Nashua Corporation, William Conway, and Deming

Several of Ford Motor Company's executives hopped out of the corporate jet on a slightly chilly morning in the spring of 1981. They looked around at their surroundings, but there was not much to see. It was an unassuming former mill town, yet Ford had sent them here anyway. This modest small town had something special, though. Something that would revolutionize how companies would think about management and quality, so, at Ford's behest, a dozen Ford men took that plane flight from Ford's headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan to Nashua, New Hampshire. In particular, Ford sent these executives to spend the day at and learn all they could from a company with the namesake of the town, the Nashua Corporation. 

As the men drove from their plane to the Nashua Corporation, they were skeptical. How was it that something so transformative to the car industry could be hidden here? When they arrived, they saw a building as equally unassuming as the town itself. The CEO, William Conway, walked out to greet the executives. "Welcome to the Nashua Corporation," he remarked. As he began to tell his story, the executives quickly threw away any skepticism they once had.

The Nashua Corporation was founded in 1904, Originally as a paper company known as Nashua Card and Glazed Paper Company. By the time of Will Conway, though, it was now a Fortune 500 company and had expanded into several other products, including hard disks for computers and photo-processing. In the early 1970's Nashua was planning on expanding their product line again with a world-beating copy system as part of a consortium of five American companies, a German chemical company, and a Japanese manufacturing company named Ricoh. Since the actual manufacturing of the copy system would take place in Japan, all meetings were also held there. The representatives at Ricoh were always courteous to their American visitors. All was well with the copy system until, one day, the Vice President of Research and Development showed up in Will Conway's Office with some strange news. The Vice President had just arrived back from one of these meetings in Japan. "They are nuts", he complained to Conway. 

The Nashua delegation arrived in Japan that previous Wednesday for their regular meetings with Ricoh, yet Ricoh was too busy to meet with them that day. In fact, they were almost too busy to meet with them for their entire stay, only able to meet late that Friday night, as well as a quick meeting that Sunday before the Nashua men left. Whenever they asked why Ricoh was busy, they would tell them that the entire company was engaged in making the final preparations for submitting the award known as the Deming Prize. 

"What's the Deming Prize?" asked Conway. From what the Vice President of Research and Development observed, he explained it to Conway as an award involving spreadsheets, statistics, and charts to achieve the overarching idea of improving quality. 

Quality. Conway was intrigued, yet the idea of Japanese products being synonymous with quality was hard to picture. The Nashua Corporation competed against several Japanese export companies for many of the same products and services. These Japanese companies often undercut Nashua's prices, but the products were shoddy and cheap compared to their own craftsmanship. Japan would have a long road ahead of them if they were to catch up to the Nashua Corporation, or at least that's what he thought.

Just a few years later, something had changed. Japan started to encroach upon the European paper market, providing products with the same cheap price but the quality on par if not better than Nashua's own products. To stay competitive, the Nashua Corporation would have to cut prices. It made no sense to Conway. How did Japanese export companies, who would buy paper pulp from the United States and ship it halfway across the world, have a lower price and a higher quality? The Nashua Corporation had to do something; otherwise, they could go out of business. At that moment, Conway thought back to his discussion with the Vice President of Research and Development about the Deming Prize. He needed quality. He needed Dr. Deming. 

At this point in time, Dr. Deming, while highly respected and honored in Japan, was relatively unknown in the US. Anyone that happened to be familiar with Deming regarded him as an academic or statistician, not a man with revolutionary theories on management. Still, Conway was able to track down Deming with the help of a colleague, and, in 1979, Conway invited him to the Nashua Country Club to talk business with a few other Nashua Corporation executives. 

Dr. Deming told the Nashua Corporation executives about his work in America before and during World War II. He told them about how America became tone-deaf to his message after the war and eventually started talking with Japanese executives who were more receptive. Conway realized that Dr. Deming could be the solution they were looking for throughout the conversation, but some other executives disagreed. To them, it was blasphemous that a man who knew nothing about the paper industry could think that he could overhaul it. Regardless, Conway asked Deming to consult for the Nashua Corporation. Dr. Deming said that he would only accept if Conway himself would lead the charge for change, and of course, Conway pledged that he would.

In 1979, Clare Crawford-Mason, a seasoned reporter who helped start People magazine, began producing a documentary for NBC entitled, "If Japan Can … Why Can't We?". She wanted to look at the growing economic threat Japan presented, but she struggled to find material. Crawford-Mason knew that one needed to explain issues with a story, one that she had trouble seeing. Every interview with economists was dull and lackluster. However, during one of these interviews, Crawford-Mason was referred to Dr. Deming under the pretense that he did lots of work in Japan. What was originally a short conversation between the two led to five separate interviews. Crawford-Mason was amazed at Dr. Deming's philosophy. She had a story, but she needed to see it in action. When she asked if anyone was using his ideas, Dr. Deming referred her to the Nashua Corporation, which he began consulting for.

By the time Crawford-Mason arrived at the Nashua Corporation, they had plenty to tell her. Conway told Crawford-Mason about how they implemented statistical methods and started developing an ideology of continuous improvement. He explained how Dr. Deming's ideas allowed them to meet the competitive prices of Japanese export companies and increased Nashua's profit margins from 10% to 17%. Dr. Deming's ideas didn't just allow it to become a key player in the industry. It allowed it to stay in business. 

On June 24th, 1980, Crawford-Mason's documentary was released, devoting the last 15 minutes to Dr. Deming and the Nashua Corporation. The response was astounding. The next day, the phone in Dr. Deming's office rang nonstop. Everyone wanted to learn what Dr. Deming had to offer. That was what had enticed Ford to send their men over to a paper company in an unassuming former mill town. 

After 30 years of being discovered in Japan, Dr. Deming's ideas finally got traction in America.