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Careful! Think back to those plants. How many people, especially higher-ups, wanted to hear about that problem?

• analog31 11y ago
  Thankfully, yes. This was in an industry that had evolved from a market, where customers kinda expected occasional problems. It was like 1970s cars. Or, maybe like racing cars, where the customer accepts a risk of failure in order to receive the highest possible performance. The business was interested in modernizing, and gradually weaned itself away from practices such as I described. We had to find a way to make it happen, that would also make the higher-ups happy about the effect on the bottom line. I don't want to name names, but today, it is a much different place. To get over this issue requires something analogous to unit testing in software: You have to understand how the correct functioning of the full system builds on the properties of the units.
  • mcnamaratw 11y ago
    I've been there. That's great to hear.