For Interest Only (Toyota 2000GT)

[Carl Beck]

...snipped...

Japan, after the war, was assisted by a team of people that included a guy named W. Edwards Deming

Hi Rich:

I'm with you... After 20 years in the AeroSpace Industry, Dr. Deming seems to be an old friend. With Manned Space Systems - everything had to be the highest possible quality, and everyone I worked with was a total believer... (sadly even with the best human efforts... we all see that things still go wrong at times)

Dr. Deming's Statistical Quality Control techniques certainly laid a foundation upon which the production of high quality products from Japan was built Post WW-II. Indeed Nissan Motors won a Deming Award 1959/60.

You may find a study of Dr. Joseph M. Juran a nice compliment to Deming's work. Dr. Juran actually took Dr. Deming's statistical techniques and processes controls from the physical world of production, into the human world of Management. His Total Quality Management and Continual Process Improvement methods have evolved over the years into Six Sigma today.

If you haven't read it already - "KAIZEN The Key to Japan's Competitive Success" by: Masaaki Imai is another very interesting read. (ISBN 394-55186-9

If you are interested in going back to the beginning of the automobile industry in Japan, I'm sure you would find the book "William R. Gorham - An American Engineer in Japan" a fascinating study.

Written by his closest friends in Japan, after his death in 1949 Mr. Gorham is credited with all but building Japan's modern industrial base prior to WW-II, and was the key person in the technological foundation of Nissan Motors (even before it was Nissan!). (ISBN 1-4116-5549-4 ) You can order the book in either digital form, or hard copy from Lulu.com <a href=http://www.lulu.com/content/174439 TARGET=NEW> http://www.lulu.com/content/174439 </a>

Nissan and Toyota were neck and neck for the #1 Sales Spot in the 60's and 70's.... Nissan lost it's focus on Quality (Deming/Juran) in the early 80's and they lost ground to Toyota though the 80's and 90's. Sadly with all the mergers and re-organizations at Nissan, I haven't seen it return to the path followed so well by Toyota.

FWIW

Carl B.

[daddz]

If you are interested in going back to the beginning of the automobile industry in Japan, I'm sure you would find the book "William R. Gorham - An American Engineer in Japan" a fascinating study.

Written by his closest friends in Japan, after his death in 1949 Mr. Gorham is credited with all but building Japan's modern industrial base prior to WW-II, and was the key person in the technological foundation of Nissan Motors (even before it was Nissan!). (ISBN 1-4116-5549-4 ) You can order the book in either digital form, or hard copy from Lulu.com <a href=http://www.lulu.com/content/174439 TARGET=NEW> http://www.lulu.com/content/174439 </a>

Nissan and Toyota were neck and neck for the #1 Sales Spot in the 60's and 70's.... Nissan lost it's focus on Quality (Deming/Juran) in the early 80's and they lost ground to Toyota though the 80's and 90's. Sadly with all the mergers and re-organizations at Nissan, I haven't seen it return to the path followed so well by Toyota.

FWIW

Carl B.

Thanks Carl,

I was at a loss and couldn't remember Gorham's name when typing my last post. With regard to Nissan falling behind to Toyota--put the last nail in that coffin. Nissan couldn't possibly hope to catch up to Toyota unless something drastic were to happen to Toyota as they have such a strong cash position among other factors going for them.

[rdefabri]

Carl, you are a veritable encyclopedia!

I am familiar with Juran, not with Gorham, so that looks like fine reading! At GE, I had been exposed to Six Sigma, which was something that worked very well for Motorola. The downside is that management started drinking too much Kool-Aid and everyone was doing "green belt" projects - no one did any real work!! There's certainly pros/cons.

I am with both you and Bob on the Quality thing between Nissan and Toyota. This is why I always refer back to Deming et al - Quality is a holistic "thing" - it's not simply lowered defects, it's part of the end-to-end lifecycle and processes, including the customer experience. While Japan, Inc. certainly has the product quality down pat, the Achilles Heel still remains the customer experience. Toyota is on such a roll that products practically sell themselves - but has anyone purchased a Toyota in the past 10-15 years? I won't say this is a blanket statement, but the process is so bad, I have literally walked out of a Toyota dealership cursing up a storm.

Nissan can stay in the game with designing good products from a desirability perspective. Their product quality has been deficient since Renault has taken over. They COULD minimize that perception by improving the customer buying experience - strategically, that's Toyota (and Honda's) weakest point.

I'll supplement the requested reading library - "Well Made in America: Lessons from Harley-Davidson on Being the Best" by Peter Reid. It's the story of Harley from the management buyout from AMF to it's ultimate success in the Motorcycle industry. One of the focus areas for Harley was the customer experience. They knew that product quality improvements would take time, but they could sway perceptions by making the dealerships "user friendly". They strong-armed the dealers, and those that didn't cooperate were disassociated from HD. Back then, you'd walk into a dealer that catered more to the Biker Gang crowd. Today, all showrooms are well lit, airy, friendly, etc.

In my line of work, it's easy to forget that quality does not stop once product is in the channel. It's carried through all the way to the customer - something many vehicle manufacturers are forgetting in this day and age.

[zbane]

Now, I don't speak French, but this site has some great photos, not only of the 2000gt, but of various Toyota Prototypes (cool gallery), and some great shots of the 240Z. Nice, clean site, easy to figure out-enjoy

http://www.2000gt.net/