China Speed Isn't New: What a 1993 Binder Says About Automotive Culture

[Transcript]

[00:00:00] Jan Griffiths: This is the Automotive Leaders Podcast. Straight talk from the CEOs and innovators who cut through the noise, create clarity, and drive transformation across this industry. The old command and control playbook is dead. Culture is the operating system. Authentic leadership is the edge. We're rewiring it, starting now. I'm your host, Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales and the champion for culture change. Let's dive in.

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[00:01:08] We talk about transformation. We talk about China speed. We seem obsessed with China speed right now. We talk about early supplier involvement. I've heard presentation after presentation from OEMs talking about how they want to bring suppliers into the process.

[00:01:30] None of this is new. We have had these tools available to us since the '80s and '90s.

[00:01:43] I've seen these consultant presentations lately talking about speed. How to drive time out of the process. How to get at this China speed that we so desperately crave, and something in the back of my mind said, "Wait a minute. We've been here before." And so I went digging. I went digging in my basement, and I'm gonna share with you what I found and explain why we've had these tools available to us for over 30 years, yet why have we not been able to use them?

[00:02:24] Many years ago, I worked for Allied Signal, and I was that kind of person that always volunteered to be train the trainer. I'm sure you're not surprised. And Allied Signal came out with two initiatives in the early '90s. One was TQM, total quality, Management and the other was TQS, total quality through, wait for it, speed.

[00:02:51] Yes.

[00:02:52] And look, look what I found in my basement. For those of you who are on audio, we will put a link to the picture. Here it is. Allied Signal, Total Quality through Speed: the Facilitator's Guide. It was my guide, and it's going back to 1993.

[00:03:11] And look at this. This is the page that I love. It says, "Focus improvement efforts.

[00:03:20] What's the cause for the pause?" And isn't that everything that we're talking about right now? What's the cause for the pause? Why are we so slow? And it says, "Simplify, eliminate, and integrate."

[00:03:34] Now, I was so happy that I found this binder because we've had these tools available to us, and then I found an example of where I actually used these tools.

[00:03:48] Now we're going back to 1993, and here's a letter, and it's dated September the 16th, 1993.

[00:03:58] We'll put a copy up in the show notes.

[00:04:01] And it's from Bill Wilcock. Now, Bill Wilcock at the time was the president of Allied Signal Braking Systems. So when I started my career, he was the nearest thing to a god to me, and he sends this letter out, and it's regarding an aftermarket lining assembly for the 1994 Acura Integra.

[00:04:20] And it's titled Aftermarket Lining Assembly for 1994 Acura Integra. And basically, what he's talking about is he's thanking the team for reducing the cycle time of putting the aftermarket brake pad on the shelf. Because if I remember rightly, in aftermarket, it's all about speed to market.

[00:04:45] It's all about getting the product on the shelf as quickly as possible. And we took this from months, I forget the actual time that was the standard back in 1993, but we took it to nine days, which was completely unheard of. And we did it by following the TQS process, by looking at the cause for pause, by stripping out unneeded approval levels, and we did it by bringing the suppliers in with us.

[00:05:18] And as I look at this letter, it's CC'd to Capital Tool & Die, LAC Tooling, and Affiliated Customs Brokers. At the time, they must have been the suppliers that we were dealing with. And then there's a bunch of names, and I don't remember everybody who's on this list, but I can remember that it's a list of cross-functional engineering teams and business teams.

[00:05:43] And basically, this is what he says: "The new entitlement of nine days is fantastic. I'm confident we can take this success and translate it to an ongoing capability which will redefine Allied Signal Braking Systems as always first underlined to market."

[00:06:03] Wow. Well, okay. I don't know, Bill Wilcock, if that actually happened because we were able to do that on one example through sheer will and force, but why have we not been able to make this the operating system for the industry?

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[00:06:45] In another letter from Bill Wilcock, dated February 7th, 1994.

[00:06:51] The 1993 letter was to the team, and this letter was directly to me, and he says, "Dear Jan, I just read the breakthrough bulletin featuring your team's accomplishment and wanted to congratulate you, and the Acura launch team on your exceptional performance.

[00:07:08] The commitment you've shown in accepting and meeting my challenge sets an example blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's the interesting part, "Though not an officially chartered TQS team. Your team has demonstrated the initiative we encourage to all employees to identify opportunities for improvement blah, blah, blah. Thank you, Bill Wilcock.

[00:07:27] So at the time, that wasn't even a sanctioned team, but we were so motivated by the leadership and the desire to change at the time that we just went out and did it anyway, and he's recognizing that.

[00:07:40] What happened to that?

[00:07:42] Why are we not able to do that now? Why do we need a whole bunch of expensive consultants to come back into our world to show us how to use tools that are literally in our basement?

[00:07:56] We know the numbers, we keep talking about. We keep talking about Chinese OEMs and how the legacy automotive industry takes twice as long to develop a new vehicle than the Chinese.

[00:08:07] We crave this idea of China speed, and yes, it's true, the technology has a part to play. The digital tools that we have in place help us take the cycle time out of the process. I would not deny that. Technology that we didn't have available to us in 1993.

[00:08:24] But the basic fundamentals of challenging the process, looking for white space, and to use the Allied Signal term, "The cause for pause" stripping out unnecessary approval levels, these are tools that we've always had.

[00:08:41] So why have we not been able to adopt them? Why is it only one project? So there's two examples now in my career. The one that you've heard me talk about before from BorgWarner with the early supplier involvement and concurrent engineering for a torque converter in Sterling Heights, which happened in the 80s.

[00:09:01] And that's when we started to understand the Boothroyd-Dewhurst for assembly and design for manufacturing and bringing all the cross-functional disciplines and suppliers in together.

[00:09:10] That was in the 80s. So we've had the concurrent engineering discipline since the 80s.

[00:09:16] And we've had this idea of total quality through speed and pushing back on processes that take too long. We've had that since the 90s. Well, probably the core of that goes back to before then, but I'm going to say the 90s because that's the hard copy binder I have in my hands right now. That's what I have in my basement.

[00:09:35] So why have we not been able to take these tools and make them a reality? We're talking about China speed like it's something new, something we never knew before. We talk about early supplier involvement like it's a whole new thing. We're going to bring suppliers in early. But we have not been able to do it in the last 30 odd years. So what makes us think that we can do it now?

[00:10:00] I believe, and you can agree or disagree, I believe the answer is culture. It is leadership and culture. We need leadership to be engaged, to talk about how critical and how important speed is to not only the company or the department that they're leading, but to the industry.

[00:10:24] If we don't get this right this time, then we know the Chinese OEMs are going to take this market. They've already taken it in other countries. You know that. They will take the market in the US. The time to get serious about this is now.

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[00:11:15] The only difference that I can see from my 1993 Total Quality Through Speed: Facilitator Manual, and the processes that we're looking at and talking about implementing today under the banner of transformation and ChinaSpeed is more emphasis on the approval levels.

[00:11:38] In 1993, we were more accepting of the approval levels and looked at how we could improve the cycle time to push things through their approvals or gates. Now, we're adding in another layer where we're questioning those approval levels. But when we start to question approval levels, and if we want to eliminate them, that means that we're gonna have to empower and trust our people.

[00:12:05] If we're gonna strip out time and strip out those approval levels, that means less approval. So people have to be empowered to make decisions.

[00:12:15] Are we ready to do that? Are you ready to do that? Many people, they talk about it, but they are not ready to do it. We're gonna have to get real about empowerment and pushing decision-making down into the organization, and this doesn't have to be hard. It really doesn't have to be that difficult.

[00:12:37] Do you need some outside help? Maybe. But do you need big fancy consulting firms to help you do this? I'm not gonna say yes or no to that question. That's a business decision that you have to make. Just know that those tools are literally in your basement, and you've had them for decades.

[00:12:54] Anyway, enough about harping on about that point.

[00:12:57] So why didn't we use them? Well, let's look at what Larry Bossidy did back in Allied Signal. He explained speed as a value. Well, nobody was really talking about speed back then, and he put it on everybody's values list. It was something that you were evaluated on. I remember it clearly.

[00:13:15] So what happened? When did speed go back to being a program with a binder, literally, instead of a culture with a spine? Because I guarantee you, well, I'm sure somebody will disagree with this.

[00:13:34] We put that aftermarket brake pad on the shelf in nine days in 1993. What does it take today? If anybody's got that information, I would love to know.

[00:13:47] I'm guessing it's longer than nine days. So why are we not able to really build these processes and this way of thinking into the way we operate? If we had done that back in the 90s, we would not be in the situation that we're in today. I'm going to make that statement because I believe it to the very core of my being.

[00:14:07] And here's something else. I told you that in the letter we were an uncharted team. Do you think it's possible that uncharted teams taking months out of a process were perceived as a threat, and that people saw it as that their jobs were in jeopardy and so they killed it? I was young and naive. I would never have seen that back in the day as I was on a mission to achieve this goal.

[00:14:39] But it's possible that the culture just killed it.

[00:14:43] So where do we go from here? How do we take tools that we've had for 30 years and make them a reality? How do we make that happen? I really don't think it's that difficult. It's difficult from a culture perspective. It's not from where to start and how to start.

[00:15:03] I've literally got the facilitator's workbook right here.

[00:15:08] Start with one process. Start with one process. Put it up on the wall. You know how to run a process flow and a process map.

[00:15:19] Process map. Look for the white space, look for the timing, look for where things are held up, look for those approval processes. Strip out duplicated workflows. Look at inputs and outputs for each different process step.

[00:15:35] Make sure the cross-functional team is together, and then, come up with a goal. It doesn't have to be perfect. Take 50% out of the process. Focus a team on that, on something that is a really important value stream for your business.

[00:15:53] Something that I've been working a lot with lately is the RFQ process. There's a process that frustrates people to no end. Sales, purchasing, cost estimating, engineering, it seems like everybody's frustrated with it. Start with that. Start mapping your RFQ process. Take time out. Understand the cause for pause, and rinse and repeat. Then do it again. Once you got 50% out of it, do it again.

[00:16:23] Then move to the next value stream, and keep going and keep going and keep going, and you're never done. Don't let this process be a one and done. Which happened to the two cases that I've talked to you about in my career to date. It's gonna take leadership.

[00:16:42] It's gonna take acknowledgment of the fact that we have to lead with conviction and trust people, and not lead to compliance to a legacy system that was created in 1911 by Frederick Taylor. We cannot any longer work with the silo system and stay with that process. We just can't do it. So the time is now.

[00:17:08] Larry Bossidy died last summer. He was 90. He'd be the first to tell you that he didn't come up with these tools. He took a lot of his inspiration from work that he did at GE and Xerox and other companies

[00:17:22] But what he added was a CEO that believed to the core of his being that speed was the way to improve a company.

[00:17:36] Let's take the work that's already there, that's literally in your basement. Let's take it, breathe new life into it, breathe leadership, culture, and inspiration, and lead your company and this industry forward.

[00:17:53] We can do it. I know we can.

[00:17:55] China didn't invent speed. They just didn't allow the approval chain to eat it all up. That's a big difference

[00:18:06] Now we've got the tools. We've got technology that we can use with those tools.

[00:18:13] What we need is the leadership that goes with it.

[00:18:16] I hope you've enjoyed this solo episode. I have truly enjoyed going back into my memory banks and into my basement and finding these binders I am so glad that I kept for all these years.

[00:18:32] As always, remember, Culture is your operating system. Authentic leadership is the edge. All of this has to come together. If you wanna continue the conversation with me, call me, email me. I would love to talk to you about this.

[00:18:50] We have an industry to transform.

[00:18:52] Let's do it.

[00:18:54] Thank you for listening. You can watch the full conversation on our YouTube channel. Search for Jan Griffiths Automotive Leaders, and download the 21 Traits of Authentic Leadership. It's a free PDF and the link is in the show notes.

[00:19:10] And remember, stay true to yourself, be you, and lead with Gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership