Reply #42: Yes, I marvel at how they approached quality control. They taught us some good lessons. [View All]

They built in quality checks into every spot of the production line, completely integrating it into the production process. It becomes apart of the whole process. Not only that, they designed the production line in such a way as to maximize the sense of accomplishment workers feel when they complete a product or task. This provides an internal motivator for each worker to want to ensure that the tasks and products they make with their hands and tools are made to standards with which make them proud.

Management in the US, for the last 150 years has held the exact opposite attitude: It's about reducing work down to repetitive, boring, and ultimately disempowering jobs. It is about maximizing the number of units produced rather than maximizing the quality of the products produced. We can make good products; it's just that management often is in the way. This is culturally ingrained in our society. We're a very individualistic society, which probably influenced how management in the US evolved into the current state it finds itself in today. Japanese management evolved in a different cultural environment, much more collectivist in nature.