The funniest part about Japanese industry is... It was revitalized by an American post WWII by a dude named Deming, who was pretty much hated/ignored by American industry. So he went overthere and made them a powerhouse. Years later American companies were scratching their heads doing anything to hire the guy but not foster the skillset he asked for in his education programs or actually listen beyond being able to market that they took the advice for a few months.
America has triple downed on ignoring experts to maintain order, pay people less, and saving money short term.
When an American company hires 10,000 people it's to bolster numbers or slow competition. When an Japanese company does it's because they need workers long term. When an American company lays off 10,000 people it's because their profitability has changed or the dream wasn't realized. Meanwhile a German company doesn't lay off it's people because it plans to succeed long term and it knows it can't replace it's people, and long term it's more expensive to retrain them.
US employment laws are partially to blame, but most of American industry is a pump and dump...
I think Deming deserves a lot of credit, but don't forget to credit the Japanese as well: to be the recipient of information and that listen to it and act on it is the harder part. Deming didn't single-handedly transform Japanese industry, he gave them a set of principles and ways of working and they absolutely ran with it. Without the second part nobody would have heard about Deming.
Oh for sure. I didn't mean to under cut the efforts of the Japanese people! Infact I meant to raise them up, the US has had every opportunity to do the same and most places have done everything they can to ignore reality in favor of off the cuff thinking by people who have never seen ground truth.
America has triple downed on ignoring experts to maintain order, pay people less, and saving money short term.
When an American company hires 10,000 people it's to bolster numbers or slow competition. When an Japanese company does it's because they need workers long term. When an American company lays off 10,000 people it's because their profitability has changed or the dream wasn't realized. Meanwhile a German company doesn't lay off it's people because it plans to succeed long term and it knows it can't replace it's people, and long term it's more expensive to retrain them.
US employment laws are partially to blame, but most of American industry is a pump and dump...