With the threat of a trade war between China and the United States looming, business relations between Asia and the West have not been this hot a topic since the Japanese Economic Mir

In part one of this article, we discussed the origins of the United States and China, and how their relationship began to emerge.

In part one we saw that China has made great strides in terms of product quality, notably in the tech sector. But it still has a long way to go in other products.

Without manufacturing, the room where you make dinner would be rather stark and barren. There’d be no pots, no pans, no stoves, no spatulas, no appliances—big or small. There’d be no way to prepare the meals that give you and your family sustenance.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese products were synonymous with cheaply made. Anyone over the age of 50 probably remembers cheap Japanese transistor radios when they were a kid. We all believed, in the day, that the more transistors a radio had, the better.

In June of 1950, W. Edwards Deming began offering training to the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) on the precepts of statistical process control.

Markets and manufacturing practices continue to evolve, and companies now outsource to an increasing number of global manufacturing and supply partners.

Process improvers the world over rally around root cause analysis as if it were the holy grail of all things organizational. But is it?

The importance of supply chain solutions relative to a company’s efforts to maintain and improve quality are almost impossible to underplay.

Traditional corporate hierarchies tend to rely on static design. There’s the CEO at the top, followed by directors and managers. Red tape and inefficient processes can bog down decisions.