PASSAGE 43 Will Quality Eat up the U.S. Lead in Software? If U.S. software companies don’t pay more attention to quality, they could kiss their business good-bye. Both India and Brazil are developing a world-class software industry. Their weapon is quality and one of their jobs is to attract the top U.S. quality specialists whose voices are not listened to in their country. Already, of the world’s 12 software houses that have earned the highest rating in the world, seven are in India. That’s largely because they have used new methodologies rejected by American software specialists. For example, for decades, quality specialists, W. Edwards Deming and J. M. Juran had urged U.S. software companies to change their attitudes to quality. But their quality call mainly fell on deaf ears in the U.S. -but not in Japan. By the 1970s and 1980s, Japan was grabbing market share with better, cheaper products. They used Deming’s and Juran’s ideas to bring down the cost of good quality to as little as 5% of total production costs. In U.S. factories, the cost of quality then was 10 times as high: 50%. In software, it still is. Watts S. Humphrey spent 27 years at IBM heading up software production and then quality assurance. But his advice was seldom paid attention to. He retired from IBM in 1986. In 1987, he worked out a system for assessing and improving software quality. It has proved its value time and again. For example, in 1990 the cost of quality at Raytheon Electronics Systems was almost 60% of total software production costs. It fell to 15% in 1996 and has since further 0dropped to below 10%. Like Deming and Juran, Humphrey seems to be wining more praises overseas than at home. The India government and several companies have just founded the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute at the Software Technology Park in Chennai, India. Let’s hope that U.S. lead in software will not be eaten up by its quality problems. EXERCISE: 1. what country has more highest-rating companies in the world than any other country has? A) Germany. B) The U.S. C) Brazil D) India 2. Which of the following statements about Humphrey is true? A) He is now still an IBM employer. B) He has worked for IBM for 37 years. C) The US pays much attention to his quality advice. D) India honors him highly. 3. By what means did Japan grab its large market share by the 1970s and the 1980s? A) Its products were cheaper in price and better in quality. B) Its advertising was most successful. C) The US hardware industry was lagging behind . D) Japan hired a lot of India software specialists. 4.What does the founding of the Watts Humphrey Software Quality Institute symbolize? A) It symbolizes the US determination to move ahead with its software B) It symbolizes the India ambition to take the lead in software. C) It symbolizes the Japanese efforts to solve the software quality problem. D) It symbolizes the Chinese policy on importing software. 5.What is the writer worrying about? A) Many US software specialists are working for Japan. B) The quality problem has become a worldwide problem. C) The US will no longer be the first software player in the world. D) India and Japan are joining hands to compete with the US. Key: D D A B C PASSAGE 44 High-speed Rail on Track If an agreement signed in a Germany works out, travelers of this Asian city may one day be able to zip from the downtown area to its new airport on a train riding a stream of magnetic energy at speeds up to 500 kilometres per hour. The 40-kilometers-trip ---now sometimes a long hour journey when the traffic is heavy-could be cut to less than 10 minutes. Such are the goals of a costly project designed to help to "shorten" the distance between the city center and the suburban busy airport by making it easier and faster to carry travelers to and back from the airport. The mayor of the city and Germany’s Thyssen Krupp AG worked out an agreement in Berlin only several days ago that lays the groundwork for the magnetic levitation train line. They signed a commitment to carry out a feasibility study on the project and outlined the city’s intention to import German technology. The project, once completed and acceptable to the two business parties, will be a double-win: the German company can benefit from exporting its technology and the city receiving German technology can improve its traffic and further strengthen its position as a cosmopolis. Called Maglev for short, the system under discussion makes use of a high-speed train levitated above a guideway and propelled by magnetic fields. The project has been in the talking stage for several months. Hans Ueberschaer, German’s ambassador visited the city together with Harmut Heine, representative of Thyssen Krupp. They had an initial discussion with the mayor there about the prospect of the project. The talks were believed to be constructive and paved the way for the future talks in Berlin, where a commitment was reached. Sources familiar with the talks estimated that the project would cost US$723 million, which would cover everything from land use fees and rail construction to train cars. Completion date is 2005. A joint venture company is to be established for the project.