James L Adams—People and Products

Quality, Decision Making, and Logic

I am particularly fascinated by the illogical and non-scientific components of human decision making — even among logicians and scientists.  Three of my favorite books have to do with this, and I recommend them to anyone who has not read them – particularly if they are involved in engineering, science, or business and concerned with product quality.  They are not fresh off the press, but I recently looked through them, and was again pleased with their style and message. 

The first two, Predictable Uncertainty, by Dan Ariely, and Nudge, by Richard Thaler, and Cass Sunstein, are often associated with behavioral economics (see the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman discussed in my post of Dec 15, 2011).  Ariely’s book, which reposed in the New York Times top seller list for a considerable time,  contains a wondrous collections of examples of “illogical” decision_making drawn from research in the field and thought-provoking facts (a tape measure once owned by John F. Kennedy went for $48,875 dollars at an auction, and the 70^th home run ball hit by Mark McGwire  for three million at another one).  Arieli’s background was originally in psychology, although he at one point also earned a Ph,D in business.  He now holds forth as a Professor at Duke and in many other locations.

Richard Thaler, co-author of Nudge, is a professor in the Chicago School of Economics, with a background in economics and is a behavior economist.  He obviously a stong person, because one does not think of this school as a wondrously supportive environment for behavioral economists.  Cass Sunstein is a Law Professor at Harvard, although he is now on leave as part of President Obama’s staff (Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) where he is attempting to better apply the messages in the book .  Among other things the book proposes (and backs up) the amazing power of small interventions to change people’s behavior.  An example is the difference between requiring effort to volunteer organs on death (complete a form that you are willing to donate), vs requiring effort to not volunteer  (complete a form that you are not willing to donate) . The resulting difference is huge, and for many reasons.  But at least in California, we are using the wrong approach and complaining about the scarcity of transplant organs.  Nudge is in a sense a bit more applied than Predictable Uncertainty, but built on the same principles.

The third book, How Pleasure Works, was written by Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale, It is also extremely pertinent to Product Quality.  The first two books bear more on how and why people make decisions, this one is more about the mechanics of and reasons for emotional response.  Bloom talks about origins of emotion, and how strongly and why people respond to non-functional aspects of objects – authenticity, rarity, history, uniqueness, and essences of objects that are based on our experiences and our species.

All three of these books are beautifully written, and amusing to read.  The reader cannot help by identify with the examples.  We often come across “silly” behavior in experiments and situations, only to realize that we either also act in that way, or might if put in the situation.  These books guarantee a great deal of such experiences. An example might be the increased value placed on something one owns, such as a used and faithful automobile) versus what one might pay for an identical object one does not own (an identical car on a used car lot) – this often appears in the discrepancy between asking price from an owner and offer from a prospective buyer.

Buttons representing each book are on the right side of the blog under recommended books, and clicking on them will take you rapidly to the appropriate Amazon page, should you want more information.

 

Japan and Quality

In the June-16-22^nd issue of The Economist, the Schumpeter page has an interesting article entitled Zen and the art of carmaking .  After spending over half of the page extolling the traditional craftsmanship, fine engineering, and high quality of Japanese-built products, the author abruptly moves to criticizing the Japanese for poor marketing, excepting Nissan, which apparently has a marketing budget as large as their R &D budget.  The article comments on Toyota’s response to this by saying that “Toyota’s officials shake their heads at such flim flam.  It is as if Japan’s two largest carmakers, one run by a diffident scion of the founding family, the other by a fast-talking French-Brazilian, were as different as East and West”.

How long can the “West” continue to encourage the “East” to act like they do?  Detroit companies certainly have put a great deal of emphasis on marketing, as opposed to major innovations in their products, and look at what  it did for them? The article mentioned Honda as an example of a traditional Japanese company.  Honda has never acted as though it wanted to be an “American-style” automobile company. I am a long-time Honda fan, and my wife is more of one, having had a long love affair with a Honda CRX, and now an Acura TSX.  The cars are reliable, nicely designed and finished,  and hugely fun to drive. Honda’s  hold on the motorcycle market has been strong for many years and they have moved nicely into outdoor power equipment including outboard marine engines, general purpose engines, generators, lawnmowers, pumps, snow blowers, tillers and trimmers for commercial, rental and residential applications..

I am not against marketing, but I would rather be Honda than General Motors.  The Schumpeter article states “In emerging markets such as China, Japanese products and considered either over-engineered for the budgets of ordinary people, or lacking the baubles that delight the newly rich”.  My response is that maybe there is a bit of sour grapes here.  Historically, China does not love Japan, and it perhaps wishes that the ordinary people had more money and that the newly rich had less.

The “West”s attitude towards the “East”, has always been warped by lack of understanding. We are comfortable with eastern institutions that act more like the West, such as large global businesses.  But when things approach Zen, or any other philosophy that is unique to the East, we can’t figure out why people don’t copy our values.  I first visited Japan in 1956. I was in the Air Force, and a friend of mine and I had saved up a month’s leave, so we caught a military hop to Tokyo, ditched our uniforms, and played wandering college kid for a month.  Having been raised midst anti-Japanese propaganda, and the villainous nature of the attack on Pearl Harbor, (I later learned it was only villainous if viewed through “Western” eyes.  According to many philosophies of war, it was brilliant) I was unprepared for a culture with the history, sophistication, and aesthetic values of Japan – nor one that ate fish for breakfast, did not go to Church on Sunday, and could be so warm and friendly to representatives of those who blew away Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Also I was amazed at the success they were having in recovering from the war, especially in re-tooling their industries.  A very impressive group of people, and I would hate to see them become as frantic about growth, short-term profit, and the selling of mediocre products as we have.  A while ago I bought an aluminum step ladder at a reputable hardware outlet.  The good news is that it is very light weight.  The bad news is that it is incredibly fragile, and the pivots are all rivets that were set too tightly, so the process of putting it up or taking it down requires large forces which tend to bend structural members.  It was made in Mexico.  The name (brand?) of the ladder is Louisville – a common Mexican name?  It is less  than a mediocre product.

Although I certainly understand the importance of marketing to keeping the economy stirred up and allowing fast growth and large size for companies, I am pretty fed-up with marketing as it effects me right now, and am not at all looking forward to increasingly annoying pitches based on information-based utilizing data culled from myriads of sources and reduced by large mysterious companies such as Acxiom Corporation .  The Schumpeter article reminded me of why I like Japan and its people, and other cultures that make outstanding craftsmen into National Living Treasures.  Go-Honda.

Social Networking, My Blog, and Product Quality

As some of you know, I am in the process of adding Twitter and Facebook, and perhaps LinkedIn to my blog.  I realize I can no longer escape social networking if I still want to communicate with much of the human race.  Given a few weeks I will probably have them all interacting reasonably well and have forgotten the difficulty of entering an activity that has been going on for some time.  To those of  you who have neither taken the Stanford Good Products Bad Products course, been following my blog, or otherwise heard me rant about product quality, a few words concerning my present interests are perhaps in order.  To  those of you following my neophyte attempts at social networking, any help is appreciated.

In the latter part of the 20^th century, amazing gains were made in what was then called manufacturing quality.  These were stimulated by international competition appearing first in northern Europe, and then in Asia.  The results were impressive in product reliability, cost reduction, and customer appeal.  The campaign was based on sound economic and management principles, and motivated by metrics. 

But after these amazing gains, attention shifted to other aspects of industrial production, and even during the “manufacturing quality revolution”, many aspects of product quality that are not easily described by metrics were passed by.  I am interested in overall product quality, which includes such things as human, cultural and environmental fit, craftsmanship, emotional appeal, aesthetics, sophistication, and elegance.  It is much more difficult for people in business and engineering to consider love than performance.

But even with performance, we have a problem.  We use obsolete measures and tend to focus on product features which result in quick sales and immediate profits.  Do you often have the opportunity to fully use the 0 to 60 time of your car?  Should  you really need a new iPhone every year?

We accept present quality because of tradition and the values inculcated in economic systems, industry and in the professionals who work there.   If you think a bit about products you produce and/or use, you can come up with many valid insights as to how they could be improved, often with no increase, or even a decrease in cost.  Do we really need all of the bells and whistles on products, that when added together keep us confused and constantly referring to our products to see how to adjust and maintain them?  Are we perhaps becoming weary of the ever increasing choices we have among products that essentially do the same thing?  Finally, have we become innovation crazy?  Do we need more apps or better apps.  Do we need to use the entire capability of the integrated circuit, or just what we really need.  Do we need more and more of everything, or just what is compatible with our limited abilities and resources?  Technology is supposed to serve us, not the opposite.

I recently wrote the book Good Products Bad Products (McGraw Hill, New York, N.Y., 2011) about such things, and added the blog and now social networking to try to encourage more thought about this issue.  I believe that in this day and age, those making and buying the best products win—and in the process feel very good about themselves—why not you (and us)?

Hammers and Quality

Tools that have evolved over many years tend to be of high quality and often survive breakthroughs in technology.  Think of the common hammer, one of my favorite tools.  It has certainly benefited from many years of development, and still holds its own despite the presence of nail guns, which have captured a large piece of the “commercial” market because of their speed.

I was introduced to “hand” tools early in life, as my family used few power tools and did all of its own construction.  Here is a photo of me at 21 months of age, helping build the family house.

I had my own small hammer, and was attacking a nail that was a bit beyond my size, but I was definitely encouraged to learn to use tools.  And I did.  And the basic skills have served me very well indeed.

One advantage of the common hammer, is that not only does it perform its job well, but it has not changed a great deal over my life.  The two hammers in the photo below are one used by my grandfather, which I acquired upon his death 60 years ago and have used constantly since then, and one I acquired a few years ago because it is heavier and better suited for framing. 

Evidence of maturity can be seen because there is not a lot of difference between the two, even though the one with the wooden handle may be pushing 100 years of age.  Having trained on my little childhood hammer, I seem to be able to pick up any hammer—new, old, mine, my neighbor’s, one in our student shop or belonging to anyone in my family— and use it equally well with no training, no short course, and no manual/video.  It is a hugely flexible tool, useful for everything from driving nails to demolishing unwanted structures, preventing pieces of paper from blowing around, and scratching my back. And it does not need time to boot, deliver spam to me, post advertisements, crash, or die.

Examining the hammer in the context of my Good Products, Bad Products book, it certainly delivers great value for its cost, fits me, is nicely made, is a beautiful, elegant, and sophisticated device, gives me membership in a culture I respect (those who work with hand tools), is very easy on the environment, and I obviously love it.  Happiness to me is building things, and nothing surpasses banging on things with my hammer.

The Digital Revolution and Quality

We are overdue a backlash toward our concept of an “information economy”, and it may be beginning to happen.   I run across more and more columns and articles such as the ones I referenced in my last blog. Maybe an opportunity to think more about quality.

There is no doubt that digital electronics in all of their many applications have brought and are bringing major changes to individuals and our societies.  As an engineer, and therefore being suspected of being a nerd/geek, I have been pleased for some years to see engineers and scientists becoming famous, getting rich, making the society pages, and being followed by paparazzi.  I was made happy for weeks by the movie “Revenge of the Nerds in 1984, just as I cheered for Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network”.

I am probably not a typical user of digital devices and the internet because I tend to use them as tools to accomplish specific tasks rather than for entertainment.  From my standpoint,  digital equipment and software, and the internet itself,  have a ways to go, before they can be considered high quality products.  Their positive impacts on my life are dimmed  by demands on my time and questionable effects on personal and social traditions that I am used to and value (privacy? elections?).

To me, computers are tools to do many things, and tools should not take so much time outside of being used for their purpose.  I just bought a new Apple Powerbook pro, and it is requiring the usual hours and expense of upgrading applications that the new (to me) operating system does not like, and identifying and replacing (upgrading?) software and hardware features I have developed facility with over the years. I have used Apple computers since the Apple 2, but I am wearying of hardware and software changes which force me to learn new tricks, but do not add appreciably to performance. And some very useful features disappear each time.  Obviously Apple is trying to move the desktop operating system toward that used in handheld devices, but for instance, it took me a bit of time to find that scan bars  can be made to remain independently of cursor position.  And apparently the small useful arrows at the bottom of the scan bar are gone forever.  Give me a break!

I spent the last few days happily entertaining myself by working on a swell 1948 two ton Chevrolet truck that I acquired from a friend.  Here is a photo so you can share its beauty.  Wrenches take no preparation (they don’t even need to be booted up), and the truck is amazingly straight forward mechanically and easy to work on compared to my wife’s highly digital car (or the internet).  Obviously mature technology.

I find that the internet becomes more time consuming to use as it fills with ads, junk, and redundant and questionable information.  How about quality of information?  And as I said in an earlier post, I am belatedly entering the world of social networking, and will probably get used to it, but wow!  Talk about information overload— or maybe word overload, since much of the information is certainly far from earth shaking.   Many people I know have  a twitter account and a Face Book page, but few of them make much use of them.  Of the 900 million (or however many) people are on Facebook, I wonder how many of them actively use it.  The same for Twitter.  The next bubble may be a social networking bubble, as marketing moves on to its next big thing, and the novelty of communicating with hundreds, if not thousands of people one will never know wears off. 

I will probably write an apology post later when. I become addicted to social networking.  But I presently consider the software and hardware associated with communications and computing to be miraculous, but not yet of astonishing quality. I was recently treated to a gigabit per second internet service by Google (swell), but the router that came with the service  seems to like to be rebooted often (not swell).

I am enthusiastic and optimistic about the digital revolution, but still considering it to be the digital experiment, and hoping for a conclusion that empowers us while demanding less from us.