Great comments re Deming... I'd been a TQM published 'guru' (articles in ASQC etc) and TQM trainer/team facilitator back in the 80s, when TQM was in vogue.

The best applications of Deming's methods applied I've seen for industry are:

Joiner's Team Handbook (avail on amazon; ideal for workplace use)
Imai's "Kaizen" (I did my master's thesis on it, and used it in industry).


Ken

I believe that PBS did a documentary on Demming a few years back.
JJK

www.deming.org has a lot of the story of his work (and the 14 points), but I like the summary at http://www.mftrou.com/edwards-deming.html better.

[Finally! bbXtra htmlXtra now works for URLs in Firefox. Just select the URL, right-click and select "bbXtra htmlXtra>URL"]

For the avoidance of too much misunderstanding, I'd like to add that it's not that GM doesn't know how to make great cars. They have a lot of great engineers, and they have made many great cars (I was quite happy with the two I owned, one not long ago, you just have to know which ones to buy).

GM's problems are related to not respecting manufacturing, "those unqualified grease monkeys who just put the bits together," and not worrying enough about ultra expensive employee health care and pension obligations, when times were good and they could put SUV bodies on inexpensive truck frames and sell them at luxury sedan prices.

Only their bankruptcy can get rid of these obligations, like the steel industry and parts of the airline industry did before them. Hopefully the employees will stay healthy enough to work, as retirement will not be an option unless they have savings of their own (which is not common, the average U.S. savings rate is -1%).

I just bought my first American vehicle in over 20 years, a Ford F150 truck. But because of the poor dealer support, I'll probably sell it soon and go back to Japanese trucks. I'm due for my first oil change and don't want to bring it into the dealer because of their poor after sales support. That's where American auto makers are losing the battle. IMHO.

busterkeaton 4/6/2007 11:01:21 PM:

>>>"The point of Glenn's list [GlennChan 4/1/2007 11:49:59 PM] was the difficulty of dealing with all the different video formats."
I Understand now. But to how many users do all those formats matter if they are using a normal NTSC camcorder, as surely most Vegas users do? (BTW, video loaded by "firewire" is considered a video format?)

rmack350: 4/7/2007 12:16:20 AM:

>>>"Would [some] customers pay 100 times more for a top tier version?"

Why would a top tier version cost 100X? Once they've engineered the top tier version, it costs no more to duplicate it than the stripped down version. To charge more for it is a holdover mechandising model from the industrial age. You have a sunroof and a bigger engine: of course you have to pay more. Why need we carry over that model to the digital age? People expect if you pay more you must get more? Yes, it's known that some things (e.g. perfume) may sell better THE MORE you charge for them. Are video professionals that stupid?

jaydeeee 4/7/2007 3:22:19 AM:

>>>"Well, says you [that a mechanic is unlikely to use an unfamiliar chest of tools.]"

But says rmack350: 4/7/2007 12:11:38 PM:

>>> "...although Vegas can do a really good job at a lot of things, sometimes you need a specialized tool."

As rmack350 infers, a mechanic would not change tool chests but would learn to use a specialized tool in no-one's toolbox, e.g. to align the steering; or for replacing the shock absorber in a "strut".

jaydeeee (continued):

>>>"Look, vegas is great, but I think parading the 'we're #1' bs is a bit ridiculous...Why the hard sell here anyways?"

I said Vegas is #1 because i think it is. Who am i selling to? I'm preaching to the choir? The time you use learning the intricacies of (e.g.) Premiere (with Adobe's seeming determination to make their programs difficult to use and thus more "impressive" [imho]) you could be getting better with Vegas. I don't think it was a "hard sell": i was just patting myself on the back for making the right decision (like you did).

Come on, jaydeeee: Look out the window. It's April!
Spring has sprung,
The grass is riz,
We got the best NLE there iz!

My 2 cents worth on the completely OT automobile analogy: For decades GM owned the North American car market. They enjoyed virtually perfect inelasticity of demand: they gave the unions whatever they wanted and just added the cost to the cars. It may have been unspoken, never written down, but there was a deal between the big three (or four onetime) that they would all settle for essentially the same contract. But you can't ignore the laws of economics forever: finally the chickens came home to roost: first the Japanese, then the Koreans and the Chinese are coming.

And the documented quality of Japanese cars is orders of magnitude better than those put out by the 'big 3', even with factories by Toyota built in, and manned by, American workers. Because their processes and engineering are far superior to that of the big 3.

If you'd seen the competitive tear-down data (automakers always buy and dissect competitors' cars each year), and the data coming from reliability tests, you'd know that Toyota makes, by a very wide quality margin, the best cars in the business, then Honda, then Nissan, then BMW, then Mercedes, and then the big 3's cars, way down on the quality ratings. This is from actual vehicle testing that's done privately re MBTF and other reliability data.

That's why I've happily driven a Toyota Camry for over 7 years now (and a Nissan 300ZX before that). Zero problems with the Camry.

Other issues are related to resource allocation/UAW pay vs Japanese autoworker pay scales, and how they can afford to put more money into R&D and improvement, than US companies. But it's not the workers' fault, it's always, and always will be, stupid management mistakes from the big 3 and incorrect resourcing, that causes engineering, marketing and marketplace failures.

It's not the workers' fault (that's another Deming principle, that he's right about). I remember seeing Deming in person, back when he was alive, he's a profoundly intelligent man.

Ken

The Japanese cars are quality controlled from start to finish. If they use lets say a 1/4" philips head fastener rated at 30 ftlbs of torque, the fastener is manufactured for 30 ft lbs of torque and tightened at the factory by a calibrated driver at 30 ft lbs of torque. My cousin (the CNC machine supervisor) says the Japanese transmission parts are machined to +-.0005" and will not accept anything out of spec. Our machines have trouble meeting those specs day in and day out, some of it due to incompetance.
JJK

Did a project last year for a the local Jaguars Drivers Club, guest speaker was the ex head of Jaguar, Sir Nick Sheele. Very interesting. He took Jaguar from the second worst manufacturer for customer satisfaction to the best in around 3 years.
Interesting that Ford owns Jaguar and he was a Ford man, now if only he'd been able to do the same thing for the parent company.

Bob.

Right re Jaguar, that's a real success story from an improvement before-after standpoint.

And right re manufacturing quality values, for US manufacturers they're happy if things are "in spec", which causes quality problems due to tolerance stack (eg a slightly-in spec bolt with a slightly in-spec nut with a barely in-spec system, causes system failures due to the cumulative effect of things not at nominal), whereas Japanese manufacturing values are such that, eg with Taguchi/orthogonal arrays and doe usage, anything off target, eg the exact center of spec, is considered progressively more expensive/less fault tolerant ...

so that drives Japanese companies to make sure all manufactured goods are fairly exact, to the center of the spec window, with tiny cpks.

true story: Toyota in the early days sent a transmission to Detroit, as a goodwill gesture, to test out, and the (big 3) manufacturers couldn't believe it, because it was orders of magnitude more silent/powerful/reliable than the same transmission built by their factories... a whole different universe of better quality coming out of Japan.

And since the OPEC crisis of '73 etc led to consumer demand that the Big 3 automakers didn't fill, Toyota came in with the corolla etc and ate the Big 3's lunch. This also opened the gates for consumer electronics (car radios, then walkmans), and the Japanese electronic and automotive dominance ensued... thank goodness.

The Japanese (my wife is Japanese) have much higher standards for quality, and what they expect of themselves and their products, than do sloppy Americans.. (I can say that because I'm American :p). Being married to a woman from Japan (Kobe) has been great, because she doesn't drink, and so neither do I now, after 10 years, and healthy food, so I'm fit, and she does all the housework, never argues, AND most importantly, always encourages me (ganbatte! omedeto!) to do my best, to improve my business work, and to always be ethical, and that's given me a huge competitive advantage long term.

(tip: so go marry a Japanese woman, they're as great as the cars/autos/software/hardware etc... cultural quality, and she's cute http://www.kencalhoun.com/wife.jpg and still looks like that, 10 years later!).. she only complains when I leave my video gear all over the place... usually a very nice person...99.9% of the time, much better quality woman, than the american females I dated/married earlier in life... (ouch I'm gonna get it for that lol)..


ken

A very entertaining thread, but I'm still trying to figure out how a discussion about PremierePro morphed into shop tools, Deming, Toyota, and pretty Japanese wives.

Reminds me of that wonderful TV show "Connections" a few years back by some English fellow where he posits that, say, some guy wakes up with a headache one day and that leads to this which leads to that which eventually leads to man landing on the moon, or whatever.

Well, Sony is a Japanese company, so no wonder Vegas is so reliable!

See, there is the connection right there!

:O)

I trust we can all agree that Vegas is in the Toyota category when it comes to reliability.

Now we're just asking for the "Toyota factory in Madison" to start making a Lexus equivalent with 10-bit video support.

Lexus is just as reliable as Toyota and is made by the same company.

Come on Madison, we know you can do it!