James L Adams—People and Products

Marc Newson and update on Stanford Good Products, Bad Products Course

There is an article on Marc Newson in the magazine section of the January 29 New York Times. He is presently one of the world’s most visible designers.  We have not talked much about individual designers, but you should find it an interesting read and we will talk more about designers later. 

To date, the course ME 314 has been involved with several things.  The students have read the first five chapters of my book and each student has submitted examples of products that show outstanding human fit, poor human fit, outstanding  craftsmanship, and poor craftsmanship, along with a paragraph justifying each choice. Courseworks, the software used at Stanford and many other universities to allow internet communication and discussion between all parties, now shows some 400 examples and comments by the students and the teaching staff on these examples. This activity will continue through the remaining chapters of my  book.   I will mention some of the conclusions from this exercise in a future post.

The students have been divided into a number of small groups who will  give presentations on the book chapter topics at the end of the term.  These groups have been also asked to read the pertinent product examples from the students and react to them. The purpose of all of this is obviously to stimulate  deeper thinking and more discussion about the topic of product quality

The course utilizes a number of speakers from outside of Stanford presenting  work and thinking that is pertinent to the quest for high quality.  David Beach, the person responsible for the course these days, is particularly interested in imagery not only as a component of good presentations, but also as an aide in evaluating the quality of products.  Therefore the first two speakers were professional media people, one, Jonathan Edelmann speaking on creating stories, and another, Scott Doorley, discussing video.  The next two were typical of the remainder of the speakers, in that they represented companies that they had founded that are particularly noteworthy as far as high quality is concerned.  The first, Peter Dreissigacker,  was co-founder of Concept II, a company that produces oars for competitive rowing and the favored ergometer among rowers.  Their success depends on producing the best.  The second, Steen Strand, was a co-founder of ICON Aircraft, developer of a an amphibious sport aircraft.  A glance at the company URL’s gives a sense of what they are up to.  Obviously quality is key to both of them.  Competitive athletes buy the best, and low-quality airplanes are clearly not desirable.  Concept II is here, and ICON Aircraft is here.

Product Quality and Work

On Sunday, Jan 2, the New York Times ran a large article entitled “How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work” by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher, beginning on the first page of and ending with a two page spread in the middle of the first section.  The verbiage from the article is here.  But the original article also included some very interesting information having to do with employment in the U.S.  

There was first of all, a graph of the percentage of workers in the service sector of the U.S. economy vs. the manufacturing sector since 1960.  As you probably know, the percentage in the manufacturing sector has fallen to about half of what it was and is now 14%, the service sector having risen to 86%.  So as of now six out of every seven U.S. workers are in the service sector.  Another graphic that took my eye was a comparison of the fifteen largest employers in the U.S. in 1960 and in 2010.  In 1960  only three of them were classified as service providers.  Now all but three are.   The only company showing up for both these times was General Electric, but its largest unit by revenue is GE capital, which provides financial services.  Apple, of course, although it ranks among the top companies in the world in capital value, does not show up on the 2010 list, because its worldwide employment is only 63,000, well below Walmart, the leader, at 2,100,000, or even CVS Pharmacy, at 280,000 the smallest of the fifteen.   In fact, none of the present “hot” internet companies (Facebook, Amazon, etc.) show up on the 2010 list. 

But hopefully, you are following this change, because it is an important one not only for the U.S., but other “developed” countries and ones following the same path.   Another interesting set of numbers from the article compares the additional jobs created in various other areas from 1000 new jobs from each.  According to these, 1000 additional jobs created in retailing result in 240 additional jobs elsewhere.  For hospitals, the number is 670, for computer systems design services 1,190, for motor vehicle manufacturing 4,710, and for steel product manufacturing, 11,890.  Seems to me that as far as job creation, we in the U.S. are not exactly going in the right direction. 

I admit, that I have a visceral reaction, in that I personally would have found being employed in most of the companies listed for 1960 challenging and rewarding.  I would not like to work in many of the ones listed for 2010.  I would consider most of them great big stores and I am an engineer!  But I do admit that I perhaps have an age problem, because I was having a wonderful time building spacecraft in 1960.  Maybe if I was just beginning my career now, I would find great challenge working for Walmart or Bank of America.

What does this have to do with product quality?  If countries like the U.S. desire to remain in manufacturing and provide jobs for all of the other people like me who do not want to work in stores, it becomes more and more important to continue to improve the quality of our products, and improve our market share.

Maybe we should be proud that Apple can make a profit of $400,000  per worker through their competence at globalization (also from the Duhigg-Bradsher NYT article).  And people like me do have the freedom to move to Shenzhen and work for Lina Lin (in the article) if we like the process of designing and manufacturing products, except that our families would not be pleased to join us there. 

Perhaps we are somewhat ambivalent about globalization an using the wrong quantities to measure our success.  What do you think?

Automobile Quality

If you are interested in opinions as to the quality of 2012 cars, now is a good time to look at the web.  One of the older and perhaps more thorough series of rankings is that done by Motor Trend Magazine.  A good explanation of their thinking behind their award for the  2012 car of the year is here.  Their winner was the Volkswagen Passat.  As the article explains, they put 35 cars through various hurdles, and relied on the opinions of a panel of judges.  Reading through the article gives you an idea not only of their relative rankings of the cars, but also of the biases of the judges. You will undoubtedly disagree with them, as one of the major entertainments  of automobile fans is to do so, usually by means of extremely insulting letters to the magazine.

This competition was described in the magazine as the "biggest ever", and "a level playing field of greatsmall, midsize, sporty, and green cars from around the globe.  Wow.  A changing ball game?

There was a time when U.S. car magazines, such as Motor Trend, seemed to be biased toward "U.S." cars (G.M., Ford, Chrysler) except for occasional interest in overseas "sport" or "racing" cars.  They were focussed toward acceleration, speed, and size, and seemed less taken by such things as mileage, handling, and interior details.  Happily that has been changing.  The 35 cars in this competition represented a global group varying in size from the Fiat 500 to the Chrysler 300, and in mileage from the Chrysler 300 to the 100mpg+ equivalents of the electrics. To me, the most wonderful thing was the overall diversity among them. Diversity means experimentation, which means creativity, which is bound to lead to better products.  Diversity also means that it will be possible for individuals to choose cars that  are better suited to them.  The automobile industry seems to be awakening.

Consider the traditional "U.S." companies (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler).  Although their products were certainly in the minority in the Motor Trend competition, there are very encouraging words being written about their future products.  One would hope so, since they should have been thoroughly awakened by their recent economic histories, rising fuel prices, increasing traffic congestion, the spectre of increasing government regulation, and global competition. 

Not only the products, but the nature of the automobile industry continues to change.  Outsourcing is so widespread, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to absolutely correlate cars with nations.  Some companies, such as Volkswagen, tend to design and build their automobiles in their home country.  But the Passsat, the winner of the Motor Trend 2012 Car of the Year contest, is manufactured in Tennessee, and will only be sold in the U.S. and China.   Clearly a German company, but a German car?   And how about Chrysler, a traditional U.S. company now owned by Fiat.

An interesting article on the internet written by Craig Howie and entitled Is Your Car Made in America is here.  It gives a peek into the industry, which has truly become global. This is at present causing great concern about balance of trade, employment, and other such important considerations.  But the good news is that the products cannot help but benefit from the increased competition, insights, technology, broadening customer pool, and sophistication. 

Too Tall Pickup?

If you are in the Good Products, Bad Products class right now at Stanford, you can skip this post, because I complained a bit both in class and in my book about the size of my “full sized” 2011 pickup. But I want to put this post in my blog because I am fascinated about how products such as automobiles in the U.S. seem to grow in size until they become too big, and digital products seem to shrink until they become too small.  Then there is usually a great break-through, and U.S. automobile manufacturers discover smaller cars and people making smaller digital products discover larger ones (pads?).

My pickup, a 2011 Toyota Tundra, is shown here backed up to a 1966 Chevrolet – both l/2 ton pickups with 8 foot beds.  All mid 1950's full-size pickups were approximately the same size, as are all 2011 full size pickups.   The growth is obvious, but the reason for it is not.  On first glance, the larger door might be convenient, except that the seat, being positioned by the steering wheel, is far toward the front of the door opening.  If one tries to use the door when parked next to other cars, the door cannot be opened far enough to provide as much space as a smaller door would.  True, there is more room to put stuff behind the seat than in the older pickup, but this room is useless for most people I know (including me), because the space rapidly fills up with miscellaneous objects, which one forgets are there, and which are very difficult to find and remove if one does not.

But my chief complaint is the height of the pickup.  The bed is deeper, the clearance is greater, and the suspension looks like it allows a larger amount of movement.  The distance between the top of the rear tire and the body work gives an indication of this and can be seen in the photo above.  The result is a very long step to get into the back, difficulty in reaching objects in the bed from over the side, and even a long step  get into the passenger compartment.  I had to add an aftermarket running board to make it reasonable for my wife to get into and out of the truck, and in fact, to make it reasonable  for myself.  And I cannot reach small objects in the middle of the bed from standing on the ground beside the truck, and I am 6’2”.

Why is this a problem?  Because I use the truck to haul things, and that is what pickups were for.  This picture shows a 2011 Ford F-150 that a farmer friend of mine owns.   He became so annoyed at not being able to reach things in the bed that he removed the box and put a flatbed on the frame.  The next picture shows a typical load – the kind of stuff that farmers haul around.   I could go on for some time -  On modern pickups there are inadequate load tie-downs and the body acquires and shows dings enthusiastically.  This picture shows a  tail-light assembly on my truck.  The other one is broken.  This assembly shatters easily and it is so large and protruding  that it is difficult to avoid breaking and replacing it, for $100 or so ($200 from a dealer).  The Chevrolet tail light and back up light are below—adequate, harder to hit, and cheaper to replace. But I will not go further.

There are many good points about my 2011 pickup.  It has high reliability and for a good sized pickup gets reasonable mileage.  I was able to acquire it with minimum bells and whistles of the type that begin failing over time.  My plan is to lower it, (because I —like most pickup owners— have no intention of racing it to the tip of Baja California nor driving it off-road through mountains) and drive it until I rebuild the Chevrolet!

As I say in the book, modern pickups, are somewhere between a car and a truck –  compromise vehicles.  I want an honest 1/2 ton truck with an eight foot bed to haul miscellaneous things around and that provides decent mileage, wears scratches and dents proudly, is easily serviceable, has a long life, and  fits me.  I do not need one to help me look tougher, or either cooler or hotter.    I am not looking for fights, I am cool enough, and I don't need to hit on  cowgirls.   I would think that there are enough people like me that there is a potential quality product out there that could make some company some money.

 

 

Week 1, the Good Products, Bad Products Course

The Good Products Course is on its way.  I linked a schedule to my last post, and in this one I am including the reading assignments from my book here, in case you are interested.  They are very similar to the ones at the ends of the chapter of the book, only more limited in extent because they need to be read and commented upon (private school, high tuition, feedback required).

The first meeting was devoted to organizing and describing the course, figuring out who the students were, etc.

At the second meeting, Bonnie Wan, the CEO of The Way We Live, gave an excellent presentation of non quantitative marketing research and what can be done with it.  She gave several interesting examples, my favorite being a study performed for a computer game company that wanted to find out more about the culture of street and canyon racers so that they could improve a racing game they sell.  As in most social science research, this required that the people doing the study become accepted by the drivers (young, male, car-freak thrill seekers).  This was unusually difficult, because street and canyon racing, although definitely existing late at night in areas such as Southern California, are illegal.  But they succeeded in the study, and an interesting part is that street racing (city streets) and canyon racing (mountains and the opportunity to go over a cliff if you make a mistake) attract very different people.  Street racing is apparently all about cars, and canyon racing all about drivers. Street racers are into macho, and canyon racers skill.  There are, of course similarities.  For instance, members of both cultures require extremely high adrenaline levels.  Sounds like another version of the different values of drag racers and of  sports car racers.   The reason for her talk was to discuss methods of better understanding cultures and emotions and their relation to products.

I also said a few words about the course and the book, and dropped in a few examples.  I will show you a few photos I used in my next post.  If you are in the class and reading this, you have seen them.  But in the future I will include more photos in my posts because of the lack of same in the book, and will not be showing them in the class.

 

 

 

The Good Products, Bad Products class, ME 314, Winter Quarter, 2012, Stanford University

Classes for Winter Quarter begin in two days, January 9^th, this year.  That has made for a long vacation, so everyone will either be unusually ready to go, or unusually ready for more vacation.  David Beach has been teaching the  Good Products, Bad Products course since I retired in 1999, and has changed it in many ways, although he has kept the intent of the course the same.  He has continued to use my notes, and now that they have been published as a book, he is using it as a text in the course.  It is listed as a graduate course in the school of engineering, but will include students from other parts of the campus as well.  As of now, there are some 80 students signed up for the course on campus, and another 40  part-time students who will be taking it remotely over the internet.  A good sized crowd.

An idea of what occurs in each meeting of the Good Products, Bad Products course is here.  The students will be reading my book and doing exercises similar to the ones listed at the end of the chapters.  They will write short papers on each, and I will talk about them and include some of the more interesting ones on this blog.  They will also read two other books.  Classes will involve guest speakers representing companies and individuals concerned with and producing high quality products, lectures from David Beach, and discussions of the reading material, the speakers, and whatever other product-quality related concerns arise during the quarter.  The schedule of the course may change in deference to such concerns. 

I will also be making comments in the blog on various aspects of quality, probably at times going beyond the material in my book.  I will from time to time give you updates on the course.  You are encouraged to comment on my posts, and I will forward the comments to the class, should they fit the activities that are under way. The more diversity in input to the students, the better.

The class concludes with a series of consistently impressive presentations on the material in my book.  Groups of students select the topic areas, do appropriate research, and being a bright and talented bunch with a love of media, come up with presentations that are entertaining as well as educational.  I obviously cannot deliver the entire course to you in a blog, but I will keep you in touch.  Stay tuned!

HOMO SAPIENS AND THE THINGS THEY MAKE

Product quality, creativity and innovation,design, the nature of technology, working with the hands, and people— what do these have in common?  First of all, I am very interested in all six of them.  I have spent a large amount of time and effort studying, teaching courses and writing about,  and consulting with industry on the first four, am a firm believer and practitioner of the fifth, and am constantly fascinated by the last one.  I can tie them all together in many ways.  As an example, any company these days trying to establish a satisfying future should be working on improving the quality of their products. Improving the quality of products involves design and often technology and organizational change—all implying creativity and innovation. I firmly believe that working with the hands gives one the ability to truly understand, respect, and appreciate craftsmanship, which is a critical element of product quality.     Finally, the actors in this play and the audience for the result are people.  See?  It’s not all that difficult. 

I intend to simply throw what I consider to be interesting and related material on each one of these factors into this blog, hoping that it will help you think in different ways about how we homo sapiens and the things we make interact, and perhaps how these things could serve us better.  The overall goal is to discuss product quality. That's why this blog is titled "People and Products".  I will of course give you my thoughts from time to time, with which you are certainly free to disagree.  One of my main purposes for writing this blog is to help myself think about the relationship between us and our stuff.  I am eager for your input. 

 

Why the Good Products, Bad Products book?

Since my new book is officially to be available January 13^th, I will be talking about product quality for a series of posts.

A reasonable question would be “why did I write the book?”  For many (60?) years I have been interested in what makes some products of industry “good”, and others “bad”.  I have been involved in designing them, making them, selling them, buying them, and using them.  I guess I wanted to say some things about product quality.   I have not heard many arguments against striving for higher quality in products.  I have heard many people argue for low prices, and there certainly are  valid arguments for them.  One of the more successful courses at Stanford is entitled Extreme Affordability, and focuses on designing and producing products for people of very low income level (people-powered pumps for African villagers, etc.).  But cheap and good are not necessarily opposed.  products can vary in quality – why not make them as “good” as possible for their price?  In fact, in pursuit of manufacturing quality, many have found that products cost less to manufacture as their quality improved. And since quality is an overall measure of value, prices may be more elastic than we think.  From my viewpoint, improving product quality is the only feasible long term success path for those of us who furnish products to our growing populations constrained by finite resources and subject to rising expectations.

One of the difficulties in attaining higher quality, is that the people involved in designing, manufacturing, selling, buying, maintaining, and disposing of industrial products see aspects of quality that pertain to their own function, experience, values, and sensitivity, but not always the overall picture.  Engineers are sensitive to performance, but sometimes have to be reminded about cost, aesthetic appeal, and human fit.  Business people are sensitive to profit,  especially in the short term, and are comfortable with marketing and promotion, but sometimes less sensitive to  the importance of such things as advanced product development, continual improvement, reliability and serviceability, and “truth in advertising”.  Buyers and users are sometimes suckers for features they will never use and often overly-influenced  by promotional material, fad and fashion, and short-term experience (the bounce on the mattress in the store). They are also often not as concerned with the lifetime and dependability of the product as they might later think they should have been.

The Good Product, Bad Products book is based not only on my experience and thoughts, but on a series of courses I have taught at Stanford, beginning with courses in the Product Design Program, then a cooperative program between the Mechanical Engineering and Art departments, continuing with a Course entitled Aesthetics and Technology, taught in the Science, Technology, and Society program, and culminating in the course I began some 25 five years ago in the Engineering School that has the same title as the book and still lives on, using my notes. The book is based on the notes, and focuses on a number of aspects of quality that I believe to be very important, but that for a number of reasons receive less attention than they should.  These topics are shown in the table of contents of the book here.