``..a long time ago i heard a lecture by a Boeing engineer, who claimed they were the first large corporation to fully integrate CAD/CAE into their entire operation. and i mean ENTIRE. if i recall correctly this allowed for an unusally high level of interplay between designers, high-level engineers, and floor fabrication people...''
Les Schaffer ----------
Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.
The WSJ article example of manufacturing high pressure pumps was interesting because it inadvertently illustrated part the deeper problems, probably none of which the writer understood. That is, fluid dynamics is so complex (Ian should love this) that it can't be completely engineered and rationalized in advance. So you absolutely depend on skill and experience with how certain fluids under a range of temperatures and pressures behave. Notice also for example that it was the company chief and managers who met with production line workers. Our example pump business had to depend on lower waged workers to refine the original engineering. So, my question is where were the engineers who originally designed these pumbs? Laid off no doubt long ago in some previous cost cutting move.
That this kind of knowledge was considered shop lore and voodoo, really illustrated why US business culture (with its WSJ ideologues, neoliberal political hacks, and MBA clones) has become incompatible with high level manufacturing and a highly skilled work force.
As Ian noted, FedEx does just-in-time labor, but as I wrote offlist, FedEx isn't manufacturing. It's a shipping service. So my conclusion is that Taylorism works fine as long as there is no tangible product or if the product doesn't matter.
As for Eric's question:
``...Were you and every expereinced worker summarily replaced by some newbie, then the system would collpse of its own weight sooner...''
We have been replaced, and the system is collapsing. The neoliberal trick (talk about lore and voodoo) to keep it all going has been to direct the economy in a race to the bottom where all we have are FedEx and MacDonalds---the kind of business sectors where high Taylorism works, the product whatever it is doesn't matter, and niether does the skill level of the labor. What is the real cost of a fucked up hamburger or a damaged package? It is practically nil compared to a crashed airliner or an exploding oil line pump.
Remember the Ford Explorer v. Firestone? A great example of how US corporate savvy met the limits of engineering and production line craft, and successfully over came them with marketing, management, and a lot of lawyers.
Chuck Grimes