[chrisan]

It wasn't just your father. A lot of American companies never felt the need to improve. It's kind of sad really.

In an industrial systems engineering class we learned of Deming who was trying to help American auto manufacturers with quality control and they wouldn't hear of it. He later was in Japan and influenced the ideas over there. Japan would go on to create the Deming Prize as one of their highest awards one could be given for quality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Prize