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cropsey, il 61731 | We can't get anywhere unless we make something. When I was an automotive development engineer at Chrysler I noticed that money ruled over quality all the time. We we're not allowed to design something good and later work on cost reduction through efficiency or correcting what may turn out to be 'overdesign'. To me the product rules - bad product, no one wants it and choruses of 'buy american' won't fix it. We were never a spend too much money company (Chryco), yet when we should have been making product improvement investment, we hired 'business groups' to live with us unjineers to peck away at any remaining quality. Of course this is from an engineering point of view - but given the state of the American auto industry, I'm not far off (folks are voting for Honda and Toyota and to some extent Ford now). I worked for Mitsubishi (arguably the AMC of Japan) and they were still miles ahead on the whole importance of the product - they failed a lot, but that was their corporate culture (ie. lets make something really neat that only 4 people want).
There is another side to this - labor. Used to be folks were responsible for their performance or were asked to leave. There was also the idea that a line job was a starting point and that goal was to march up the chain of command. Now it's 'I should make $150K with no way to get fired no matter how poor my work, so why would I want to move up'. I won't say all workers are like that, but when they have no incentive to be any better than the worst worker, attention to detail is not the result. Frankly I don't care how much they make, but we need a drive to excel instead of one to 'fit in'. I've been around lots of really good people that in the right work environment would do really well (I pray that's what dawn is like). Even old diamond star motors started that way until it was clear that the Mitsu folks just didn't understand English or Lieing - we had lots of bad 'cast offs' in middle management and they brought all their stupidity with them.
It's going to be hard in the future - a gov't that thinks it's owed our taxes so they can run our lives, wacko environmental laws and taxes. Whose going to hire or reinvest with these rules in place. It will end someday, but I wonder how silly it will have to get - will a future president be elected from the 'smokers' party with a slogan 'screw the environment - it's only natural'? Or can we step back from the brink.
Thanks Jim,
Pat | |
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10%+ unemployment thru 2015?
