The roots of the current U.S. drive for quality extend back to the 1970s when industries began to feel the effects of foreign competition. Automotive and steel manufacturers, for example, felt those effects during the oil embargo of the late 1970s. After they had waited in lines at gas stations, Americans began to see the value of economy cars. Few small, fuel-efficient cars were available from the Big Three, but many were available from Japanese automakers. As Americans purchased and drove the Japanese cars, they perceived something else—the quality of the Japanese cars was far superior to that of American models.
When the Japanese had captured nearly 20 percent of the U.S. auto market, industry leaders finally began to ask why. Dozens of study missions visited Japanese plants. Participative management, quality control circles, and the use of statistical process control (SPC) were at least part of the answer. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, many American firms began to introduce similar programs, and many of them made an impact on quality and productivity.
If any single event can be said to have accelerated those early efforts, it was the NBC White Paper, “If Japan Can…Why Can’t We?” aired in June, 1980, the 90-minute documentary introduced W. Edwards Deming to American business leaders and the American public. Not well recognized in the U.S. prior to this time, Deming was well known—in fact, revered—in Japan for his work with Japanese managers and industrialists after World War II. This American statistician had introduced the Japanese to the management theories and improvement methods that were responsible for their dramatic gains in productivity and quality. Many American managers, including leaders at Ford Motor Company, heard Deming’s message in the NBC report and wanted to learn more. That single event changed the face and the focus of the U.S. quality drive.
Since 1980, American enterprises representing education, health care, retail, hospitality, government, even entire communities are pursuing total quality transformation. At the national level, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award was established in 1988. Its winners—among them Xerox, Milliken, Motorola, Cadillac, and Federal Express—have been recognized for their achievements in quality, but more important, organizations across the country are using the Baldrige Award criteria s guidelines for self-assessment, guidance, and planning. In the space of a decade, quality improvement has evolved from being a concept confined to factories to on e that encompasses every facet of organizational performance.
