James L Adams—People and Products

Stanford Good Products Bad Product Course, ME314, 2014

Sorry to be a day late on this post, but the winter quarter begins today at Stanford, and with it the winter course "Good Products Bad Products" which uses my book of the same title (pictured in the banner of this blog, published by McGraw Hill). I was hoping to send you some specific information on the course, but the first meeting is tomorrow, so of course the material is not ready todoy.  If you look in the category list (left side of this blog under recommended books) and click on "ME314 Stanford Course 2013"  You will find some posts I wrote during the quarter last year that give you some details on the course (begin at the bottom).  This year's course will be similar, but speakers and assignments will change—and, of course, the students.

I began this course many years ago to fill a void that I believed existed in  engineering and business education and practise.  During the priod 1970 to 1990 there was a great amount of attention paid to what was then called manufacturing quality.  This was due to products and industries of previously dominant countries being overtaken by those of a few countries who were focussing on doing things better  (Japan for instance) in areas such as reliability, quality of fits and finishes, general approach to manufacturing and management of same, and  cleverness at such things as minimizing rejects and inventory control.The resulting reaction resulted in improvements in everythinig from quality of the products to corporate profit.

The topics considered were measurable and progress could be directly charted and rewarded.  But there are many aspects of product quality that are not measurable, and very important in the overall quality of the product.  The course and my book focus on these.

When I became an Emeritus Professor (retired), the course was taken over by Professor David Beach, the developer and director of the Product Realization Laboratory, an extremely successful program in the engineering school that focuses on integrated design and manufacturing.  The course continues to improve.  I wrote the book a couple of years ago to provide a text, and David has redesigned the course to include more outside speakers, a greater emphasis  emphasis on the quality of student presentations, and more pertinent assignments.  I will include the course outline and more details in my next  post, but as a measure of the course quality and reputation, over 200 students wanted into the course, which unfortunately is limited by room size, the ability to get to know the students individually, and promoting  meaningful presentations and discussions, to 60 students. In addition some 30 people who are working on graduate degrees, but also working in industry, take the course by means of the internet (it is an internet course, but definitely not a MOOC course).

If you have been reading my posts,  you know that I care deeply about these issues, and I will continue to write about them and report on them in the context of the course as we go through the quarter. I am presently searching for people who have similar concerns about the overall product quality of industrially produced products.   If you are one, contact me at [email protected].  If you know other people who are, tell them about this blog and give them the message to contact me.

Higher product quality wins for everyone, and no matter how high the quality of a product, it could be even higher if we paid more attention to it, especially certain aspects of quality that are difficult to quantify . 

 

 

Stanford Good Products Bad Products course (ME 314) update #3

The students continue to read my Good Products, Bad Products book and for each chapter submit examples of good and bad products, guesses as to why the bad ones might be bad, and ideas of improving them.  Since the class is large, the amount of information is too large to include in  this blog.  But each of the student groups that will present the final summaries is reading all of the submissions having to do with their topics and giving us a short summary of them.  I will include one of the summaries for Craftsmanship here, one for Emotions and Needs here, and one for Aesthetics, Elegance and Sophistication here.

I will not include any of the good and bad product write ups from the students here, but I will include summaries of good and bad products from the 2011 class. Products showing good craftsmanship are here, and poorly crafted products are here.  Examples of good products as far as Emotions and Needs are here, and bad ones are here.  Some products considered beautiful are shown here. And some thought to be elegant are here.  Finally, here is a list of products that the students found to be repulsive!

During this time period, Peter Mondavi, the Co-proprietor of the Charles Krug Winery, was a guest speaker.  This is one of the older wineries in the Napa valley,  and is noted for the quality of its wine. The Krug home page is here. The class also read from the book Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman (Knopf Doubleday).  This is one of my favorite books, and I have added it to my recommended list to the right.    She is a wonderful writer and not only talks about the senses, but is able to convey their power through words and stories.

The class also took a field trip the Littlefield Collection of restored military vehicles.  Jacques Littlefield, who unfortunately died a couple of  years ago, was one of my favorite people.  I had the opportunity  to get to know him well because he was a student at Stanford when I joined the faculty in the 1960's, and one of the most regular customers of the student shop.  As projects, he made radio controlled model army tanks.  Upon graduation, he accepted a job in manufacturing at Hewlett Packard.  When he decided to retire in his late 20's, I realized that perhaps he had access to money, and indeed he did, being the son of Ed Littlefield, a billionaire. 

Jacques spend most of his life, effort, and quite a bit of money collecting and restoring military vehicles, especially tracked one.  By the time of his death he had put together not only the largest private collection of tanks in the world, but probably the most beautifully and accurately restored ones.  The collection consists of approximately 100 tanks, and another 100 military vehicles of other types.

The field trip was for several purposes.  The collection shows an amazing level of craftsmanship.  It also demonstrates the love of a person for machines.  Jacques had access to enough money to do anything he wanted to, and he elected to spend much of his life working on and understanding a particular tpe of industrial product.  The collection results in strong, and sometimes mixed, emotions, on the part of the students.  And finally, although brutal devices of war, the mechanisms involved often demonstrate a high degree of elegance.  Jacques also loved trains and other equipment, and his home was complete with one of the largest 7-1/2 inch gauge  model train layout on the west coast.  The San Francisco Live Steam club continues to hold forth there.  And he donated the beautiful organ in the Stanford chapel, and liked it and the people who manufactured it that he had one installed in a specially built addition to his house.  As usual, the trip was most successful.