Why ask about tool quality? Here's one reason.

[glenn bradley]

Good post Dave. I'm in a long term savings effort for a new jointer. I always appreciate reading other's experience and opinions. At times the same tool gets as much praise as it does sour grapes. I find instead of being confused by this it just gives me more to think about while making my decision. I'd hate to have to rely on marketing info only, lord help me.

[Mike Henderson]

Perhaps I am a little cynical. Okay, a lot cynical. It's a paradox at this point. As long as consumers value price over quality and investors value short return on investment, we are, with ever increasing speed, painting ourselves into a corner. The wants and needs of consumers and investors are diametrically opposed.

It has been all to easy getting to this point. How we break the cycle is the question that needs to be asked.

I don't think consumers value price over quality but consumers are always looking for the best bargain. That's just how our free market economy works. Back in the late '60s, Japan began exporting steel to the United States that was of better quality at a lower price and they took a significant market share.

The same thing is true of electronic components (semiconductors). We have electronic equipment today that almost never fails, at a price that's way less than the older equipment. Flat screen televisions are falling in price about 30% per year, and they work even better than the earlier models.

The imperative in our market is to sell your product at a lower price than your competitor and increase the quality. Which raises the question, "What is Quality?" Quality is a human assigned attribute that cannot be measured objectively - that is, you cannot have a gallon of quality, or a pound of quality. You can only measure quality by asking people to rate the quality of a product. And, in our market economy, there's only one person whose opinion counts - that's the person who's about to plunk down some money to buy a product. Everyone else can have an opinion about quality, but their opinion does not matter in the marketplace - the only opinion that matters is the person who actually buys the product.

So what is the definition of Quality? Quality is meeting the needs of the customer.

Mike

[mike holden]

Mike, Mike, Mike -
"So what is the definition of Quality? Quality is meeting the needs of the customer."
Bzzzt! Wrong!
Meeting the needs of the customer is the responsibility of the engineer, manufacturing quality is defined as: "parts to specification, consistently"
Why do I say this? Because I am a quality specialist for DaimlerChrysler, and the AIAG (Automotive Industry Action Group - a consortium of the big 3 and others) defines it that way.
We teach and train in methods that will produce consistency and conformance to specifications. That is what is considered quality.
The usual example is the making of concrete life jackets - totally unfit for the intended use, BUT can be made with excellent quality.
The function of the part is directly the responsiblity of the engineer who designed it. In the above example, either the specifications did not specify a lack of voids within the casting, OR the supplier supplied a nonconforming part. With the extreme emphasis on part cost these days, a supplier who omitted an x-ray scan of a batch of parts is not unrealistic.
To be fair this is probably not the end supplier (the one whose name is on the machine) as the tools today are generally a simple design that is shopped around, the variables are usually in the assembly and clean up of the tool prior to shipping. Occasionally there might be a difference in the specs for components, but then there is the difficulty (cost) of keeping similar looking parts separate.
Short answer: We think of quality as fitness for use, Manufacturing thinks of quality as consistent to specifications.

Sorry for the correction, but this IS how manufacturers, both here and abroad, view the term quality.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

I don't think you and I disagree. Manufacturing correctly defines quality as meeting specifications. That's all manufacturing has to go on.

But someone has to establish the specifications (as you point out). Why are you given those specifications? Someone has researched what customers want and has established those specifications. Perhaps reseach has indicated that customers want a car that will go 12,000 miles between oil changes and marketing decides to meet that demand. Engineering will figure out how to make the car go 12,000 miles betweeen oil changes and not fall apart. Those specifications will be sent to manufacturing as part of the "build" for the car.

In the marketplace, not in manufacturing, the definition of quality is determined by the customer laying down his/her money to pay for the product.

You can easily see that with auto models that fail. Manufacturing can build them to specifications (high quality for manufacturing) but if they don't meet the needs of the customer, the product fails in the market (poor quality as seen by the customer). You can sort of think of it as meeting the specifications of the customer (and often, it's very difficult to figure out, in advance, what those specifications will be at the time of sale - say you have a oil shock just before the car goes on sale - the customer's specifications suddenly change).

Quality is a human determined attribute - you can only measure it (in the marketplace) by asking people to subjectivly judge the quality of a product. And the only judge that counts (in the marketplace) is the person who's ready to buy the product or one by a competitor. The buyer will buy the one that best meets his/her needs.

And just as an aside, two dimensions of quality that people often ignore are (1) getting the product to market rapidly (before someone else does) and (2) the selling price compared to the competition (for the same features/functions).

Mike

[added note] Since quality is a human determined attribute, you can define it any way you want. The advantage of defining it as "Meeting the needs of the customer" is that it focuses everyone on the most important thing in a company - selling the product.

Example: Suppose you had a car that went five years between oil changes and absolutely, positively would not require any repairs for 300,000 miles. You might think that's a high quality car. But if the car costs $1,000,000 it probalby won't sell many units and will be a terrible financial loser. The most useful definition of Quality is one that leads to success in the marketplace - meeting the needs of the customer.

[Bob Marino]

I don't think you and I disagree. Manufacturing correctly defines quality as meeting specifications. That's all manufacturing has to go on.

But someone has to establish the specifications (as you point out). Why are you given those specifications? Someone has researched what customers want and has established those specifications. Perhaps reseach has indicated that customers want a car that will go 12,000 miles between oil changes and marketing decides to meet that demand. Engineering will figure out how to make the car go 12,000 miles betweeen oil changes and not fall apart. Those specifications will be sent to manufacturing as part of the "build" for the car.

In the marketplace, not in manufacturing, the definition of quality is determined by the customer laying down his/her money to pay for the product.

You can easily see that with auto models that fail. Manufacturing can build them to specifications (high quality for manufacturing) but if they don't meet the needs of the customer, the product fails in the market (poor quality as seen by the customer). You can sort of think of it as meeting the specifications of the customer (and often, it's very difficult to figure out, in advance, what those specifications will be at the time of sale - say you have a oil shock just before the car goes on sale - the customer's specifications suddenly change).

Quality is a human determined attribute - you can only measure it (in the marketplace) by asking people to subjectivly judge the quality of a product. And the only judge that counts (in the marketplace) is the person who's ready to buy the product or one by a competitor. The buyer will buy the one that best meets his/her needs.

And just as an aside, two dimensions of quality that people often ignore are (1) getting the product to market rapidly (before someone else does) and (2) the selling price compared to the competition (for the same features/functions).

Mike

[added note] Since quality is a human determined attribute, you can define it any way you want. The advantage of defining it as "Meeting the needs of the customer" is that it focuses everyone on the most important thing in a company - selling the product.

Example: Suppose you had a car that went five years between oil changes and absolutely, positively would not require any repairs for 300,000 miles. You might think that's a high quality car. But if the car costs $1,000,000 it probalby won't sell many units and will be a terrible financial loser. The most useful definition of Quality is one that leads to success in the marketplace - meeting the needs of the customer.

Mike, I think I would agree with you if you substituuute the word VALUE for the word QUALITY. In your above example, the quality is quite high, but the customer senses that the value (cost/benfit/pleasure) for him is not worth the price.

Bob

[Chuck Lenz]

I think of quality in how it's built, not what demand is from the general public. It's like compareing Craftsman to Festool. What may work for the general public may not work for the professional.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, I think I would agree with you if you substituuute the word VALUE for the word QUALITY. In your above example, the quality is quite high, but the customer senses that the value (cost/benfit/pleasure) for him is not worth the price.

Bob

Bob - Both "Value" and "Quality" are human determined attributes. The question of "Quality" raised it's head big time when Japanese car companies became so successful in the United States because they built a better "Quality" car. The problem was to understand what that meant - what made a better "Quality" car. The manufacturing people said "We build high quality cars. Look at our record. We meet all the specifications." But that didn't sell cars. The customer didn't care if the car met specifications or not. The customer had a list of requirements, one of which was that the car not have many "problems" during the ownership period (and there were many other requirements).

I believe that most manufacturers came to realize that customers had a "vision" of what a Quality car was and the only way they could be viewed as making a quality car is to find out what customers wanted and try to satisfy those needs better than any other company.

Since those early days, Quality has come to mean a lot more than "few repairs". Today, it means features - safety features and especially electronic features (like a navigation system, Bluetooth, DVD player, etc.).

We could segment the definitions and say that Quality only applies to the service record of the car (or other product) and that value applies to the features/price function. But we then run into problems like the safety features: Does a car that has a full complement of safety features offer high quality, or high value? I think most companies would say that Value is one of the dimensions of Quality.

Mike

[added note] Some companies define Quality as "exceeding the customer's expectation".

[Bob Marino]

Bob - Both "Value" and "Quality" are human determined attributes. The question of "Quality" raised it's head big time when Japanese car companies became so successful in the United States because they built a better "Quality" car. The problem was to understand what that meant - what made a better "Quality" car. The manufacturing people said "We build high quality cars. Look at our record. We meet all the specifications." But that didn't sell cars. The customer didn't care if the car met specifications or not. The customer had a list of requirements, one of which was that the car not have many "problems" during the ownership period (and there were many other requirements).

I believe that most manufacturers came to realize that customers had a "vision" of what a Quality car was and the only way they could be viewed as making a quality car is to find out what customers wanted and try to satisfy those needs better than any other company.

Since those early days, Quality has come to mean a lot more than "few repairs". Today, it means features - safety features and especially electronic features (like a navigation system, Bluetooth, DVD player, etc.).

We could segment the definitions and say that Quality only applies to the service record of the car (or other product) and that value applies to the features/price function. But we then run into problems like the safety features: Does a car that has a full complement of safety features offer high quality, or high value? I think most companies would say that Value is one of the dimensions of Quality.

Mike

[added note] Some companies define Quality as "exceeding the customer's expectation".

Mike,

I would respectfully disagree with you. I think the American auto makers were not offering high quality cars at that time. Maybe they did build a car to good specs, but what good is that if the car needed to be in the shop to maintain those specs? American auto manufactures really started to lose market share to the Japanese auto makers right after the first gas/oil problem in the late 70's. They offered better mileage and I think later many here thought that they offered a higher qualty (better built/fewer repairs) not neccasarily more features.
I just don't think quality alway relates to sales.

Bob

[Gary Keedwell]

I always read Consumer Reports before I buy anything. They have an excellent chart that tracks a Make and Model for about 6 or 7 years. They rate by the different systems and integrity of the model , like electrical, brakes etc. In the 80's the american cars all scored in the black (bad) while Japenese cars all rated in the red (good).
American cars were slow to improve but now are seeing alot of red in their ratings. Since they were so slow to improve, they lost alot of loyal customers who were stung with lemons back in the 70's and 80's.
In 1974 I was one of the first on my block to buy a Toyota. (gas crisis) I went out back and talked to the mechanic who was servicing my car and asked him how he liked Toyotas. He said he worked for years on American cars but had recently started to work for this Toyota dealer. He said the biggest difference he saw was that an American car would have a problem (faulty part for an example) and would be slow to fix it or would not fix it. The problem stay from one year to the next to the next etc.
He said if Toyota had a problem it would be fixed right away. Now that was in 1974. I would say that Detroit got to the point that they didn't care (apathy) or there was too much bureaucracy to do anything.
Sorry for the rambling, but being stuck on the side of the road in a new vehicle still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Gary K.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

I would respectfully disagree with you. I think the American auto makers were not offering high quality cars at that time. Maybe they did build a car to good specs, but what good is that if the car needed to be in the shop to maintain those specs? American auto manufactures really started to lose market share to the Japanese auto makers right after the first gas/oil problem in the late 70's. They offered better mileage and I think later many here thought that they offered a higher qualty (better built/fewer repairs) not neccasarily more features.
I just don't think quality alway relates to sales.

Bob

I understand your point. What we're discussing is the meaning of words, and different people will offer different opinions. The definition I offered is strictly pragmatic. That is, "What is Quality?", "How do you measure it?", and "What use is it?"

We can define quality as not needing repairs, but what use is that definition to a business person if it doesn't help sell products? So companies I were involved with started with "How can I increase sales and profitability through quality?" This leads to a lot of dicusussion, mostly about "Why do people buy a product?" The answers to that question got wrapped up under the idea of building quality products - a product which best fit the needs of the customer, at a price the customer is willing to pay.

There is segmentation in the market. Some people will want a "high end" product at a high price, while others will want a product with less features and functions at a lower price. Under my definition, both products can possess "quality".

I realize that my definition is arbitary, but if you're going to use quality in selling a product, you have to define it first so that you can measure it. When you look at it closely, it turns out to be hard to define in a useful way - at least it was for me.

Mike

[Jack Briggs]

Dave,

I had that very same part break on my 18 yr. old "Total Shop" import. Fortunately all the Taiwanese machines use some same parts, so I found one at Grizzly's online site in a parts list for same size saw of theirs, ordered it online ($5) and had it in 2 days. A couple hours later I was back in business!

It sure was a scare though to have my 3/4" resaw blade jump off of the wheel an into the cover when it broke! Fortunately I wasn't feeding an African Blackwood log into it at that moment!!

[Greg Peterson]

Mike, quality is a moving target, and as you stated, means different things to different market segments.

In terms of tools, there exists several market segments. A professional tradesmen will have an entirely different definition of quality than a hobbyist. And then you have everyone in between.

The larger point I was attempting to make is that consumers and investors have polar opposite needs.

Certainly the examples you listed where sheer economy of scale result in lower cost and higher performance. But that model seems to apply to industry where markets are growing. When it comes to established and mature markets and products, consumers demand a high return on their investment. They want to pay a certain price for a pair of shoes and expect those shoes to deliver adequate or better fit, comfort, performance and longevity. Manufacturers can only go so far in streamlining manufacturing processes, thus reducing cost.

And, manufacturers are competing in two markets. Consumer and investor markets.

This whole argument of course ignores the rapidly changing manufacturing paradigm taking place in China, where entire cities exist solely to manufacture socks or shoes or widgets and so on.

In the meanwhile, the surest way to remain competitive in the retail and investment market is to cut expenses. The easiest and most expedient way currently is to cut jobs, shut down domestic operations and move offshore where operating expenses are a fraction of domestic expenses.

We all recognize this paradox. The persons that find a solution to this unsustainable economic model will be this century's Rockefeller.

In the meanwhile, as a hobbyist, I have to decide which tool will deliver the best value (quality) for my investment. Do I put a higher premium on the objective quality of a tool (Baldor motor versus a no-name off shore motor for instance) or do I have a greater value for the features?

There are many perspectives and you bring up valid points. Ultimately, each of us is the final arbiter of quality.

[Scott Crumpton]

Sometime back I became aware of a paper by George Akerlof titled "The Market for Lemons". Here's the Wikipidia page. I think this explains a lot of the quality problems we are seeing in the marketplace. It also reinforces the need for objective product reviews and user experience reporting in order to actually spot the quality items.

---Scott.

[Greg Peterson]

Discouraging at best.

One could argue that the marketplace isn't as free as it could or should be.

The economic market we live in is theoretically free flowing and the best product at the best price always wins. This assumes that the market isn't manipulated by mans tendency towards greed. Monopoly's are simply the manifestation of greed. We've seen it before, doubtless we are seeing now and more to come in the future.

[Jules Dominguez]

Greg and Dave, to both of you: very well said!