People often talk about how manufacturing used to produce incredible amounts with fewer people, fewer managers, no computers, no cell phones, and no ability to take work home (the Pentagon was built in 16 months in 1943). The usual explanation is that regulations increased, manufacturing moved overseas, or we’ve lost the skills.
I don’t think that’s the whole story.
It seems like we’ve gradually added more and more work that isn’t directly about making the product.
Modern organizations spend an increasing amount of time on communication, reporting, documentation, project management, approvals, compliance, coordination, process management, quality systems, metrics, dashboards, and meetings. Some of these activities absolutely add value.
It seems that much of this work is to avoid risk without considering if it is really worth avoiding that potential problem.
I know of one example where we had operators collect data, then management just threw it away, and another example where we are held to tighter tolerances because we now have the capability to measure it.
But over decades these additions accumulate.
The result is that we don’t just build products anymore—we spend a significant amount of time managing the systems around building products.
It is not just risk avoidance but management philosophies over the last seventy that add to the work:
- Professional management
- Lean manufacturing
- Continuous improvement
- Quality systems
- Business process management
- Compliance
- Enterprise software
- Risk management
- Project management
Phases on Business Mental Models Over Time:
- The 1950s: Build things
- The 1960s–1970s: Management becomes a profession
- The 1980s: Efficiency
- The 1990s: Process
- The 2000s: Compliance
- The 2010s–Today: Information overload
My concern is that none of us today know what it was like working decades ago, and we don’t realize all of these mental models layered on top of each other drive how we think work should be done. To really go faster, we need someone who can look at the work without the influence of these models (first principles). Going faster does not mean that we do everything that we are doing now faster; we need to do less non-value-added work.
I also get the sense that we tend to over-index on ways to operate business because we never measure the cost (outsourcing, adding technology, specialization, process improvement). Applied correctly, they will improve production, but applied over time blindly will increase the work.
Management has let the inmates run the asylum. They set expectations for each group to improve their jobs, but improvement is rarely reviewed from the top (or even developed from the top) to ensure the cost/benefit is best for the overall goals of the business. We are all locally optimizing for our jobs, not for the business, and leadership doesn’t realize