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A co-worker in the early 90s (he was a tech writer) told me of a cost savings device he invented in the 80s at Texas Instruments to fix a process where occasion
by dugmartin 3y ago
A co-worker in the early 90s (he was a tech writer) told me of a cost savings device he invented in the 80s at Texas Instruments to fix a process where occasionally a mirror on a very expensive piece of military camera gear got scratched (I think it was during field disassembly). It was basically some forceps with more metal welded on to make them longer and that allowed you access via a different route than where the mirror was installed. TI gave cost savings awards as a percentage of money saved and he did very, very well with that little invention.
- tehlike 3y agoThat's a nice incentive.
- soitgoes511 3y agoThey sure don't do that anymore... At least not at any of the Dallas factories. Even patents reap little money. You practically sell your soul when you join the company and all your ideas are theirs.
- dugmartin 3y agoThis was in Dallas, I believe. But this was in the 80s before the Peace Dividend when there was a lot of defense money sloshing around. I met him in Chicago in the 90s and he, and a lot of TI folks, had left Texas as the defense related work dried up. The team I was on in Chicago was working on the flight data recorder for the F-22 which still had funding.
- soitgoes511 3y agoOh... I believe it.. Times have changed though. They cut back on travel, corporate crédit cards, etc. We would have no less than 2 cost marathons per year of all day meetings.
- cereal_cable 3y agoSounds like standard operating procedures these days.