"I CAME, I SAW, I RETREATED":

From Womack, Jones, and Roos (1990) The Machine that Changed the World, pp 239-40:

In 1982, while visiting a French auto assembly plant in the Paris area, we encountered a young engineer. He had just returned to the plant after a year-and-a-half exchange visit in a Japanese car company in Japan. He was bubbling over with enthusiasm about the contrast between lean production, as he had discovered it almost by accident in Japan, and the mass-production practices of his own company. He was eager to introduce lean-production techniques as quickly as possible. His main concern was where to begin and how to capture the attention of senior management.

Our discussion was cut short by a remarkable event – a violent industrial action involving two factions of the North African guest workers who held practically all the production jobs in the plant. These workers were represented by two separate unions and were embroiled in a dispute over work rules. As the tension between the two factions grew toward a confrontation in which a large number of finished vehicles were vandalized, the plant managers advised our team to leave. We wished the young engineer the best of luck in implementing lean production as we hurriedly departed.

In the fall of 1989, quite by accident, we encountered the same engineer at one of the provincial plants of his company where he was now head of manufacturing. We asked what had become of his efforts to institute lean production. For a moment he looked puzzled, but then he remembered our initial encounter and gave us a remarkable reinterpretation of events: The real problem, he had concluded, was the guest workers in the French auto plants in the Paris area. In the provinces, however, guest workers were not an issue. All the workers were French, a spirit of cooperation prevailed, and he would stack up his current plant against any in the world.

We had considerable difficulty in continuing the conversation at this point, because the survey we had just completed showed that his plant takes three times the effort and makes three times as many errors as the best lean-production plants in Japan in making a comparable product.... We felt a profound sense of gloom as we left the plant.

In the new Gallic Wars, Jacques Chirac, in the fashion of this engineer, is likely considering a retreat to the provinces. If the French can only re-establish an ethnically pure homeland, leaving Paris for the racaille, all will undoubtedly be well.

Posted by pjaminet at November 9, 2005 5:30 PM