A Mustang a minute.....

[nuch_ss396]

George !

A past union president with an attitude like that - WOW!
That's refreshing to see. Yes, the unions have allowed
worker corruption to get out of hand in some cases and it
is time to change all of that. Not here and not now though.

Regarding Dr. Deming, it was great to see someone here post
anything about his beliefs and his mark on the world. It is
true that our business leaders in the USA threw him out like
a crackpot. Guess he got the past laugh - huh? In the manufacturing
applications, we used to hear his name all the time back when
he was still alive and preaching his sermon. Today, you
almost never hear his name mentioned. That's mostly because
the people that tried to descredit him, due to their inability
to see the future, now want he and his teaching to slip into
oblivion.

One key area that has hurt US companies so much was the
rediculous adoption of Return Of Investment ( ROI ) strategies.
Companies would want to see a ROI within 3 to 5 years for
capital equipment purchases. That's almost impossible!
The Japanese look for ROI in 7 to 10 years. Look at where
they are today, then look at where the big three are and
tell me what makes more sense. Now, it's not as simple as
ROI strategies, but it is another symptom of the illness.

A short, but applicable story. About 15 years ago, while
working as a Mfg. Engineer for a US manufacturing firm, I
made a pitch to upper management for funds to be used to
purchase some equipment to increase productivity. After
many reports, justifications, time studies, bla-bla-bla,
I was shot down. I challenged the President of that company
( my boss ) about his decision and he told me that since the
company was downsizing, laying off employees, changing their
product lines ( sound familiar yet ? ), etc., he needed to
conserve funds. He further added that if he took those same
funds that I wanted and put them in a Money Market Fund, he
could realize a better return ( profit ). I promptly, and
calmly informed him that we manufactured products in our company,
not Money Market Funds. Meeting was over, and so were my
advancement possibilities. BTW, later on, after a management
re-structure, I did get the funds and we exceeded my initial ROI projections.
The sad epilog to that story was that the company did
eventually go out of business due to countless bad decisions.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! The President of that company
did leave with a multi-million dollar golden parachute.
Before the company closed its doors, they let go 3/4 of
the work force, ruined careers, ruined families. I hope
there is a nice warm place for him in hell when his times
comes.

Off the soapbox now

Steve