Repair Culture

It's interesting. If W. Edwards Deming was responsible for the rise of Japanese industry, who holds the philosophy behind China's rise? It seems that one can concentrate on quality and succeed, and also that one can not give a fig about quality and succeed by producing junk. So who's got the right idea? By all that Deming held sacred, the huge enterprises built on the back of cheap labor and adversarial monetary policy shouldn't exist. Yet there they are, manufacturing short-lived garbage. I recall the invasion of Japanese steel into the US market. US steelmakers were using methods and equipment from before the war to produce their goods and rewarded "tonnage" with bonuses. The Japanese, having their industrial infrastructure bombed out of existence, rebuilt using state-of-the-art technology and produced a better product for what initially was a similar price. The US fought with all of the weapons of trade--import quotas and penalties and ultimately failed. Until what remained of the US steel industry got the message and, instead of using their mony to pay stock dividends and salaries, revamped their infrastructure, they weren't competitive. The same can be said for the Japanese auto industry. Before 1970, no one I knew owned a Japanese auto. By 1980, even my parents had succumbed to the purchase of a Toyota; all my "made in the USA" father had to do was test-drive one and compare it with the trash that Detroit was churning out. So will we see the same thing in computers? You know, the Toyota Celica of PCs that will easily put in 20 years of service? It's hard to see that happening. Or will computers be like chewing gum--use it once and throw it away? --Chuck