Abstract
As outlined in Chapter 1, the main feature of the ‘mark of quality’ system is that it is a serious attempt to improve the quality of Soviet industrial production by granting an award to those products which are considered to meet the same requirements as similar advanced products sold by other manufacturers in the world market. The system consequently differs from ‘type standardisation’ which attempts to stabilise the technical level of all factories producing a specific type of item. The ‘mark of quality’ system on the other hand, attempts to create incentives for factories in a leading position in Soviet technology to manufacture products to the highest international levels. These levels may be higher than those specified by the product type standards, and include a detailed assessment of various product parameters, product style, the degree of use of standard and common parts, and methods of manufacture and quality control which it may be too time-consuming to include in a ‘type standard’.
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Notes and References
Lapusta, M. G., Nikitin, P. N., Stimulirovanie povysheniya kachestva produktsii (Moscow: Profitzdat, 1980) p. 23.
Shteingauz, V. G.; ‘Aktual’nye problemy dalneishego sovershenstvovaniya upravleniya kachestvom produktsii’, Izvestiya AN SSSR Seriya Ekonomicheskaya, No. 3, 1983, p. 54.
Lapusta and Nikitin (1980), p. 23.
Shteingauz (1983), p. 54. 87 841 products were made to the highest grade of quality in 1981, and from 9220 factories in 1980.
Lapusta and Nikitin (1980), p. 23.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 104
Ukazate’ gosudarstvennykh standartov, 1982
Ushakov, M. A., Standarty i kachestvo, 1983, No. 12, p. 10.
Tremi, V. G., ‘The Inferior Quality of Soviet Machinery as Reflected in Export Prices’, Journal of Comparative Economics, No. 5, Part 2, (June 1981), pp. 200–21.
The quotation from Tremi cited in this paper draws on the views of V. K. Sitnin and Yu. V. Yakovets (Ekonomicheskyi mekhanizm povysheniya effektivnosti proizvodstva (Moscow: Ekonomika, 1978 p. 152).
Tremi also quotes L. A. Kostin (Proizvodstvo tovarov narodnogo proizvodstva (Moscow: Ekonomika, 1980) p. 86) to the effect that ‘not all products that are awarded the seal of quality are competitive on the world market’.
Lapusta and Nikitin (1980), p. 199.
Shteingauz (1983), p. 55.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ekonomicheskaya gazeta, 1984, No. 14 (April), p. 10.
Ibid.
See Berry, M. J. and Cooper, J. M.; ‘Machine Tools’
and Berry, M. J. and Hill, M. R.; ‘Technological Levels of Machine Tools and Passenger Cars’ in Amann, R., Cooper, J. M., Davies, R. W. (eds), The Technological Level of Soviet Industry (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977) pp. 121–98, 523–63, especially pp. 93, 140–3, 523–30.
See Berliner, J. S., The Innovation Decision in Soviet Industry (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1976) pp. 61–96.
Spechler, M. C.; ‘Decentralizing the Soviet Economy : Legal Regulation of Price and Quality’, Soviet Studies, Vol. 22, No. 2; (1970) pp. 222–54.
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© 1988 Malcolm R. Hill and Richard McKay
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Hill, M.R., McKay, R. (1988). Machine Tool ‘Mark of Quality’ Standards. In: Soviet Product Quality. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09290-1_3
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