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No. I: Service. Eventually, big companies may control all their own repairs. Westinghouse Electric Corp., the nation's third-biggest appliancemaker, is already working in that direction. Two years ago the company polled 10,000 U.S. housewives to find out what was important to them. The No. 1 item: service—63% of those who were satisfied with service said they would buy the same brand again; only 39% who were dissatisfied were willing to try again. Today product service is a separate division at Westinghouse, with responsibility for every appliance from hand irons to refrigerators. It not only oversees repairs, but also tries to keep breakdowns from happening. Service-division experts sit in on all design meetings, have total control over production-line quality, can even shut down an entire line if the appliance starts giving customers trouble.
No less than appliance men, Detroit's automakers are fully aware of the repair problem. A Ford Motor Co. poll showed that 94% of all car buyers will return to the same dealer if they get good service, only 21% if service is bad. When Ford set up its new Edsel division, it realized that it would be hard to sell cars without expert service. Ford set up a complete garage where $1,000,000 worth of prototype cars were torn down and rebuilt to lick all servicing problems before the first Edsel was sold. Says Edsel Service Manager Harold N. Johnson: "We think we've shown dealers how to get 30% gross profit on servicing operations—without resorting to corruption."
Design for the Future. The future promises an ever-increasing stream of bigger, brainier gadgets—all of which will present a tougher repair problem for the U.S. serviceman unless they are designed to be fixed easily. The progress is slow, but there are clear signs of advance. Westinghouse's new washer-dryers have a hinged panel on the front so the repairman can get at the motor in a jiffy; before, it took two men just to pull the appliance away from the wall. Motorola, G.E., Admiral, RCA, Zenith are redesigning their radios and TV sets, using more transistors in place of tubes, so that they will be more rugged, last much longer.
The Black Boxes. Nor are U.S. businessmen content to stop there. Just as today's military radar sets, bombing systems, and automatic pilots are so fantastically complex that they must be removed and sent back to the factory for maintenance, so tomorrow's new radar ranges, electronic dishwashers and color TV consoles will have plug-in motors and control units that only factory experts will repair with special tools and special knowledge. The major labor the U.S. repairman will be called upon to perform—at his $5-an-hour fee—will be to take out a nonfunctioning unit, plug in a substitute and ship the original back to the plant. And then some day U.S. industry will achieve its ultimate goal: the humming electronic gadgets in every U.S. household will be virtually foolproof. By the time the machine finally wears out, the U.S. homeowner will have got his money's worth, and be ready to buy a new one. The perfect, unbreakable machine is many long years away. But in that dazzling, much-to-be-desired future, no one will have to wonder why the repairman cannot repair. He won't have to.