Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/674146
May 2016 • SMT Magazine 63 – The leadership group works for the project team and serves an enabling function providing the team with all the human skill sets and tools they need to be successful. They also act as a check and balance on team activities and serve as arbiters to resolve conflict when the team internally reaches an impasse. So, where's the rub, as Shakespeare would say? It's academia again. Think about this: what is the difference between me, a mechani- cal engineer, and many of my associates, who are electrical engineers? The engineering aspect is the same. The difference is we work a differ- ent part of the physics. There is software today that addresses this. We need to teach students team dynamics and to be engineers with an underlying deep and solid understanding of all the physics—not just an area of specializa- tion that feeds into the Henry Ford division of labor model. Isn't it time to stop measuring a student's success exclusively by their GPA? Is it effective to use this metric for 16 years and then send them into the world and expect them to be team players? It's time to break the yoke and empty most of the wagon. Just think where we could go if 90% of our high-tech electronic product assembly workforce pulled the wagon instead of riding in it. Hey, what do you say? I'd like to get your thoughts. SMT References 1. CNN Money column, February 23, 2012, by Howard Wial. 2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Hourly Compensation Costs for Computer and Elec- tronic Product Manufacturing: NAICS 334, Earnings by Occupation: Electrical and Elec- tronic Equipment Assemblers, November 2012. Tom Borkes is the founder of The Jefferson Project and the forthcoming Jefferson Institute of Technology. To reach Tom, click here. The industrial hierarchal pyramid with layer upon layer of specialized labor grew with the increase in disciplines and the continued the grouping of people with similar skills into the same departments—now extending to the segmentation of engineering by creating departments for EEs, MEs, IEs, QEs, etc. Each department needed a manager. As the com - panies and departments grew, positions were created for section heads and group leaders within a given department, a portion of their cost adding an indirect cost to the labor sell rate. Interestingly, the world of academia mir- rored this segmentation as majors were creat- ed for MEs, EEs, etc. It was in the latter half of the 19th century that colleges and universities began to require students select a major. It ap- pears Johns Hopkins University was the first in 1877. Look at the ratio of the costs that direct la- bor has been called on to absorb, to the direct labor itself. In some cases, this bloating became 1x, 2x and even 3x the cost of the direct labor. In the U.S., it's what takes a $13.98/hr direct (raw) labor rate and makes it a $32.80 labor sell rate! [2] So, how much value does this organiza- tional model that has evolved from the Henry Ford division of labor model add? How much weight does the yoke of this division of labor model burden the wagon pullers with? Don't get me started. Here is an alternate organizational model for your consideration, as Rod Sterling used to say: • Dismantle the traditional industrial hierarchal organizational model. • Replace it by just two groups. A group of product teams and a leadership group. – A product team consists of a small number of highly skilled, highly paid, cross-trained engineers who do everything, from ordering and managing the material, to developing capable processes, implementing the automated tools to keep those processes in control, dealing with the customer, and planning the work; there are no departments, it's totally self-managed. tHE HEnRY FoRd diviSion oF laboR PRoduction ModEl