Word: workmanship
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QUALITY. Two decades ago the words Made in Japan were synonymous with shoddy workmanship, and Japanese products were marketed mainly in 5? and 10? stores. Yet today firms like Sony and Datsun sell their products principally on the basis of high standards. Says Masao Kanamori, president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries: "The existence of our company would be impossible if we failed to reassess our performance in quality, production and cost...
...Japanese today look down on what they regard as the poor quality of American products. Kenichi Odawara, professor of economics at Sophia University in Tokyo, recently published a book on the problems of the U.S. economy and workmanship entitled The Great American Disease. One example of that disease is familiar to any Japanese car dealer attempting to sell an American-built automobile in Japan: the cars have to be given an additional coat of paint before they can satisfy the demanding Japanese...
...employees and by cutting back on perquisites. In many of its plants, consumer products giant Procter & Gamble uses semiautonomous work groups that allow employees to govern their own jobs and achieve gains in productivity. The Buick assembly plant in Flint, Mich., which once had very low quality workmanship, used the Theory Z approach in 1978 to gain the co operation of workers and their union. Within two years, the plant had be come the most efficient General Motors facility...
...University of Indiana, Despos became a stockbroker. But a few years later he was back helping his father in the afternoons after the market closed. Eventually he accumulated $3,000 in savings and was running his own shop. "Tailoring is a skilled trade with a lot of pride of workmanship," he says. "It is a great satisfaction to make a beautiful suit...
...Japanese are not only fussy about the workmanship at the plant; they are also meticulous about the cars they buy. Customers will refuse delivery of a new car that has a stray smudge of grease or a crooked seat seam. All U.S. cars and most foreign ones must be repainted before they hit local showrooms so that they will conform to higher quality standards. When Chevrolet sent its first Citation X-car to Japan for inspection, the company got back an embarrassing list of 105 defects that had to be corrected before the car could be sold there...