Howdy, General Motors is putting into place a plan which I find a bit confusing. Let me describe it (as best I can) and maybe someone can explain why it's a good idea. Here goes.
GM is going to be instituting its Design Engineer [DE] program. The way things currently work is that a design team is responsible for designing a part, let's say a checking fixture, per the engineering input and/or plan. So an engineer is given a checking fixture to design, he goes to a design group who work out the plan of design along w/ the engineer. Then the plan goes to the next step where it is layed out and drawn in more detail and then detailers draw out each individual part of the fixture. Under the current plan, an engineer may have approximately fifteen parts on his plate. Obviously, there is some clear division of labor here: the engineer does the high-level design, presumably requiring extensive training, and at each level down the process becomes more mechanical and requires less training. (I used to be a detailer, and it is essentially tracing small drawings off a big drawing.) The DE program will eliminate this division of labor. In the DE program an engineer will have up to three projects on his plate, as opposed to the approx. fifteen under the current system. He will do the high-level design to create a part that fits the need, then he will figure out the design work needed, then he will lay it out, then he will detail it. So he will be working on fewer projects, but will be more extensively involved with each project. The explanation that I have heard for the new DE program is that it will be more efficient. But...having some small knowledge of economics, being mildly familiar with Adam Smith, and having read David Landes' "What do Bosses Really do?" (JEH, Sept. '86), the DE program sounds terribly inefficient to me. Obviously, it will involve the highly (and expensively) trained engineer performing jobs requiring much less skill. For a well paid position, this seems like an expensive waste of time. I suppose it may be more efficient inasmuch as the engineer doesn't have to take time to confer with the design team. However, it seems unlikely that such a saving would out weigh the cost imposed by having him perform duties that could be performed by less skilled personnel. Presumably GM knows what it's doing. Does anybody have any ideas as to why this is a good program? Is there something obvious that I'm missing? Your thoughts and comments will be welcome! Best regards, jsh __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - send holiday greetings for Easter, Passover http://greetings.yahoo.com/
