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Posted by Vaughn [99.58.167.67] on Friday, January 06, 2012 at 10:40:38 :
In Reply to: Re: Detroit is burning. posted by KenaiGary [65.74.48.28] on Thursday, January 05, 2012 at 01:29:33 :
I don’t believe we can say this was caused by our Gov’t, more importantly, it reflects arrogance, greed and an unwillingness to change on the part of private companies. The quality Gurus warned Detroit Automakers (DA) in the late 60s, early 70’s the need to improve their product quality; after all, they had been working with Japan to improve theirs since the end of WW2. At a time when DA’ were barely getting 50,000 miles out of an engine at 10 mpg, Japan’s little vehicles were going beyond 120,000 miles and 30 mpg. American’s are no different than anyone one else, we expect good value for the buck, and because of that, Americans started the turn in the 80’s to foreign products. Did DA wake up? no, it’s was still all about the share holder profits. Take for example the FFPW. In the late 60’s with clean air started to become an issue, what did Chrysler do? They exported instead of stepping up to the challenge. Japan took the challenge of the “Clean Air Act,” no more needs to be said. You can’t blame a Gov’t for wanting to provide a healthy environment for its citizens.
Companies usually start out with good intensions, just look at Henry Ford or Sam Walton as examples. Both wanted good products, USA made, at a good value for customers. Once they passed, their vision went with them and in stepped the multi-million dollar salaried CEO’s – normal process. Just look at the Emma Maersk as an example. So to keep profits high, we move/sold American company’s off-shore and gave employment, technical skills, knowledge and American Business Processes to foreign soil, who’s to blame? Some companies are waking up and bringing processing back to the U.S.
We all hear about the non-unionized “over seas sweat shops,” that employ kids, yet we smile and say thank you to the clerk at the store without any thought to them. I would hate to go back to the turn of the 20th Century to our industrial sweat shops. My Dad got employed in the Oil business at the end of WW2 when oil pumping stations were a 7 days a week job, health or sick. I don’t know too many young people today that can handle that kind of employment. So I am one that supports the Unions, which are not the cause.
America has a way to go to get to the quality level to successfully compete in a Global market. Hopefully we will company up to the Green, continue to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. so that it doesn’t work against us, to provide the cutting edge needed to out sell foreign competition. Quality sells is the lesson. You want to look at the success of quality? Look at Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Detroit to tell the story.