3 ms·

I think the difference in what danielvf is saying and what the article is trying to say lies in some higher level phenomenon. Reading between the lines, every

by edrxty 3y ago

I think the difference in what danielvf is saying and what the article is trying to say lies in some higher level phenomenon. Reading between the lines, every issue outlined in the article can be traced back to an abject failure of management to understand what they were making, and why they were making it. If I had to guess what the root cause was, the talent is there, but due to the current class structure of the US, nobody wanted to listen to the line machinists, grey-beards, and engineers (because they're dirty poors who didn't make it big via psychopathy so they must be dumb) so instead they listened to McKinsey or whoever they hired to actually run the project. I remember stories from my father about being an engineer at a big manufacturing facility. The culture was engineers were the people who did math all day, but if you actually wanted something done, ultimately you took your drawings down to the floor and found the longest, grayest beard you could and bent the knee until they agreed to make everything actually work. Fast forward to my first manufacturing job, I was tasked to improve a process, so I went out on the shop floor, started talking to the line guys, and then was promptly scolded by another engineer who told me, and I quote, "they're just manufacturing guys, don't give them enough rope to hang themselves with".

ChatGTP 3y ago
I don't believe there is a strong difference between engineering and management when it comes to an operation like this. I'd say there is a dependency on the two? If America doesn't have the management capabilities, experience and maturity to get a plant going, it doesn't matter about the tech or the engineers, it's not going to workout. This includes having managers of a certain caliber which a large firm would trust with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on getting factories running. I completely understand what you mean by the way and sympathize with your view. I've spent considerable amount of time in Japan and other parts of Asia for business, they have plenty of people with plant management experience who would be able to organize an operation like this. Japan, for example, has off shored a lot, but not everything. Not by a long shot.
- bluGill 3y ago
  There are many companies in America that are doing this though, and they are successful. Thus it isn't America that can't, but corporate culture at Stanley. This fits my experience at a number of companies, some are much better managed than others.
- thumbuddy 3y ago
  The funniest part about Japanese industry is... It was revitalized by an American post WWII by a dude named Deming, who was pretty much hated/ignored by American industry. So he went overthere and made them a powerhouse. Years later American companies were scratching their heads doing anything to hire the guy but not foster the skillset he asked for in his education programs or actually listen beyond being able to market that they took the advice for a few months. America has triple downed on ignoring experts to maintain order, pay people less, and saving money short term. When an American company hires 10,000 people it's to bolster numbers or slow competition. When an Japanese company does it's because they need workers long term. When an American company lays off 10,000 people it's because their profitability has changed or the dream wasn't realized. Meanwhile a German company doesn't lay off it's people because it plans to succeed long term and it knows it can't replace it's people, and long term it's more expensive to retrain them. US employment laws are partially to blame, but most of American industry is a pump and dump...
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I think Deming deserves a lot of credit, but don't forget to credit the Japanese as well: to be the recipient of information and that listen to it and act on it is the harder part. Deming didn't single-handedly transform Japanese industry, he gave them a set of principles and ways of working and they absolutely ran with it. Without the second part nobody would have heard about Deming.
    - vram22 3y ago
      Makes sense. This is him: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming There is a an international TQM award named after him: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Prize https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Prize Many Japanese people have won the individual award. Some people and organisations from other countries have won the individual and application awards, too, including from the USA and India.
    - thumbuddy 3y ago
      Oh for sure. I didn't mean to under cut the efforts of the Japanese people! Infact I meant to raise them up, the US has had every opportunity to do the same and most places have done everything they can to ignore reality in favor of off the cuff thinking by people who have never seen ground truth.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > I don't believe there is a strong difference between engineering and management when it comes to an operation like this. There can be massive gulfs between the shop floor, engineering and management. In good companies those are bridgeable, in bad companies they are islands that exchange email. If engineers and management can't be regularly found on the floor and if they don't know the names of at least the foremen then that's a good indication that a company is run in a way that is not compatible with top quality. I've worked with an architect in NL that made a ton of metal structures and he was also the best shop guy they had when they were still small. He came up with the basic ways to build the structures, built all the prototypes and then stepped back and let the real experts take over to scale it up. He knew his limits, as well as their strengths and the end result was a company that really went places. They use a combination of forgings and steel stock cut to length and the work they do is very complex. I don't think they would have been in business for long without managing this relationship between management, engineering and shop as well as they did. I've seen one other company like that, more recently and they too did this to the best of their abilities. The pride at the quality of their work radiated out from everybody that worked there. It also makes me happy to work with such companies because the alternatives are nearly always painful to watch.
themaninthedark 3y ago
>but if you actually wanted something done, ultimately you took your drawings down to the floor and found the longest, grayest beard you could and bent the knee until they agreed to make everything actually work. >Fast forward to my first manufacturing job, I was tasked to improve a process, so I went out on the shop floor, started talking to the line guys, and then was promptly scolded by another engineer who told me, and I quote, "they're just manufacturing guys, don't give them enough rope to hang themselves with". That is a bad way to view things, from both directions. The line guys definitely have good insights on how to improve things but sometimes their idea of improvement is to "make my job better at the expense of others" and they also often lack the overarching view so they will aim for a local maximum. Saying that engineers are just doing math all day just relegate the job to a glorified excel data entry job. Engineers should be doing a lot more from documenting current conditions to looking at how to use new technology to improve the process. That said, I agree that it looks like management did not listen to anyone in the factory.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  The engineers know the materials from a numerical point of view, and can calculate to some degree what those materials will do given their dimensions, material grade and so on. But the line guys work with the actual material and know it from an entirely different perspective, how it can be worked into those shapes and what kind of operations will weaken or strengthen an otherwise identical looking part. Forged tools are especially tricky because forging steel is almost as much an art as it is a science due to all kinds of transient effects, you're working the steel into its final shape while it is hot enough to be ductile but not so hot that it loses shape. The difference between a bad forging and a good forging can be hard to tell when the part is done without destructive testing of some sort. For tools this is critical. The amount of force I can put on a wrench is such that a bad forging will break which will likely lead me to injure myself. But with a good quality wrench I will know I'm safe and will be confident to apply force close to the maximum of what such a wrench will be able to provide (limited by my strength and the length of the wrench as a multiplier resulting in substantial torque on the bolt or nut). Typically the way the bolt would fail is that it becomes semi liquid and this is a slow process so you have some warning to reduce pressure. But a forging that breaks will just snap and all of that force is released at once. Great way to hurt yourself. So the quality of these forgings is very important and I'd much rather entrust my safety to the people that actually touch the metal than just to the engineers, who may be able to optimize for cost but who don't actually have much (sometimes no) shop experience. Knowing how to make something in theory and actually making it in practice can be quite far apart, even on something as mundane as what ultimately is a chunk of metal.

by edrxty 3y ago

ChatGTP 3y ago

I don't believe there is a strong difference between engineering and management when it comes to an operation like this. I'd say there is a dependency on the two? If America doesn't have the management capabilities, experience and maturity to get a plant going, it doesn't matter about the tech or the engineers, it's not going to workout. This includes having managers of a certain caliber which a large firm would trust with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on getting factories running. I completely understand what you mean by the way and sympathize with your view. I've spent considerable amount of time in Japan and other parts of Asia for business, they have plenty of people with plant management experience who would be able to organize an operation like this. Japan, for example, has off shored a lot, but not everything. Not by a long shot.

bluGill 3y ago
There are many companies in America that are doing this though, and they are successful. Thus it isn't America that can't, but corporate culture at Stanley. This fits my experience at a number of companies, some are much better managed than others.
thumbuddy 3y ago
The funniest part about Japanese industry is... It was revitalized by an American post WWII by a dude named Deming, who was pretty much hated/ignored by American industry. So he went overthere and made them a powerhouse. Years later American companies were scratching their heads doing anything to hire the guy but not foster the skillset he asked for in his education programs or actually listen beyond being able to market that they took the advice for a few months. America has triple downed on ignoring experts to maintain order, pay people less, and saving money short term. When an American company hires 10,000 people it's to bolster numbers or slow competition. When an Japanese company does it's because they need workers long term. When an American company lays off 10,000 people it's because their profitability has changed or the dream wasn't realized. Meanwhile a German company doesn't lay off it's people because it plans to succeed long term and it knows it can't replace it's people, and long term it's more expensive to retrain them. US employment laws are partially to blame, but most of American industry is a pump and dump...
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I think Deming deserves a lot of credit, but don't forget to credit the Japanese as well: to be the recipient of information and that listen to it and act on it is the harder part. Deming didn't single-handedly transform Japanese industry, he gave them a set of principles and ways of working and they absolutely ran with it. Without the second part nobody would have heard about Deming.
  - vram22 3y ago
    Makes sense. This is him: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming There is a an international TQM award named after him: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Prize https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deming_Prize Many Japanese people have won the individual award. Some people and organisations from other countries have won the individual and application awards, too, including from the USA and India.
  - thumbuddy 3y ago
    Oh for sure. I didn't mean to under cut the efforts of the Japanese people! Infact I meant to raise them up, the US has had every opportunity to do the same and most places have done everything they can to ignore reality in favor of off the cuff thinking by people who have never seen ground truth.
jacquesm 3y ago
> I don't believe there is a strong difference between engineering and management when it comes to an operation like this. There can be massive gulfs between the shop floor, engineering and management. In good companies those are bridgeable, in bad companies they are islands that exchange email. If engineers and management can't be regularly found on the floor and if they don't know the names of at least the foremen then that's a good indication that a company is run in a way that is not compatible with top quality. I've worked with an architect in NL that made a ton of metal structures and he was also the best shop guy they had when they were still small. He came up with the basic ways to build the structures, built all the prototypes and then stepped back and let the real experts take over to scale it up. He knew his limits, as well as their strengths and the end result was a company that really went places. They use a combination of forgings and steel stock cut to length and the work they do is very complex. I don't think they would have been in business for long without managing this relationship between management, engineering and shop as well as they did. I've seen one other company like that, more recently and they too did this to the best of their abilities. The pride at the quality of their work radiated out from everybody that worked there. It also makes me happy to work with such companies because the alternatives are nearly always painful to watch.

themaninthedark 3y ago

>but if you actually wanted something done, ultimately you took your drawings down to the floor and found the longest, grayest beard you could and bent the knee until they agreed to make everything actually work. >Fast forward to my first manufacturing job, I was tasked to improve a process, so I went out on the shop floor, started talking to the line guys, and then was promptly scolded by another engineer who told me, and I quote, "they're just manufacturing guys, don't give them enough rope to hang themselves with". That is a bad way to view things, from both directions. The line guys definitely have good insights on how to improve things but sometimes their idea of improvement is to "make my job better at the expense of others" and they also often lack the overarching view so they will aim for a local maximum. Saying that engineers are just doing math all day just relegate the job to a glorified excel data entry job. Engineers should be doing a lot more from documenting current conditions to looking at how to use new technology to improve the process. That said, I agree that it looks like management did not listen to anyone in the factory.

jacquesm 3y ago
The engineers know the materials from a numerical point of view, and can calculate to some degree what those materials will do given their dimensions, material grade and so on. But the line guys work with the actual material and know it from an entirely different perspective, how it can be worked into those shapes and what kind of operations will weaken or strengthen an otherwise identical looking part. Forged tools are especially tricky because forging steel is almost as much an art as it is a science due to all kinds of transient effects, you're working the steel into its final shape while it is hot enough to be ductile but not so hot that it loses shape. The difference between a bad forging and a good forging can be hard to tell when the part is done without destructive testing of some sort. For tools this is critical. The amount of force I can put on a wrench is such that a bad forging will break which will likely lead me to injure myself. But with a good quality wrench I will know I'm safe and will be confident to apply force close to the maximum of what such a wrench will be able to provide (limited by my strength and the length of the wrench as a multiplier resulting in substantial torque on the bolt or nut). Typically the way the bolt would fail is that it becomes semi liquid and this is a slow process so you have some warning to reduce pressure. But a forging that breaks will just snap and all of that force is released at once. Great way to hurt yourself. So the quality of these forgings is very important and I'd much rather entrust my safety to the people that actually touch the metal than just to the engineers, who may be able to optimize for cost but who don't actually have much (sometimes no) shop experience. Knowing how to make something in theory and actually making it in practice can be quite far apart, even on something as mundane as what ultimately is a chunk of metal.