Economic reform and product quality improvement efforts in the Soviet Union

Abstract

FOUR YEARS after Gorbachev's rise to power, and after countless articles and debates which have made perestroika a household word, the USSR introduced a draft of a proposed law 'On the Quality of Products and the Protection of Consumer Rights'.1 Placed in the context of some of the more radical reforms that have been discussed, the draft is most striking in its adherence to past attempts to address the problem of poor product quality. At the same time, the proposal does contain some new ideas and variations on old approaches which could turn out to be of considerable practical value in the struggle to move away from the traditional Soviet centrally planned economy. To understand the law and the role it may play during the transition period, as well as other programmes currently in effect such as Gospriemka and KSUKP (the Russian abbreviation for 'Complex System of Management of Output Quality'), it is first necessary to review briefly previous Soviet quality programmes. At the outset a distinction should be made between two different aspects of quality improvement. In designing products engineers set standards and design requirements for all sorts of characteristics such as weights, sizes, material structure, durability and reliability. If a product does not meet the level specified it is said to be defective, and should be either reworked or scrapped. In this context, if the number of defective items is reduced, there has been an improvement in quality. Although it would probably be more appropriate to refer to this as quality of production or stabilisation of product quality, the above usage of quality improvement is quite common. Improvements in product quality also refer to either increases in the level of standards or closer conformance with standards. To quote Golosovsky & Grinchel, 'the improvement in the quality of equipment is viewed as the excess of its parameters over those of conventional aggregate equipment in social production in a given year'.2 Most of the programmes discussed in this article, as well as a large part of Soviet work in this area, deal with the first aspect of quality improvement. One of the first systematic undertakings to improve quality was a programme introduced in 1955 in an aviation plant located in the Saratov region referred to as the method of defect-free product fabrication. Within a short period of time this experiment became known as the 'Saratov system' and Soviet officials claimed that it brought about a significant improvement in product quality. The system consisted of a complex of economic, organisational, educational and engineering measures designed to bring about the production of defect-free output. The