MAY - JUNE 2001
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…Is
"Kaizen" the Answer?
Masaaki
Imai’s book sounds interesting. According to Mr. McClure, the book
states that managers have difficulty reasoning problems in a
conference room and should go to "gemba" – the area where
the work gets done – to understand the problem before they can
tackle it. That is what I got from the brief description in the
article.
Mr. Imai must know the works of W. Edwards
Deming, who spent years
in Japan just after WWII. Deming’s work there produced astounding
results based on his famous Fourteen Points among other things.
The following is excerpted from Chapter 2 of Out of the Crisis by W.
Edwards Deming:
"Point 14: Put everybody in the company to work to
accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s
job."
One Deming theory that was put to the test long before Imai’s
"kaizen" came about was to empower each person in the plant
down to the line worker with the responsibility of not only suggesting
changes but implementing changes that would increase production,
sales, etc., based on their expertise and work area (as suggested by
Point 14). The reason behind this is that the work area manager
is most likely not as familiar with what is occurring on the assembly
line on a day-to-day basis as the line worker is. This turned
out to be a tremendous help to many Japanese companies, and as I
remember, especially the Japanese auto industry.
This was just one of many ways W. Edwards Deming helped Japanese
management. The Deming Method is still taught today to managers across
the United States, in courses called "Total Quality
Management," among others.
— Eric R. Schaper
IEEE Member
Systems Engineer
Fuji Medical Systems
******************
…On Engineers
and Pre-College Education
About involving engineers in pre-college education, my answer is a
resounding YES. My wife was an elementary and high school teacher. I
was associated with the University of Illinois for many years, doing
most of my teaching while getting my MSEE, and my wife continued to
keep in touch with all the local schooling while our three children
were going through their paces. I have done high school science fair
judging and she has done much work with the local schools and the
School Board.
As you might guess,
we are enthusiasts when it comes to offering as much as possible to
the kids. I have found that very few of them have much idea of what
constitutes an engineering career, and most of them are interested in
finding out. One of the best ways for them to get this
information is to have contact with a reasonably literate working or
retired engineer. Anything the IEEE can do to get engineers to speak
to school groups or act as mentors for students interested in finding
out about engineering will be a great plus.
Please keep us posted on what is happening. The future of our country
depends on having the best possible people working for us in jobs they
enjoy.
—Dr. Robert S. Smith
IEEE Life Member
Silver Spring, MD
******************
Some time ago when
one of my engineers asked if it was at all possible that he teaches a
class one afternoon a week, I gladly agreed. Here is why:
Engineers should not only get involved in pre-college education but
even more so in full-blown university lecturing. I am from Europe
where academic credentials present a barrier toward this, since most
engineers are neither professors nor do they hold a Ph.D. Why? Because
most want to plunge into the hands-on world as soon as they can. They
might forego an academic achievement that society highly regards, but
they learn skills and learn about potential pitfalls to a degree where
a pure academic cannot compete.
Do universities place enough emphasis on the business side of things?
Absolutely not. The few years a professor may have spent in industry
are typically encapsulated in a high level R&D area. However, one
will only learn the ropes when exposed on a day-to-day basis to
production issues, costs, budgets, board room tussles when the going
gets tough, and serious grilling by bankers.
The same goes for practical design. Most of us were taught, for
example, to split grounds in systems so digital and analog sections do
not interfere. The only problem with this is that it won’t work in
real life with today’s high-bandwidth technologies. Hard-core
mixed-signal engineers know this because they suffered a bloody nose
here and there. Even if their designs somehow worked, the sobering
lesson often came when it blew the EMI certification a couple of weeks
before the critical trade show.
This
experience-based knowledge can only be passed on to the next
generation by the folks who have had the experiences.
— Joerg Schulze-Clewing
IEEE Member
Cameron Park, CA
******************
…On Electronic Voting Technology
E-voting is working in Delaware, where all ballots are cast on direct
recording electronic machines. The size of the state offers less
of an impediment cost-wise, but based on voter numbers and taxpayer
share of the cost, it would seem that every state could do it.
While engineers make the technology available, politicians set the
policy to utilize whatever technology they feel they can justify
financially. Just look to "The First State" to see the
application of modern, available technology to a basic right.
—Bill Simpson
IEEE Member
New Castle, Del.
******************
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