Eugene Taurman wrote:
> Comments on Harrels's and Carringtons postings
>
> Profit and quality are not mutually exclusive as many belive. Best quality
> and least cost(max profit) occur at the same time. That is when the
> process works exactly right. By focus on processes and making them work
> on demand without flaw we can simultaneously reduce cost improve quality
> and make a better place to work. Processes that work right is a less
> frustrating place to work that improves attitude. Many managers do not yet
> understand this do not accept it due to some old paradigms which you
> mentioned. But it is true and has been proven by many companies over the
> past 40 years.
Gene,
I don't mind blunt. It all depends upon how you define the parameters.
If the issue is product within a certain parameter that is the most
profitable with the least cost then you can make the statement that you
made. If however you define quality not within parameters but as the
achievement of a workable ideal, then you have a product that must be
perfect no matter the cost.
In the concert piano example that I gave, the issue of what constituted
"quality" to the management and what was acceptable to the professional
technicians outside the company along with the professional artists that
earned their living using the product were two different realities.
The issue of durable quality is a story that in my experience has a lot of
hype around it. A piano must last fifty years, getting better each year
as it is used. It is desirable that an automobile not last fifty years
getting better through use. So what constitutes perfection in the piano
is an ideal that works for the concert artist. What constitutes
perfection for the automobile is decided based upon parameters that fit
the replacement of the product every three to four years as a part of the
productivity.
This confusion that you raise is what makes the arts so incomprehensible
in the modern market place and causes us no small amount of trouble. The
same issue is found in medicine where the issue of replacement parts
wearing out is not considered a productivity issue but a life threatening
one.
I believe that it all comes down to the way in which we define things.
There are no simple answers. There will be no substitute for learning the
economist's language since the business and political community has begun
to create the culture around it. What I refer to is put in economics
under the terms "Public Goods" and "Custom Goods" neither of which have
the possibility of "economie of scale" productivity. What I hear you
referring to is the efficiency of an "economie of scale" workplace.
To compare one with the other is like comparing a Bentley to a Ford. A
Bentley on the other hand is a custom product, not a work of art with the
purposes of art as defined in Western Cultural History. So this means
that the excellence required in both cases are also not the same thing.
Without the excellence you have no Art. Without the excellence in the
Bentley you simply have a sloppy car, but its still a car nonetheless.
Thanks for the conversation.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York
http://www.freeyellow.com/members/mccony/
<mcore@idt.net>
--Ray Evans Harrell <mcore@IDT.NET>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>