This frees up capital for additional investments. They include auto parts, aircraft engines and parts, engines and turbines, metal foundries, fabricated structural metal, other industrial machinery, construction and mining equipment, and farm and garden machinery. Those who can't compete on those terms don't survive. This intense competition has led to advances in production automation and product quality. With the new process, it makes bulkheads with two parts rather than 72 and only 35 fasteners rather than 1,720 under the previous method.
Quality improvements are especially dramatic in the automobile industry.
Citing an annual average quality improvement rate of 2.2 percent documented by the Bureau of Labor Statistics between 1967 and 1998, the study notes that today's car has twice the quality of one built 30 years ago in terms of performance, reliability, durability, and warranty. As a result, today an owner of a new car produced by U.S. companies experiences fewer than 30 problems per 100 vehicles during the first year of ownership compared with a rate of 104 per 100 cars in 1980. That higher quality translates into significant consumer savings as a result of fewer repairs and longer useful life. Consumers are realizing similar savings with other durable goods, thanks to machine tool advances that have streamlined production. The scroll compressor, made possible by more precise and flexible machine tools, contributed to a 40 percent increase in the energy efficiency ratings of air conditioners and heat pumps since 1981, while refrigerators realized a 100 percent improvement.