Prescriptions for a Service Quality Revolution in America - Essay Example

The level of dominance soon was challenged by many developing nations around the world as they began to industrialize and had the potential capacity to produce goods at a lower price than the United States. The lower price in and of itself was not a key concern. However, the ability of nations such as Japan to produce items of increased quality caused much alarm within the United States.

Experts within the United States, after viewing Japan’s structure and industrialization, as well as an improvement upon its products, began to warn those within the United States that in less a fundamental reintegration with quality management was performed, the Japanese, and perhaps many others throughout the world, would be able to gain a competitive advantage against the United States. Individuals such as W. Edward Deming raised the alarm among American producers and industrialists about the fact that American goods would surely come to be represented as second rate unless core changes were made concerning the manner through which quality control was understood and engaged. Pointing to the fact that managers and business leaders alike had categorically misunderstood or outright ignored this aspect of business improvement, tuning, as well as others, were able to reengage those within industry and production with the need to radically alter the manner through which quality control was directed and evolved.

Unfortunately, rather than heeding the advice of individuals such as bending, industrialists and manufacturers within the United States continued to believe that Japan’s total competitive advantage was predicated upon price alone. As such, the United States' response to this was to attempt to cut prices as a means of matching Japan’s level of success. As can be noted, the strategy was an abysmal failure as quality control diminished even further in this failed attempt to cut costs (Berry and Parasuraman 7). Ultimately, the situation became so bad that manufacturers within the United States began to realize that further and further market share was slipping away outside the country as a result of their abysmal reputation for quality performance. Further, legislation within Washington was directed at attempting to force manufacturing into a level of revision so that these issues could no longer play the system as a whole.

Yet, American infrastructure and production were salvaged as a new approach and integration came to be appreciated concerning quality control. Even a cursory review of the auto industry reveals the fact that the United States definitively trailed behind Japan, and some argue still does, concerning the quality of its automobiles in the 1980s. However, beginning in the early 1990s, quality management was something that the big three automakers decided was of such great importance that they could not afford to lose out on this competition any further. As such, the tangential increase in the quality of American products that can be witnessed from the mid-1990s up until the present time helps to allow the United States to reengage quality management and promote its goods worldwide. Read More