By: Atherton

Atherton — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:35:54 +0000

I agree with some reviewers: no special interest in the automotive industry need to enjoy this book. Mary Walton's story is a fascinating look at the human drama that is part of the development of a complex product and bring it to market on time and within budget, despite the possible limitations
Walton Ford had asked permission for the team shadows to bring a new Ford Taurus on the market, and then write about their experiences.
There are many factions and a few really trusted parties under the various teams responsible for the new Taurus. The story is the interplay of the different engineering teams, engineers from the plant ( "Plant Rat"), where the car will be made to design groups (they choose the colors), Executive Leadership and funding, the actual decision to go ahead and build the cars and makes the most fascinating part: many vendors told just enough to do their job and maybe, if they are wise to make a profit.
The two most important players and very colorful, and even as "professionals" are Landgraff Dick and George Bell, his right hand. Their offers are peppered throughout the book and by themselves make the book a worthy read on. Here are some examples:
George Bell, who had trusted Landgraff Chief Engineer to ensure a "to make sure nobody is doing anything stupid." Decisions that cost too much or disrupt the schedule are a bit stupid.
"Each set of goals that are fulfilled immediately, is probably not aggressive enough." George Bell
Dick Landgraff believed that you should just find "people who you can trust and empower them to do things. If they screw up, get rid of them. "
Some Georgisms: After looking at the engine: "It looks like A Dog's Breakfast." And, "Let's stop lashing us with barbed wire."
"The only thing that really counts is," Do I have goals? I will not be graded, "Did I go all feel good?" Landgraff not bother to question if he is not Mr. Nice Guy.
She felt sorry for those amateurs from the electronics. Everything she did was to sit on another slam-dunk. They were against a pro.
"Ford has too many distractions … Get session with mentors for the people … It is important to pay attention to the car. Each time you do not, something goes wrong. People get caught with all the others, as I call it frivolous stuff. Like, going to seminars to hear about what's happening on the 1998 steering column, and go to lunch meeting to find out what truck operations running on something else. People lose their focus, they lose their ability to remember what it is going to do, so they scatter to their efforts in a number of interesting and perhaps valuable sorts of things, but they are not decisive, what they really want to achieve. "Landgraff
"Suppliers … We need to take away all excuses. "
Landgraff letter to Lear Seat president: "You need a man with real responsibility for the success of the company to receive, you must do is clear, you are unhappy, and you must follow-up."
"Unfortunately we have to Lear Seat hammered so much, they have grown an asbestos ass." Landgraff
"The problem with these PR's people, it's amateur night at the movies. Your time horizon is about thirty minutes. "Landgraff
Body and assembly acted as if the installation had been "the eighteenth century in France. A large castle surrounded by a moat … I do not respect that stuff. "Landgraff.
************
In the end, Ford was with the manuscript of Mary Walton's unhappy, and cut off further contact with Ford people. One wonders what Ford thought or expected. I very much enjoyed this book and recommend it all the time as an alternative to just another fashionable management book

By: Xhosa

Xhosa — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:09:18 +0000

This review is from: By car:) A Drama of the American Workplace (Hardcover I'm studying mechanical engineering and I have this book every year, I was reading in school. Every time I read it I get more excited about the sanction participation in this volatile world of automotobile development, as a cast member of the American drama of the workplace. "Other contributions to this book to Mary Walton for the selection of the bull, but This can be seen that most people forget that the family sedan is probably the hardest car engineer. You have to satisfy a much larger number of people than if you are building a Corvette C5, where everything you do, it will burn quickly and say corners. I found the test Taurus meet much more.

By: Uba

Uba — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:56:42 +0000

The complaint in this book goes beyond an interest in the automotive industry or an interest in cars. If you read in any kind of development, from software to hardware, this book is entertaining and instructive. It seems we are all fighting the same battle: Designers and engineers are constantly at loggerheads, testers find errors in the last minute to tell the President of the Senate unusual things to the press and the seller of the search for the spin. If you do not want another boring book, how to improve the software development, you try to read them.

Comments on: Car: A Drama of the American Workplace

By: Atherton

By: Xhosa

By: Uba