Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]From: Bernard <5521.g23@g23.relcom.ru> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 1999 20:37 Subject: Re: [Leica] Consistent underexposure problem > In many countries you can't even get people to work > harder for better pay. I recall a story about QA told by Akio Morita in a book he wrote some years ago. It seems that Sony was having trouble getting American plants to manufacture television sets to the same tolerances as their Japanese planets. Upon investigation, they discovered that Japanese workers would always try very hard to get components to exactly the nominal value, irrespective of the allowed tolerance, whereas Americans would stop as soon as the component was within the tolerance range. The net result was poorer quality for the American TV sets. Since it was unlikely that Americans could be persuaded to work harder out of mere conscience, the solution was to specify extremely tight tolerances for the American plants, thereby forcing them to squeak upwards towards the quality of Japanese TV sets. Judging from what I've seen, Sony's UK plants have the same problem. Their UK sets are not as tight on fit and finish as their Japanese sets. So culture does make a difference. -- Anthony