Chapter 2 - The tedium of quality
Demming formed a system of immense tediousness. If your boss ever tells you you're going into Quality Control, run away screaming. By charting everything, the goal was to get every input consistent, and the entire jitter several times below a problem. When the excursions happened, it wouldn't matter.
The Japanese mastered this, but made no inroads with Old Detroit. Then we had the 70's oil shock and a massive depression. OD could no longer sell rolling boats. They went for smaller, lighter cars. No hope there, the cars were terrible, since they used the old standards of bashing steel and hoping for the best.
The quality was so bad, it gave rise to the term 'Lemon', which I am now appropriating for central air conditioners. This was a car where the quality was zero. It was probably a one in a thousand thing, and od didn't care. The warranties were terrible. Eventually you were saddled with a horrible car, and it was your loss.
Toyota came on the scene and wiped the floor with OD. They still haven't recovered. Nobody wanted to be stuck with a lemon, and you didn't get one with the Japanese. Guarantees become all encompassing. Nobody was ever stuck with a lemon.
But that whole thing gave rise to some great books. I read them all. The authors could get some great quotes. That won't happen any more since everybody has a PR department. I intend to just write funny letters and not even send them.
-to be continued
Appendix
Air conditioning cartel in Toronto
Lemon-aide for Air Conditioning, or 'Get l'aide'
Get L'aide, a new book trashing the air conditioning industry
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