Responding to an earlier posting about Sanyo washing machines catching on fire, Timr observes that he has bought a lot of Sanyo products and the quality was great. What's happened, he wants to know.
Not knowing the details of the case, I can't comment on that. What I can offer is a bit of informed speculation that goes like this:
After WWII, the "burning generation," the corporate warriors who rebuilt Japan were fierce in their determination to catch up with and surpass the West. They knew that Japan's reputation for shoddy exports, back when Japan was synonymous with tin toys and dime-store knick-knacks was an obstacle they had to overcome. They did what they did in other areas, went looking for the world's best ideas, brought them home to Japan, improved them, and put them to work. In the area of Quality Management that was the work of Dr. W. Edward Deming on statistical process control, work still celebrated in the Deming Prize, described on the W. Edwards Deming Institute webpage as follows:
The Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) invited Dr. Deming to Japan in July 1950. He held a series of lectures and seminars during which he taught the basic princiles of statistical quality control to executives, managers and engineers of Japanese industries. His teachings made a deep impression on the participants' minds and provided great impetus in implementing quality control in Japan.
In appreciation, JUSE (English), created a prize to commemorate Dr. Deming's contribution and friendship and to promote the continued development of quality control in Japan. The prize was established in 1950 and annual awards are still given each year.
The Deming Prize, especially the Deming Application Prize which is given to companies, has exerted an immeasurable influence directly or indirectly on the development of quality control and management in Japan.
These efforts were hugely successful, resulting in production of great products like those Timr purchased. They were so successful, in fact, that subsequent generations didn't just grow up in affluence, becoming more interested in food, fashion, media, etc., instead of engineering;their fathers had won their war, leaving their children and grandchildren without their burning passion. Catching up with and surpassing the West? As far as the later generations were concerned, their fathers had been there and done that. What were they to do? Eat, drink, create funky fashion, write video games, produce TV shows, you get the picture.
The companies hardest hit by these trends and by growing competition from hungrier places like Korea, and now China, were second and third tier hardware manufacturers like Sanyo, whose managers were--and are--both finding it very difficult to recruit the hardworking, highly disciplined, highly skilled workers on whom their earlier success depended, while also being pushed incessantly to keep cutting costs. The result is predictable: cutting corners, less meticulous design, quality slips, accidents happen, recalls get publicized in the newspapers.
In the top tier, the Toyotas and Canons, the quality commitment and delivery live on. Wherever jobs have become routine, the workers aren't the brightest tools in the shed to begin with, and cost-cutting leads to corner-cutting, the results aren't pretty.
That, anyway, is how I see it. Jerry Bowles and Josh Hammond are both veterans of the QC Movement inspired by Japan in the 1980s. Perhaps they can chime in.
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