I'm not saying things are very bad, just evolving perhaps, and looking for opinions and experiences. In the 50's my parents wanted nothing to do with products from Japan and it had nothing to do with WWII sentiment, but with quality. In the 80's I felt the same way about Korean products. I still feel the same about many Chinese products.
A non-automotive example is a Thai company named Fujika that makes hot water heaters. They use a Japanese name with no association at all with a Japanese company, for what?.....to give buyers confidence. Big mistake. I've bought four of them and each failed in short order and was exchanged for something else.
Of the three examples I gave above, two are associated with parts supply quality and one with assembly quality. I think the former is much more troublesome for car manufacturers as policing third party supplier QC must be a nightmare and a huge job.
I simply can't see a rank and file Thai factory worker getting excited about what he's doing, or having much pride in it. Perhaps I'm dead wrong, I don't know. Also, perhaps the factories are so computerized and robotic now that the human factor is much less than what it used to be. Pete
- if the bank can take the strain
