Until the late 1970’s the United States enjoyed a strong industrial advantage over the rest of the world. During World War II the U.S. industrial machine had cranked up to turn out thousands of vehicles and weapons for use during the war. After the war a baby boom fueled demand for durables such as washing machines, refrigerators, and the like. No other country possessed the manufacturing capability and engineering know how to provide the goods desired in the quantities that were needed. During that time quality took a back seat to quantity. A certain level of defects was deemed not only acceptable, but inevitable.
In the 1950’s and 60’s the Japanese began to export toys, cars, and other goods to the U.S. The goods suffered from poor quality both in workmanship and materials. The label “Made in Japan” was synonymous with poor quality. What we didn’t know was that the Japanese had a secret weapon.
During the late 70’s and early 80’s the U.S. Auto Industry became the earliest “victims” of Japan’s secret weapon. Seemingly overnight the situation flip-flopped. Japanese autos were suddenly viewed as high quality, low cost, fuel efficient machines while U.S. autos became known as gas guzzling high cost hogs with low quality of construction.
American industry quickly saw the writing on the wall and began trying to determine what had allowed the Japanese to create such a drastic change in manufacturing quality. Teams of people were sent to see how cars were built, what quality systems were in place, and what could be done to bring U.S. practice in line with Japanese practice. Suddenly we were bombarded with all sorts of quality initiatives. Circles of Quality, TQM, TPM, Kaizen, Customer/Supplier Relationships within a company. Zero Defects was the name of the game. All of these programs include the concept of continuous improvement through reduction in variation and employee empowerment.
In the 1990’s Six-Sigma became popular because of General Electrics success with the methodology. It is another form of continuous improvement that centers on reducing process variation. It even goes so far as to award “Belts” similar to those used in Karate and Judo to the folks who have been trained to various levels of expertise..
Return On Asset Reliability (ROAR™), is derived from the common asset investment metrics return on capital and return on assets. ROAR™ identifies investment potential from a company’s current capital expenditure budget and utilizes proprietary benchmark data to produce a realistic return on investment opportunity.
