Some of the most successful Internet companies have one characteristic in common. They all seek to organize connections of ideas, relationships, or goods. Google sorts and organizes websites and advertising, allowing us to quickly and efficiently find the pages that we are looking for and allowing companies to put discreet Viagra ads next to our searches for "can't get it up". Facebook manages our relationships, interests, statuses, and allows us to track which of our friends have put on 30lbs since high school graduation. Wikipedia stores and updates facts and knowledge including vitally important information such as the infinite monkey theorem and former president “-isms”. Craigslist organizes classified ads and prostitution. eBay determines the amount of money people are willing to pay for an electric yodelling pickle and other commercial goods. Twitter has centralized thoughts and conversations of the unemployed or otherwise prominent thinkers. Digg, tracks how many people like websites which ask us to like them. Meetup, organizes interest groups and other pyramid schemes. Kidding aside, all of these sites provide value by organization. That is why we love them. As our lives become more organized, we can more easily connect with thoughts, people, or products that are relative to our own interests and passions. As we become more focused on our passions, we live more enriched lives. As our lives become more enriched, we become addicted to more organization. Put this down, I dare you. OK, now that half of the net-bred ADD readers out there are now checking their horoscopes, let's make a point:
Of the above mentioned institutions, I find Google and Facebook to be the most interesting and well suited for world domination. Let’s take Facebook as an example. It is centered around, well, faces; People. All of those people have characteristics:
- Connections: family, friends, co-workers
- Fixed Data: email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, work addresses
- Common Organizations: high schools, cities, clubs
- Media: pictures, videos
- Timing: events
- Value: how many friends you have, if you make them laugh
- Quality Assessment: how many friends write on your wall on your birthday
Great, so I've described what you already know about Facebook, right? Well here comes the pitch: In the auto industry, as in many manufacturing industries, information is centered around, well, autos; their products. Genius, right? Well let's take that a step further. Autos are made of parts. Those parts, about 15,000 in one vehicle, are supplied by many different companies. Those parts have characteristics, just like people on Facebook:
- Connections: supplier, customers, developers
- Fixed Data: part number, production location, delivery location
- Common Organizations: specifications, class of product, standards
- Media: product advertisement
- Timing: development milestones, delivery dates/quantities
- Value: current pricing, how you can become cheaper
- Quality Assessment: how many failed parts/million does the part have
OK, who is interested in a facebook of parts? Well it is boring to many, I know, but I can also tell you that by my personal estimate, over 90% of the work done in the auto industry is waste due to attempting to organize and re-organize the above listed information. Worse than that, decisions are made based on such limited information and by so few people that it is inevitable that the wrong products are created according to the ebb and flow of the rapidly changing customer tastes.
This information needs to be public, open and accessible. elegantly organized. In fact, you practically own it already. An outrage you say? How could this be public, it's proprietary information; intellectual property; the auto industry's secret sauce. Well, we can discuss more of the nitty gritty later. For now, just think how much that Facebook connection with the girl who sat three rows down from you in middle school gym class has added value to your life. Well, OK, maybe not, but in the industry that connection could lead to a product improvement, better quality, or the realization that people just don't want or need that part or product. Detroit, I beg you to tear down your walls, open your gates and let your products converse. Connect with that girl from gym class and you may be surprised to hear what she has to say about you.
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3.18.2009
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3 comments:
I think you are correct, but I don't see them correcting the problem in time. I'm in plants every single day and the problem is that there aren't incentives to improve the company. Their jobs aren't based on performance, they are based on seniority. They are paid hourly, in fact the way the union is setup it discourages them to try and improve the company itself. I've seen so many good people who actually wanted to see GM succeed only replaced by someone with seniority who doesn't care at all and only wants a pension. I sit in trades meetings were they argue for a half hour who gets to pick what goes on the break room television instead of talking of ways to improve performance on the floor. If they don't meet performance, it is actually better for them, they don't hit their part numbers in time, then they get to work overtime and make more money. Where my job and your job are based on performance, we don't do it, or don't do it well enough then we are fired. With unions they CAN'T be fired. Until very recently (with them getting rid of jobs bank) they would be laid off, collect 85% of their pay, sit at home or could work another job in conjunction with making the 85%. Tell me where the incentive to work exist in that schema? If I could sit home and collect 85% of what I make now I would do it tomorrow.
I think this would be an excellent idea though, it would help lower cost and improve competition among suppliers because the market would be open and viewable to anyone. There is a big shift towards this for much of the data on the internet and it's called the semantic web. Paul Tarjan, creator of yahoo search monkey was at the university of michigan the night before search monkey went public and I had some good discussions with him about this. He is trying to allow people to write meta data (RDF, Ontologys, etc) without having to rewrite the web. We had some good discussions about using jQuery to pull Xpath data from websites so it can be used by search monkey itself. I'm a big advocate of open source software as well as open platforms. Sadly I think GM will be declaring chapter 11 though come the 31st of march when they have to prove viability to get their next set of bailout money.
Although cars will still have to be built, and the ways things have been done and are currently being done can't continue. Hopefully when the restructuring happens they takes ideas like yours posted here seriously instead of continuing the behemoth dinosaurs they are now.
Thanks for the response Anthony. I completely agree that reform of the UAW is necessary at this point. Your point about incentives is well made. Any system that values seniority over contribution will lead to a poor working environment. We have to keep looking for solutions though even though the system is completely broken. I think the industry will soon be shrinking to critically low capacity before they can start to develop new working methods and grow. Thanks again for the post.
article on GM, consumer sentiment, and the effect of bankruptcy: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29wwln-lede-t.html?ref=magazine
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