Wes Bucey
Prophet of Profit
Throughout the last six years (the Recession), whenever I make one of my freebie presentations on efficient and successful job hunting [or job keeping], one question always arises:
"How can I protect myself when my whole industry (not just MY company) starts to shrink or become obsolete?"
We're not just talking buggy whips here. Even when I was a young man just out of college in the 60s, Western Electric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_Works) was the primary manufacturer of ALL telephones in the USA, as well as a place that figured prominently in the careers of Shewhart, Deming, and Juran. Juran once called it "the seed bed of the Quality Revolution." The managers of the company were not dinosaurs or mean-spirited souls. They tried to be progressive and maintain a happy workplace for 45,000 people at one single location. Alas, all that remains is one historic tower in the corner of a huge shopping center complex. I still choke up a bit every time I pass the intersection. With the loss of the company and its thousands of well-paying jobs, the entire neighborhood has descended into an armpit of poverty and corruption. With the collapse of Western Electric, a cascading effect similarly collapsed the companies in its supply chain and their communities, too, suffered similar ravages to Cicero, Illinois.
So, it's a sad story. How do you keep yourself from getting entangled in some similar collapse?
First and foremost, it helps to incorporate Deming's System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) into your life. You need to become cognizant of the big picture AND how all the parts work together. Those parts include things and events both internal and external to your company and its direct supply chain (both upstream and downstream) and how those things and events can and might affect your employer and, most especially, how they will impact YOU.
You need to spread your quest for Knowledge far and wide; to stay alert to new opportunities as well as be alert for impending collapse of status quo. It is a tired and trite truism that the only constant in life is change.
An important part of SoPK thinking is to look at each piece of information which comes into your field of view and make a preliminary dissection of it, asking and trying to answer such questions as:
After a while, though, it becomes second nature and the basis for your own personal SoPK.
Some of you readers may be asking yourself, "What triggered Wes to write this screed on a beautiful July Saturday instead of sitting out on his deck, sipping Sangria and watching local wildlife?"
Fact is, I am on the deck, sipping Sangria, but I've been going through my email, too, and one of my industry newsletters led me to this link,
3D-Printed Steel Building Structures
I have been fascinated with 3D printing ever since I saw the system at a trade show a number of years back and saw Star Trek replicators in real life. Even back then, I foresaw that the technique would progress from flimsy plastic materials to sturdier materials which could actually be used as working devices, not just 3D models.
Investing in the 3D printing device manufacturing companies back then might have been a personal disaster, since the stock market has not treated some individual companies kindly, some even losing value since their original IPOs. Many industries, however, have had similar vision to mine (I am by no means the only guy in the world practicing SoPK) and have encouraged the 3D printing industry (if not individual companies) to expand the range of materials to biological tissue, exotic plastic mixtures, and metals.
So my parting bit of advice on this fine Saturday is for you, my reader, to look at this one emerging industry and ask your self the four questions and work out some answers for yourself.
(left thumbnail)
The curved lines of the "liquid lattice" structures firm Within designed for an automotive load-bearing steel engine block using EOS' direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) process somewhat resemble the lines of Arup's 3D-printed steel node, which was also made with Within's design help.
(Source: Within)
AND
(right thumbnail)
Structural engineers at UK-based building design firm Arup have come up with a design method for 3D printing structural steel elements to be used in construction projects. The steel node shown here is the first component to be produced using the new method.
(Source: Arup)
"How can I protect myself when my whole industry (not just MY company) starts to shrink or become obsolete?"
We're not just talking buggy whips here. Even when I was a young man just out of college in the 60s, Western Electric (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_Works) was the primary manufacturer of ALL telephones in the USA, as well as a place that figured prominently in the careers of Shewhart, Deming, and Juran. Juran once called it "the seed bed of the Quality Revolution." The managers of the company were not dinosaurs or mean-spirited souls. They tried to be progressive and maintain a happy workplace for 45,000 people at one single location. Alas, all that remains is one historic tower in the corner of a huge shopping center complex. I still choke up a bit every time I pass the intersection. With the loss of the company and its thousands of well-paying jobs, the entire neighborhood has descended into an armpit of poverty and corruption. With the collapse of Western Electric, a cascading effect similarly collapsed the companies in its supply chain and their communities, too, suffered similar ravages to Cicero, Illinois.
So, it's a sad story. How do you keep yourself from getting entangled in some similar collapse?
First and foremost, it helps to incorporate Deming's System of Profound Knowledge (SoPK) into your life. You need to become cognizant of the big picture AND how all the parts work together. Those parts include things and events both internal and external to your company and its direct supply chain (both upstream and downstream) and how those things and events can and might affect your employer and, most especially, how they will impact YOU.
You need to spread your quest for Knowledge far and wide; to stay alert to new opportunities as well as be alert for impending collapse of status quo. It is a tired and trite truism that the only constant in life is change.
An important part of SoPK thinking is to look at each piece of information which comes into your field of view and make a preliminary dissection of it, asking and trying to answer such questions as:
- does this directly affect me, my family, my community, my company or industry, my country?
- How might it affect indirectly?
- Is this something I need or want to know more about?
- Is there an opportunity here for me to improve my current or future situation?
After a while, though, it becomes second nature and the basis for your own personal SoPK.
Some of you readers may be asking yourself, "What triggered Wes to write this screed on a beautiful July Saturday instead of sitting out on his deck, sipping Sangria and watching local wildlife?"
Fact is, I am on the deck, sipping Sangria, but I've been going through my email, too, and one of my industry newsletters led me to this link,
3D-Printed Steel Building Structures
I have been fascinated with 3D printing ever since I saw the system at a trade show a number of years back and saw Star Trek replicators in real life. Even back then, I foresaw that the technique would progress from flimsy plastic materials to sturdier materials which could actually be used as working devices, not just 3D models.
Investing in the 3D printing device manufacturing companies back then might have been a personal disaster, since the stock market has not treated some individual companies kindly, some even losing value since their original IPOs. Many industries, however, have had similar vision to mine (I am by no means the only guy in the world practicing SoPK) and have encouraged the 3D printing industry (if not individual companies) to expand the range of materials to biological tissue, exotic plastic mixtures, and metals.
So my parting bit of advice on this fine Saturday is for you, my reader, to look at this one emerging industry and ask your self the four questions and work out some answers for yourself.
- does this directly affect me, my family, my community, my company or industry, my country directly?
- How might it affect indirectly?
- Is this something I need or want to know more about?
- Is there an opportunity here for me to improve my current or future situation?
(left thumbnail)
The curved lines of the "liquid lattice" structures firm Within designed for an automotive load-bearing steel engine block using EOS' direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) process somewhat resemble the lines of Arup's 3D-printed steel node, which was also made with Within's design help.
(Source: Within)
AND
(right thumbnail)
Structural engineers at UK-based building design firm Arup have come up with a design method for 3D printing structural steel elements to be used in construction projects. The steel node shown here is the first component to be produced using the new method.
(Source: Arup)
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