what happened to taking pride in your work

westom wrote:

GoPackGo wrote:
As I recall, his philosophy on quality control is that quality should be built in at each stage of the manufacturing process. Each worker performs QA, it is not added on at the end of the line after the product has been built.

To increase quality, Quality Control (QC) inspectors are eliminated. Those simple concepts are obvious when one comes from where the work gets done.

A business school graduate was taught that a trade-off exists between costs and quality. Increased quality always means decreased costs. Concepts difficult for a finance guy to grasp.

Any car that still has a six or eight cylinder engine is using obsolete technology. Since innovations (demonstrated by GM engineers in the early 1970s) are standard all over the world. But GM still needs large front ends (ie SUV) to house obsolete technology V-8 engines. GMs high costs, blamed on unions, are directly traceable to GMs lower quality. Because a spread sheet says innovation increases costs. Reality says otherwise.

Chevy Volt is the only hybrid where the engine cannot recharge its battery. Done intentionally to decrease costs.

Those concepts apply to all industries.

As a bit of a "car guy", I'll firmly dispute your statement that v-8s are obsolete. If they were, don't you think that race cars would all be running 4-cyl engines? Do you really think there's =any= 4 or 6 cyl that can make the 10,000+ hp that a nitro burning dragster makes? Didn't think so. As a long-time Corvette owner, with a friend that worked at the old GM Proving Grounds in Mesa, the old adage of "there's no replacement for displacement" is true. For a little econo-box, sure, a little 3 or 4 cyl is just fine, and they =can= be made to make some serious ponies, but for a truck or full-size car, 6 and 8 cyl are still the most effective way to go. With electronic valves and variable timing, fueling and even dropping cylinders when power isn't needed, they've become extremely efficient, too.

I don't disagree with you about the MBAs trying to be engineers, because I've seen that in action, both at GM and at John Deere. There was a John Deere test facility near our farm and we used to see all kinds of stuff being tested around here. I know for a fact that they had to get $1,000 of cost out of one particular machine. The farmers that were using the test machines absolutely loved them. When they then tried the production model, they were down as much as they worked; total POSs. Deere killed themselves since all these guys went to different brands that simply didn't break down and didn't have the JD "premium" built in to the purchase price.

Lyle