Toyota

This past December I finished an eight part article that is being published on the website "Sustainable Success Alert'. I wrote this for a friend and the first part is now available for review. The title is "Quality is Common Sense". In part eight I addressed that the American automobile industry had committed suicide long before the bail outs. This also included Ford. I also noted that the Japanese were trained during reconstruction that automobile buyers were interested in a vehicle that was reliable and defect free. Using this common sense they designed their products to include customer satisfaction instead of customer service. They also decided to build their plants away from the unionized waste practiced in States with closed shops. Sounds pretty simple and it was. They captured a lions share of the market over the past 59 years.

Then Toyoto apparently forgot that quality of design was important. They went to sleep at the top after gaining stature as the largest in the world. They had now regressed to the level that the Americans used to commit hari kari a long time ago.

In my 58 years of work in Quality I have watched this cycle repeat itself over and over and over. Consumers of any product or service are not happy that they can get great service when they buy something. Taking defective things back over and over to get it fixed or replaced or sitting in dealers waiting rooms is not what they desired when they bought whatever it was. They want to be satisfied when they buy it. I feel sorry for the other Japanese manufacturers as they will all be attacked by the Americans trying to stir up the people about buy American. I own two Honda's and they certainly understand the difference between customer service and customer satisfaction. We have bought three Honda's in the past three years and none have ever had to be returned for a defect, recall or a defective anything. That my friends is "Customer Satisfaction". I drove GM and Ford products for over 60 years and never owned one that did not have to be taken back for defective problems and several many many times.

Why is Common Sense so hard for leadership to understand, like our President and Congress they ignore the fact that God gave us two ears and one mouth. We are designed to listen to twice as much as we are expected to say.