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> I felt that is why they always have high reliability cars and stuff. It's because of William Edward Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming ht

> I felt that is why they always have high reliability cars and stuff. It's because of William Edward Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming. After WWII Deming was trying to get quality control using statistic to American Automakers. They didn't like it so he left for Japan. This is at least the story I've heard from my professors in quality control and statistic. The wikipedia is different in term of he started in Japan first and later on Ford hire him in the 1980s.

lanevorockz 7y ago
Japan always had a culture of excellence, they put their heart and soul into their jobs. They also don’t see any job as irrelevant or secondary class. That’s why even executives will clean up their desks and offices, something Americans wouldn’t even know how to start. Deming might have introduced electronics but the quality was always about the religious way they tackle their jobs.
- segmondy 7y ago
  This. A good book on this is "We were burning" Japanese were able to make chips with less defects simply because they were more clean and careful. Folks didn't even realize that specks of dust could ruin chip manufacturing. It was the observance that cleanliness leads to high yields that because the origin of clean room.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  > Japan always had a culture of excellence, they put their heart and soul into their jobs. Hello No. What you see is only what is happening in very few industries in Japan, but "excellence" does not describe Japan at large. Worker productivity is incredibly low (too many meetings with people who have nothing to do there), lack of individual leadership/initiative, and "cluelessness" is rather the norm than anything else. Just look at how badly designed are most websites, how badly designed are most products made locally (cars and a few other industries are an exception) and how they only value small increments instead of trying completely new approaches (they could never have made the iPhone despite them having all the pieces ready 10 years before). > always No, after WII for a long time Americans considered Japanese products as being cheap rip-offs of what they produced themselves and that only changed after 1970s. > excellence How about their excellence at using English, by the way? Their attention to detail when it comes to using other languages? I hope you realize how wrong it is to make blanket statements.
  - coolandsmartrr 7y ago
    I can relate to this so much, it almost hurts. In a macabre twist, the perfectionism is still alive in the work of doing nothing, such as in the way people make meticulously outlined Powerpoints for inconsequential meetings. > How about their excellence at using English, by the way? English is probably not considered Japanese, so it doesn't matter too much in the ethos of Japanese perfectionism. Still, non-native speakers in Japan are reluctant from using English as it makes they can not speak perfectly. I'm sorry if I sound too sarcastic for HN commenting standards.
    - codr7 7y ago
      So I've been saying. Everything is a tea-ceremony, like watching paint dry. Take Iaido, where they spend a lifetime visualizing the perfect cut; and compare it to western fencing. Tongue in cheek, there's a certain beauty and peacefulness to it as well.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    Excellence at what they are instructed to do. The heart and soul part seems bang on to me, they just happen to have rather imperfect leadership, I would say due to how radical change/ideas are discouraged in their culture.
  - flippinburgers 7y ago
    Please enlighten us about badly designed things made locally.
    - h1d 7y ago
      Please also add your experience related to Japan.
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      Do you want pictures?
      - 7y ago
- stjohnswarts 7y ago
  "Something Americans wouldn't even know about", thanks for stereotyping 330 million people.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Before the 80s (?) Japanese products were considered second rate. There was even a scene about it in Back To The Future 3 https://youtu.be/c1QcjsjjtRc https://youtu.be/c1QcjsjjtRc
  - h1d 7y ago
    Yet they had bullet train quite before that.
    - washadjeffmad 7y ago
      Not their biggest export, though, was it? Japanese goods also littered the low end prior to Taiwan, Mexico, Korea, and China. When they moved away from manufacturing, many of the companies that built their reputations with sophistication and quality licensed their brands to any third party who'd pay to slap on their ersatz and second rate products. Capability isn't uniform.
- Razengan 7y ago
  > That’s why even executives will clean up their desks and offices, something Americans wouldn’t even know how to start. They're taught to do that since school, where students clean their own classrooms. Even in the Olympics and World Cup etc., Japanese fans clean up after themselves, and other nations seem so impressed by that that it often comes up in the news: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/8sck9f/japanese_fans_clean_up_stadium_after_their_win_vs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/8sck9f/japanese_fan... Consider Tokyo, you'd think that a city with one of the highest and most dense metropolitan populations would generally be filthy and unhygienic, yet it's one of the cleanest.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    > yet it's one of the cleanest. It's because a lot of people's jobs is to clean. Look at how many folks clean up toilets in Tokyo, at certain places it's every 30 minutes. There is no country in the world where things would stay clean without high frequency of cleaning, because statistically you only need one person out of a hundred or even less to make something dirty very very fast. And Japanese cleanliness is true only when it comes to stuff at their door. How many times did I visit a beach where Japanese people who had a BBQ left all their garbage behind. On how many bottles and disposable bento boxes did I walk on after a large firework in summer. In the mountains there are whole areas when you hike where all you see is garbage, because people throw stuff in nature without any regard for what it becomes. yeah, how clean!
    - Razengan 7y ago
      The lengths some people will go to to put a negative spin on something positive is amazing.
      - johnisgood 7y ago
        The lengths some people will go to to put a positive spin on something negative is amazing.
        7y ago
- b0rsuk 7y ago
  I think it's not excellence, but perfectionism. And different nations, broadly speaking, have different notion of "perfect". I read it in an article somewhere and can't remember the source, but: For Americans, something is perfect if it's the best. For Koreans, something is perfect if it's new. For the Japanese, something is perfect if it has no flaws. And it isn't a huge stretch to say for the Polish, something is perfect if it's inexpensive. Anyway, speaking of the Japanese, an abacus might be seen as perfect if it's a perfectly crafted abacus. They might even be very proficient at using it (A pop science book I read mentions competitions between Americans armed with first electronic calculators, and a Japanese master abacus user, and the abacus user won). The rather extreme example is not to say the Japanese are backwards, but for illustration purposes. They may not always have the same priorities. It doesn't matter much you have superior ways of working with wood and paper if your towns regularly burn down and you have to settle on very, very wide streets to limit damage.
patio11 7y ago
This is widely acknowledged as being one of the key intellectual antecedents of the Toyota Production System and various similar systems in Japan. My flippant but not terribly controversial phrasing for it: Japan’s economic prominence was based on a 50 year de facto worldwide monopoly on applied mathematics.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > Japan’s economic prominence was based on a 50 year de facto worldwide monopoly on applied mathematics. I remember this very comment from many years ago, but I've always wondered what it meant. Could you possibly flesh it out? As an aside, I met you at an HN meetup 7 or so years ago in Tokyo, how time flies. Hope all is well.
  - anthony_doan 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Honors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Honors Maybe he meant this. Deming was awarded Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class for: The citation on the medal recognizes Deming's contributions to Japan's industrial rebirth and its worldwide success. He literally got Japan into scientific quality control using statistic. It's also something that six-sigma came out of (see: https://qz.com/work/1635960/whatever-happened-to-six-sigma/ https://qz.com/work/1635960/whatever-happened-to-six-sigma/).
- sitkack 7y ago
  Not exactly, they build quality into the process, in America we use effort and muscle. I don’t think you need mathematics to have designed in quality. It helps, but isn’t necessary.
marcosdumay 7y ago
Yes, that's a textbook Daming's phrase, that quality is about variance, to the hell with specifications, and you must be able and willing to measure it yourself, because it should be on every step. I don't remember exactly his biography, but I remember he was mildly respected at the US, and that's why Japan called him. There he made his name, so when he returned, he was the most respected thinker of his area.
zhte415 7y ago
I agree with that assessment of your professors, but wouldn't say "they didn't like it" but "they didn't feel they needed it / perhaps didn't care". I'd also add in some Deming here, his "lesser category of obstacles" which I'd prefer to call "terminal illnesses of megacorps" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Seven_Deadly_Diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Seven_Deadly... - listed after Seven Deadly Diseases.

lanevorockz 7y ago

Japan always had a culture of excellence, they put their heart and soul into their jobs. They also don’t see any job as irrelevant or secondary class. That’s why even executives will clean up their desks and offices, something Americans wouldn’t even know how to start. Deming might have introduced electronics but the quality was always about the religious way they tackle their jobs.

segmondy 7y ago
This. A good book on this is "We were burning" Japanese were able to make chips with less defects simply because they were more clean and careful. Folks didn't even realize that specks of dust could ruin chip manufacturing. It was the observance that cleanliness leads to high yields that because the origin of clean room.
ekianjo 7y ago
> Japan always had a culture of excellence, they put their heart and soul into their jobs. Hello No. What you see is only what is happening in very few industries in Japan, but "excellence" does not describe Japan at large. Worker productivity is incredibly low (too many meetings with people who have nothing to do there), lack of individual leadership/initiative, and "cluelessness" is rather the norm than anything else. Just look at how badly designed are most websites, how badly designed are most products made locally (cars and a few other industries are an exception) and how they only value small increments instead of trying completely new approaches (they could never have made the iPhone despite them having all the pieces ready 10 years before). > always No, after WII for a long time Americans considered Japanese products as being cheap rip-offs of what they produced themselves and that only changed after 1970s. > excellence How about their excellence at using English, by the way? Their attention to detail when it comes to using other languages? I hope you realize how wrong it is to make blanket statements.
- coolandsmartrr 7y ago
  I can relate to this so much, it almost hurts. In a macabre twist, the perfectionism is still alive in the work of doing nothing, such as in the way people make meticulously outlined Powerpoints for inconsequential meetings. > How about their excellence at using English, by the way? English is probably not considered Japanese, so it doesn't matter too much in the ethos of Japanese perfectionism. Still, non-native speakers in Japan are reluctant from using English as it makes they can not speak perfectly. I'm sorry if I sound too sarcastic for HN commenting standards.
  - codr7 7y ago
    So I've been saying. Everything is a tea-ceremony, like watching paint dry. Take Iaido, where they spend a lifetime visualizing the perfect cut; and compare it to western fencing. Tongue in cheek, there's a certain beauty and peacefulness to it as well.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Excellence at what they are instructed to do. The heart and soul part seems bang on to me, they just happen to have rather imperfect leadership, I would say due to how radical change/ideas are discouraged in their culture.
- flippinburgers 7y ago
  Please enlighten us about badly designed things made locally.
  - h1d 7y ago
    Please also add your experience related to Japan.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Do you want pictures?
    - 7y ago
stjohnswarts 7y ago
"Something Americans wouldn't even know about", thanks for stereotyping 330 million people.
scarface74 7y ago
Before the 80s (?) Japanese products were considered second rate. There was even a scene about it in Back To The Future 3 https://youtu.be/c1QcjsjjtRc https://youtu.be/c1QcjsjjtRc
- h1d 7y ago
  Yet they had bullet train quite before that.
  - washadjeffmad 7y ago
    Not their biggest export, though, was it? Japanese goods also littered the low end prior to Taiwan, Mexico, Korea, and China. When they moved away from manufacturing, many of the companies that built their reputations with sophistication and quality licensed their brands to any third party who'd pay to slap on their ersatz and second rate products. Capability isn't uniform.
Razengan 7y ago
> That’s why even executives will clean up their desks and offices, something Americans wouldn’t even know how to start. They're taught to do that since school, where students clean their own classrooms. Even in the Olympics and World Cup etc., Japanese fans clean up after themselves, and other nations seem so impressed by that that it often comes up in the news: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/8sck9f/japanese_fans_clean_up_stadium_after_their_win_vs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/8sck9f/japanese_fan... Consider Tokyo, you'd think that a city with one of the highest and most dense metropolitan populations would generally be filthy and unhygienic, yet it's one of the cleanest.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  > yet it's one of the cleanest. It's because a lot of people's jobs is to clean. Look at how many folks clean up toilets in Tokyo, at certain places it's every 30 minutes. There is no country in the world where things would stay clean without high frequency of cleaning, because statistically you only need one person out of a hundred or even less to make something dirty very very fast. And Japanese cleanliness is true only when it comes to stuff at their door. How many times did I visit a beach where Japanese people who had a BBQ left all their garbage behind. On how many bottles and disposable bento boxes did I walk on after a large firework in summer. In the mountains there are whole areas when you hike where all you see is garbage, because people throw stuff in nature without any regard for what it becomes. yeah, how clean!
  - Razengan 7y ago
    The lengths some people will go to to put a negative spin on something positive is amazing.
    - johnisgood 7y ago
      The lengths some people will go to to put a positive spin on something negative is amazing.
      - 7y ago
b0rsuk 7y ago
I think it's not excellence, but perfectionism. And different nations, broadly speaking, have different notion of "perfect". I read it in an article somewhere and can't remember the source, but: For Americans, something is perfect if it's the best. For Koreans, something is perfect if it's new. For the Japanese, something is perfect if it has no flaws. And it isn't a huge stretch to say for the Polish, something is perfect if it's inexpensive. Anyway, speaking of the Japanese, an abacus might be seen as perfect if it's a perfectly crafted abacus. They might even be very proficient at using it (A pop science book I read mentions competitions between Americans armed with first electronic calculators, and a Japanese master abacus user, and the abacus user won). The rather extreme example is not to say the Japanese are backwards, but for illustration purposes. They may not always have the same priorities. It doesn't matter much you have superior ways of working with wood and paper if your towns regularly burn down and you have to settle on very, very wide streets to limit damage.

patio11 7y ago

This is widely acknowledged as being one of the key intellectual antecedents of the Toyota Production System and various similar systems in Japan. My flippant but not terribly controversial phrasing for it: Japan’s economic prominence was based on a 50 year de facto worldwide monopoly on applied mathematics.

mistermann 7y ago
> Japan’s economic prominence was based on a 50 year de facto worldwide monopoly on applied mathematics. I remember this very comment from many years ago, but I've always wondered what it meant. Could you possibly flesh it out? As an aside, I met you at an HN meetup 7 or so years ago in Tokyo, how time flies. Hope all is well.
- anthony_doan 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Honors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Honors Maybe he meant this. Deming was awarded Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class for: The citation on the medal recognizes Deming's contributions to Japan's industrial rebirth and its worldwide success. He literally got Japan into scientific quality control using statistic. It's also something that six-sigma came out of (see: https://qz.com/work/1635960/whatever-happened-to-six-sigma/ https://qz.com/work/1635960/whatever-happened-to-six-sigma/).
sitkack 7y ago
Not exactly, they build quality into the process, in America we use effort and muscle. I don’t think you need mathematics to have designed in quality. It helps, but isn’t necessary.

marcosdumay 7y ago

Yes, that's a textbook Daming's phrase, that quality is about variance, to the hell with specifications, and you must be able and willing to measure it yourself, because it should be on every step. I don't remember exactly his biography, but I remember he was mildly respected at the US, and that's why Japan called him. There he made his name, so when he returned, he was the most respected thinker of his area.

zhte415 7y ago

I agree with that assessment of your professors, but wouldn't say "they didn't like it" but "they didn't feel they needed it / perhaps didn't care". I'd also add in some Deming here, his "lesser category of obstacles" which I'd prefer to call "terminal illnesses of megacorps" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Seven_Deadly_Diseases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Seven_Deadly... - listed after Seven Deadly Diseases.