May
16
An Industrial Fable - Prologue
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There was a once great company that had become mediocre. It was run by a very wise engineer of MIT pedigree and he wished to save the company built by the innovation and intelligence of his father. The company had once dominated markets such as televisions, radios, discrete semiconductors and the like but had either completely lost or mostly lost their market share. Management guru, Joseph Juran, ran around the US talking about the American company that couldn’t make a profit at TV’s that sold their operation to the Japanese and within 6 months, using the same workers and same design, the Japanese turned a profit. He was talking about this company. Key employees at this company risked their status by publicly declaring that the company had poor quality.
The son who is now President of the company decided to do something about it. He first invested in the people side of things by fostering teamwork and a better understanding of each individual. He invested in problem solving starting with tools from a man named Shainin. Dorian, it turns out, was a bit of a miracle worker. He had the power to walk into an existing operation and solve problems in a day that the people who ran the place had not solved in a decade. He also spoke a strange language and insisted everyone also speak this strange language if they wished to save this once great company. Work continued as the once great company internalized the problem solving. They hired PhD students from the great university in the desert and put signs on the entrances of their facilities that they were protected by this problem solving method. They also upgraded the resources of their quality function by hiring people with theoretical backgrounds in quality and statistical tools. They also promoted within, especially technically sound individuals who also had the drive to better themselves at the great university in the desert. The once great company made great proclamations about teamwork and improvements which, while not generally accepted, gave a handful of people cover to go make progress. And progress was made to the tune of about a ten fold improvement.
This type of opportunity creates strange behaviors. Many in leadership learned to game the measurement. Many who believed the message challenged the games players and were forced to take refuge in Chicago under the protection of a great physicist who publicly proclaimed he was smarter that you, but more importantly proclaimed go work with the people I protect or I will come help you. No one wanted the help of this person who was smarter than them, so progress was made. Some saw the message as an opportunity for great personal gain especially if they spent their time self promoting instead of making improvements. This was made possible because people did not know how to handle these folks taking credit for their work. Leadership did not know how to handle these folks because they were afraid to admit they did not understand the things being talked about purposely at a level not to be understood. The greatest of these was one of the former Shainin teaching PhD students from the great university in the desert.