Industrialized and Mass-Production Thinking is Still the Enemy
- January 7th, 2011
- Posted in Shared Services . Systems Thinking Concepts . Systems Thinking and Contact Centers . Systems Thinking and Education . Systems Thinking and Financial Industry . Systems Thinking and Government . Systems Thinking and Healthcare . Systems Thinking and Management . Systems Thinking and Measures . Systems Thinking and Technology
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To take a look at business we have to go back in time to a Post WW II world. Manufacturing was decimated by the war, except in one country . . . the United States. The world turned to the US for products.
Because of world demand, the US focused its manufacturing on mass production and the thinking from Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford. How many can we produce and how fast? . . . Were the questions that US manufacturing was trying to solve. No competition and no focus on quality.
This worked well until a meeting in Japan on July 13th, 1950. Where W. Edwards Deming met with 21 presidents of industry that represented about 80% of the capital of Japan. Dr. Deming promised that if they followed better thinking that the US would be screaming for protection from Japanese goods in 5 years, they did it in 3.
In the greatest upset in economic history, US manufacturing faltered . . . culminating in the 1970’s with the bankruptcy of auto industry giants – Chrysler and Ford. This lead to some self-reflection in the US about how a small country like Japan with few natural resources could put the US on its heels.
In 2011, the design of American manufacturing and service still has that mass-production flavor. Some have managed to change to just survive (always good motivation to do so), but service still lags in thinking. Many technology organizations think of their software development process as a production line. A wholly wrong approach if you hope to make good software.
I have talked about economies of flow before, but it is scale thinking that still wins the day. Reducing costs through outsourcing, shared services leads to service designs that have the opposite outcome of what is desired . . . or unintended consequences. In this case, the unintended consequences are increased costs, worse service and reduced morale.
Economies of flow thinking helps lead us to better design as what is good for the customer always is good for the bottom-line. To many, this is counter-intuitive. The prevailing thinking is that better service costs money and it is with the industrialized thinking of yesteryear.
And so as we enter 2011, we still have the fundamental thinking problems about the design and management of work. Will this be the year that you do something about it?
Leave me a comment. . . share your opinion! Click on comments below.
Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public). His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work. Read his articles at Quality Digest and his column for CustomermanagementIQ.com Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at [email protected]. Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbittor LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/trippbabbitt.
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