Just hilarious

[Richard Danjin <dickatriver@mac.com>]

The irony is that Dr. Deming truly believed that Ford Motor Company was the best opportunity for his teaching to take hold in the 1980s, especially with the placement of Bill Scherkken back near the top of the organization, as the "Quality Methods" person.

I am going to quote some lines from a Detroit News article appearing Monday September 4, 2006, entitled "Ford Pulls All Stops to Make Edge a Success." ("Ford Edge" is a new vehicle for the 2007 model year)

--Quality expert hired away from Toyota.

--Poured over the Edge and found more than 70 significant issues and hundreds of minor concerns.  (But, Hey, Ford has only been in the auto business for over 100 years.  Why would one have any expectation that they know how to build cars?)  AN ANALYST IS QUOTED AS SAYING "ANYBODY FROM THE OUTSIDE IS GOING TO SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY FROM SOMEONE RAISED IN THE SYSTEM."  (Could it be Deming was right after all?)

--Suspend work rules to PREVENT workers from changing jobs on the assembly line during launch (Could it be Frederick Taylor was right after all?)  

--Designer found a woman who matched their target customer --- younger, active, optimistic--- studied her life to understand how to create a vehicle to fit it.  (Saturn's target customer in the late 1980s was a young, educated, single, white female, and they felt there were at least 250,000 of these yuppies out there to justify and sustain Saturn.  At the time, internal to GM and The UAW, Saturn was touted as a 100 year car company.)

A final note:  The Union in that plant, after just negotiating a modern flexible lean contract, was approached by Ford to suspend the "FLEXIBLE" part.

There is nothing new in the world, the problem is to think of it again.

Dick

Making Things Run Well

Dick Danjin
2450 Campfire Trail
Alger, Mi 48610