During the dark years at Harley Davidson they were owned by AMF and the corporate conglomerate management didn't do much for Harley or a lot of other companies in the same boat. After the war a lot of our manufacturers got lazy and weren't updating or improving products and their products weren't keeping up with the competition. International Harvester, once an innovator in tractor design. lagged behind being the last major manufacturer to have some kind of live power/ independent power on their tractors, then they skimped on testing and evaluation on the 560/460 and slid out of the #1 spot they held for years. Part of this was IH leadership was keen to spread out into construction equipment, lawn and garden equipment, refrigeration and other consumer products. Some of the R&D for new products for the new divisions sucked away resources that should of been spent keeping their tractors currant or leading edge. Harley had similar problems while part of AMF, the competition for corporate funds didn't always get assigned to projects that had the long term position of the company in the decision.
W. Edwards Demming was the quality guru that taught the Japanese how to become an industrial power. His work was rejected here in the US but much of Japanese manufacturing embraced it and used it to develop a strong world wide reputation. Again part of Demming's approach continually improve things, at a time when much US industry had a business model of developing a product and making that same product for years and years. Profits remained high when tooling and facilities had already been fully depreciated, and yes much of our production capacity after the war was from plants that were built to support the war effort.
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Today's Featured Article - The Rescue of a Fordson F - by Anthony West. Introduction I live in the UK and have for many years restored Fordson tractors (in the main model N's). I have also restored and shown model F's, E 27N's, Field Marshall Series 2, David Brown Cropmasters and the old rey Fergeson T 20. At one time I had seven restored examples which were shown and used in ploughing matches. As most restorers, I have a number of war stories I can relate on a range of topics that may help other like minded and interested people. Perhaps my first p
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