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It was John Deere himself who set a high standard for quality within his company. One of Deere's advertisements from 1857 noted: "I am putting into my plow this year a better quality of steel than is used in any other plow in this state... I will warrant the TEMPER of my steel to be unimpaired and of even and desirable hardness and free from flaws."
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| Published in 1951, this quality control handbook made the tools and procedures of quality control more accessible to employees. |
Deere's promise was not an empty one. During the early years of his business, he often imported steel from England because the British steel was of a much higher quality than the steel available from American manufacturers.
Stephen Velie, John Deere's son-in-law, was also employed in the family business and shared this dedication to product quality. In the 1890s, Velie noted that using cheaper, inferior materials seldom saved the company money due to the cost of reparations and annoyances.
During the 1940s, while G. Edwards Deming was introducing statistical process control to Japan and much of the world, John Deere employees were already using SPC methods to build quality into the machines they manufactured. The January 1946 issue of 'The Connecting Link,' a newsletter from the John Deere Tractor Company in Waterloo, Iowa, featured an article titled 'Quality Control and How It Works.' Ernie Fay, the chief inspector at that factory, was a key figure in the quality movement in the Midwest.
By the time William Hewitt, Deere's great-great grandson-in-law, took the helm of the company in 1955, this focus on quality had been passed on through five generations of the Deere family, and to thousands of dedicated employees.
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