa Hewlett- Packard, complained about the quality of the memory devices manufactured by the American firm. The centerpiece of Hewlett-Packard's quality program, started in 1979, is a closer relationship with its suppliers. Treating them as partners rather than free-lance sources, the company involves partsmakers in the initial design phase of its new products and gives the suppliers six-month forecasts of its needs so that the smaller companies can plan their own production. As a result, Hewlett-Packard reached its goal of increasing quality tenfold in just...
...Japanese competitors have continued to earn top ratings for quality and to expand market share. In a survey by J.D. Power Associates, a leading automotive analyst, buyers of this year's Japanese imports reported only 119 problems per 100 cars during the first 90 days, while owners of new American cars reported 163 glitches. Even so, the quality competition has drastically boosted value for the car buyer: before 1960 the typical U.S. auto warranty was just three months or 4,000 miles. Today Chevrolet offers basic coverage of three years or 50,000 miles and Chrysler covers selected models...