Quote:
Originally posted by KirkVining
ISO 9000+ is still the rage.
Looking at Boeing's problems with unions, they would be an excellent example of the half-measure implentation of CIP and its successor TQM I am refering to. I've also read their problems are as much politcal as they are anything to do with quality issues - our friendly policy towards Taiwan implemented by the Bush admin has pissed off our biggest potential new market for airplanes, China. Couple that with the international unpopularity of the Iraq war, and your going to be setting things up quite nicely for the French, who by the way just sold a huge amount of airplanes to the Chinese. In addition, in one sentence you infer it was a waste of time and money to implement CIS, then later you say all the American equipment you get is crap. Since most American corporations do not use CIP and TQM and foriegn companies are noted for it, you may be making my best argument for me.
One company I worked for went from 700 million GR to 2.8 billion GR, maintaing about the same numbers of employees. Their stock has quadrupled. They credited all of it to fanatical adoption of CIP and TQM. A whole lot of managers had to get fired to make it happen. Out of curiosty, what became of the company you worked for that implemented TQM?
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Yeah, the biggest prob we have in this country is our mindset. We're too much at the mercy of inter company politics and unions. My brother was at Boeing when all this stuff got started, and he said it was the biggest bunch of hypocracy he ever saw. They'd all get the hype about TQM, but the middle management wouldn't implement much of it. If an employee would try to "take ownership" of his job (you know, that whole "empowerment" thing) and try and make improvements, it very seldom got approved, or just got lost in all the red tape. I could go on and on. Mostly all they did it seemed was generate more paperwork. Our QA department was snowed under!
The shop I was at at the time also was the major supplier of machined parts for Tektronix Instruments, and they got on the band wagon at about the same time as Boeing did. They actually seemed to do it right though. In fact they were more helpful to us then Boeing ever was. Meeting their criteria made us more than meet Boeings' requirements.
I left that shop about 8 years ago, but last I heard they were still going strong. But I know when I left, the dust had really settled, and we didn't hear much about it all. Seems once you "comply" on paper, it's pretty much buisness as usual with Boeing. Tektronix was tough though. I know they made us a better company all around.
I left and went in search of a shop that didn't do any Boeing work(hard to find in this area) and have had far less headaches since. None of our current customers require their suppliers to be ISO 9000 complient(yet). But I keep warning the owners that the day is coming. Our biggest customer is Synrad Laser, and they are a world wide supplier of Co2 lasers. So I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they start pounding their fist on the table about ISO 9000 too. This shop will really have a tough time meeting the requirements. Our QA department is a joke, and the owners have very little clue what is looming in the horizon. They've never even heard of Demming.
