[SOLVED] Deere & Company (http://www.deere.com)

Deere & Company (http://www.deere.com) (also known as John Deere, after its founder) is a world-leading manufacturer, distributor, and financier of equipment for agriculture, construction, forestry, and commercial and consumer applications (lawn and grounds care). Deere’s objective has consistently been to be the low-cost producer in the markets it serves. However, it seeks to do so while maintaining an image of quality and customer focus. Its company values are quality, innovation, integrity, and commitment. Because of the company’s close ties to the agricultural industry, corporate performance in both sales and profits was highly variable over the last several decades due to cycles of low prices and oversupplies of many agricultural products. During that period, the company made various adjustments in its product mix and manufacturing processes to enable it to better compete and survive in the global environment. The excerpts below come from various Deere annual reports.
1999 Highlighting our pursuit of genuine value through continuous improvement is an aggressive series of process-based initiatives targeting Six-Sigma levels of performance and customer satisfaction. During the year, some 900 projects involving the efforts of several thousand employees were completed or in progress. Their goal: Streamlining business processes, large and small, and pursuing operational excellence throughout the company.... In support of the initiative stressing customer focus, our operating divisions are structuring their activities around the core processes of customer acquisition, order fulfillment, product development and customer support. 2005 Deere employees are tightly aligned with our business objectives and are being evaluated and compensated accordingly. Virtually all 21,000 of our salaried employees worldwide follow detailed performance plans tailored to their own responsibilities and development potential. The plans spell out how each individual’s efforts contribute to meeting unit and company goals.... Building on a tradition of stewardship, the company has continued to develop product solutions that are less disruptive to the surrounding environment. Deere’s newly introduced Tier 3-compliant Power Tech Plus engines use the latest technology to deliver better fuel economy and more power while meeting stringent emissions regulations. 2008 Rigorous asset management lies at the heart of our strategy to achieve more consistent returns, add to our comparative advantage, and weather tough economic times.... Following rigorous processes everywhere helps address the growing scope and scale of our operations and helps achieve increased levels of consistency, simplicity, efficiency and quality. Many of our approaches are unique to Deere and hard to copy. With respect to quality improvement, the company is aggressively implementing the Deere Product Quality System (DPQS), a set of world-class manufacturing practices designed to meet rising customer expectations for increased product reliability. Product lines responsible for most of the company’s sales received advanced quality certification through 2008. DPQS is expected to make a major impact on the company’s ability to further serve customers and reduce expense as the effort advances quality to a still-higher level. As a leading corporate citizen, Deere takes its responsibilities seriously. In this regard, employee safety has always been one of John Deere’s top priorities. In 2008, our facilities remained among the safest in the world with employee injury-frequency rates in line with the company’s historic lows. As an environmental leader noted primarily for advanced equipment designed to treat the environment with increasing care, the company also has made sustainability an integral part of its operations. Through the aligned efforts of a dedicated workforce more than 50,000 strong worldwide, John Deere is establishing a performance-based culture that is making quite an impact on our results. Deere’s team enrichment initiative supports this emphasis on employee teaming and collaboration. 2010 As our world changes, so must John Deere. With those words, the company in 2010 introduced an ambitious blueprint to guide its efforts in meeting the world’s expanding needs in the years ahead.... The strategy concentrates the company’s focus on two growth areas—agricultural and construction equipment solutions. Other operations—turf, forestry, parts, engines, intelligent solutions, and financial services— have vital roles supporting or complementing the growth operations. Emphasizing a lineup of tightly knit operations puts Deere in a stronger position to leverage strengths, optimize investments, efficiently target leadership and employee resources, and extend its ability to compete in the global marketplace. Further, the revised strategy sets out challenging metrics including $50 billion in mid-cycle sales by 2018 and 12 percent mid-cycle operating margins by
2014. In addition, measures are being introduced to help assure that financial performance remains sustainable as we accelerate our growth aspirations. “Health” metrics, as they’re being known, pertain to product quality, market share and employee engagement, among other areas. 2012 “Feet on the ground, eyes on the horizon” is the theme of this year’s annual report—and one of the main themes underlying how we do business. As John Deere expands its market presence and pursues attractive growth opportunities throughout the world, we are committed to maintaining our focus on operational excellence, disciplined cost and asset management, and peerless customer service. What’s more, our aim is to do all these things while remaining grounded in bedrock values such as integrity that have shaped our character and sustained our success for many generations. 2015 Deere’s far-reaching operating strategy made further progress in 2015. Captured in the phrase “Feet on the Ground, Eyes on the Horizon,” the plan emphasizes managing safe, efficient operations; providing high-quality, advanced products; and investing to expand our competitive position in key markets. The company is reinforcing its strategic plan by placing a more intense focus on quality and innovation. We are doing so because products of exceptional quality often earn higher levels of customer satisfaction and claim a larger share of the market.… Last year, the company’s sweeping distinctive-quality effort made important gains toward achieving targeted quality levels by the end of 2016. We’ve had particular success improving our ability to identify and address quality issues before products leave the factory floor. 2017 Central to our strategy, Deere is intensifying its focus on innovation and quality.… We are strengthening our commitment to technology, analytics, and precision agriculture. All are areas where we intend to be the undisputed leader. We believe the integration of our products with advanced technology—leading to smarter, more productive equipment—will shape the future of farming. Additionally, our plans stress reinforcing our strong relationship with dealers. Their expertise and connection to customers give Deere a powerful competitive advantage. Our dealers are continuing to make investments and improve their capabilities, particularly in areas such as precision agriculture, in order to better support customers. Assignment On the basis of this information, prepare a brief report discussing Deere & Company’s evolution of quality. Relate your discussion to historical trends, future challenges, the various definitional perspectives of quality, and other issues discussed in this chapter, including quality perspectives. For example, how has their perspective of quality and the practices used to implement it changed over the years? Update the case by reviewing Deere’s latest annual report and include any new information in your analysis.

Question: Deere & Company (http://www.deere.com)