Word: firming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...have time to go around taking moral stands," the voice of Douglas Brackman, the balding managing partner of the mythical Los Angeles law firm of Mackenzie Brackman, booms from the large-screen...
...fought hard to go it alone. The company earned $45 million last year but lost $1.8 million during the first six months of 1989, largely because of slumping U.S. sales. Jaguar tried to fend off Ford's advances by offering General Motors a 30% stake in the British firm. But last week the British government opened the way for Ford by waiving London's legislative right to veto any takeover of Jaguar before 1991. Ford put its offer on the table the next morning. GM officials decided the price was too high and withdrew...
Xerox Chairman David Kearns took a lesson from his adversaries and in 1983 launched an all-out campaign for quality. Appealing to the firm's 100,000 workers, the company formed employee teams to encourage shop-floor innovation and cooperative problem solving. Xerox set tough new standards for every phase of its operations, from design and production to inventory management and sales. The results: manufacturing costs and product defects were cut in half, customer satisfaction increased 38%, and Xerox recaptured the lead in moderately priced copiers. Says Kearns: "At Xerox we define quality as meeting customer requirements...
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...
...then aware that the dictator planned to end the truce with the contras. "It was literally a photo opportunity," Bush said. Sure enough, Ortega's photographer rushed his shots to news organizations; the White House refused to release its own pictures. "We greeted. We shook hands. He had a firm handshake. He looked me in the eye. He did not lock on or anything like that. He was not defiant. We'd met before...