Abstract
Past efforts to understand why Japanese Corporations deliver products with superior appeal to customers have often tocused on the symptoms of what manufacturing delivers rather than the upstream Engineering Design fundamentals that determine what manufacturing can deliver. Detailed comparisons of Japanese and U.S. processes and practices utilizing Competitive Benchmarking concepts and techniques created by Xerox in the early 1980’s [1,2] identify Engineering Design as a major competitive factor. In this article, these Competitive Benchmarkinq processes are used to demonstrate that Engineering Design process capability is the “missing link” in efforts to achieve world class competitiveness in mechanically intense systems found in most home, office, military, aerospace and factory products. Competitive benchmarking is also used to identify Quality and Engineering Design practices that need to be implemented to improve U.S. competitiveness.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Jacobson, G. and Hillkirk, J., Xerox American Samurai MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986.
Camp, R. C., “Benchmarking: The Search for the Best Practices that Lead to Superior Performance”, a series in Quality Progress 1989.
Bebb, H. B., National Academy of Engineering article based on my presentation within the forum “Responding to the Competitive Challenge, the Technological Dimension”, published in The Bridge, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring 1988, pp. 4–6.
Sullivan, L. P., “Quality Function Deployment”, Quality Progess June 1986, p. 39.
Abegglin, J. C. and Stalk, G., Kaisha, The Japanese Corporation: Basic Book Inc., 1985.
Taguchi, G., Introduction to Quality Engineering, Designing Quality into Products and Processes, Asian Productivity Organization, 1986 and System Experimental Design, Engineering Methods to Optimize Quality and Minimize Cost, UNIPUB/Krauss International Publications, 1987.
Jansson, D. G., and Smith, S. M., “Design Fixation”, Preprints, 1989 NSF Engineering Design Research Conference College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, June 11–14, 1989, pp. 53–79.
Reklaitis, G. V., Ravindran, A., and Ragsdell, K. M., Engineering Optimization Methods and Application John Wiley and Sons, 1983.
Gomory, R. E., and Schmitt, R. W., “Science and Product”, Science 240, May, 1988, pp. 1131–32, 1203–04.
Dieter, G. E., Engineering Design, A Materials and Processing Approach, McGraw Hill, 1983.
Boothroyd, G., Poli, L. and Murch, L. E., Automatic Assembly Marcel Decker, New York, 1982.
Hauser, J. R. and Clausing, D. P., “The House of Quality”, Harvard Business Review Vol. 66, No. 33, May-June 1988, pp. 63–73.
Cohen, L., “Quality Function Deployment: An Application Perspective from Digital Equipment Corporation”, National Productivity Review, Summer 1988.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bebb, H.B. (1991). Quality Design Engineering: The Missing Link in U.S. Competitiveness. In: Dwivedi, S.N., Verma, A.K., Sneckenberger, J.E. (eds) CAD/CAM Robotics and Factories of the Future ’90. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-84338-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-84338-9_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-84340-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-84338-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive