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A comment on Why Japan lost its comparative advantage in producing electronic parts. Parent comment

Re:Why Japan lost its comparative advantage in producing ele... by patio11 on Saturday October 05, 2019 @05:34PM (#21168109)
This is widely acknowledged as being one of the key intellectual antecedents of the Toyota Production System and various similar systems in Japan. My flippant but not terribly controversial phrasing for it: Japan’s economic prominence was based on a 50 year de facto worldwide monopoly on applied mathematics.
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Re:Why Japan lost its comparative advantage in producing ele... by mistermann on Saturday October 05, 2019 @09:12PM (#21169140)
> Japan’s economic prominence was based on a 50 year de facto worldwide monopoly on applied mathematics.

I remember this very comment from many years ago, but I've always wondered what it meant. Could you possibly flesh it out?

As an aside, I met you at an HN meetup 7 or so years ago in Tokyo, how time flies. Hope all is well.

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Re:Why Japan lost its comparative advantage in producing ele... by anthony_doan on Sunday October 06, 2019 @11:46AM (#21172720)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Honors

Maybe he meant this.

Deming was awarded Japan's Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class for:

The citation on the medal recognizes Deming's contributions to Japan's industrial rebirth and its worldwide success.

He literally got Japan into scientific quality control using statistic. It's also something that six-sigma came out of (see: https://qz.com/work/1635960/whatever-happened-to-six-sigma/).

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Re:Why Japan lost its comparative advantage in producing ele... by sitkack on Saturday October 05, 2019 @09:30PM (#21169222)
Not exactly, they build quality into the process, in America we use effort and muscle. I don’t think you need mathematics to have designed in quality. It helps, but isn’t necessary.
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