Design engineering at large

Mesta Machine Co. Photos

For machine tool history junkies (sadly, the machine tool industry in the U.S. is largely history), I found a marvelous set of historical photos of the Mesta Machine Company in Homestead, Pa. Mesta for decades was largest steel making machine tool company in the world  and was located  next to U.S Steel’s  former Homestead, Pa. Works. It was even on Nikita Kruschev’s itinerary in his visit to the U.S in 1959. Sadly, Mesta like the rest of steel industry in Pittsburgh vanished between 1975-90. It’s assets were acquired by WHEMCO in 1983. The hundreds of photos from the first quarter of the 20th century show what a power Mesta and the U.S. were in steeling making and heavy industry (now there’s a term you don’t hear much any more).

U.S. Auto Industry gets a PR Face Lift

Driving the Future: The New American Auto Industry is a slick brochure extolling the virtues and manufacturing prowess of a reinvented U.S. auto industry. It arrived in the mail last week with a cover letter from Steve Collins, the president of the Automotive Trade Policy Council (ATPC) which is the Washington-based lobbying group for Ford, GM and Chrysler. To give you a flavor of what the ATPC is all about, the lead headline on its web site this morning was “Japanese Yen Subsidy Hurts U.S. Automakers.”

The brochure paints a pretty picture of an ugly automotive landscape. GM last week reported a stunning $15.5 second quarter loss.

Here’s some of the report’s highlights: the Big Three or more accurately, the Shrinking Three spend more than $12 billion on R&D and they are making unprecedented gains in fuel economy, safety, quality and reliability. The 11-page report devotes two full pages to green technologies such as plug-in electrics, hybrids, Flex Fuel and clean diesel. The  same amount of space  is given to safety. But the thing that jumped out at me were the pages about “America’s Manufacturing Engine” which  suggests that without the auto makers, the U.S. would be a third rate country. The auto industry accounts of a quarter of all manufacturing in the U.S., more than 14 million jobs and 12 per cent of our GDP.

Here’s a more startling statistic: the report boasts that the three companies pay pensions to 775,000 retirees and surviving spouses. We all know the balance sheet ball and chain that is THE retiree pension and healthcare burden is something the auto makers are trying to jettison.

Get ready, the PR blitz about all the good things U.S. auto makers are FINALLY doing constitute central themes in their ad campaigns. Oh and by the way, there was nothing in report about why it took them so pathetically long. I was struck by all the gas guzzlers in their Detroit Auto Show exhibit areas (particularly Ford’s) in January. It’s a safe bet that their sprawling 2009 exhibit areas will look markedly different.

Boeing's McNerney on "Innovation and Invention"

I came across this speech “Innovation and Invention” that Boeing CEO James McNerney gave at the University of Michigan College of Engineering early last year. The speech exposes “myths” and “facts” about innovation a la Jim McNerney. His decidedly corporate take on innovation includes “rigor and discipline” as Fact # 5 about innovation in the corporate environment.

With stops at 3M and GE prior to taking the helm at Boeing, McNerney had long preached the Six Sigma in research philosophy. In the speech, he decries the “eureka” or serendipitous moment and asserts innovation is a team sport requiring discipline and hard work. McNerney pokes holes in the urban legend that 3m Scientist Art Fry alone discovered  Post-It Notes as the result of a “eureka” moment. Fry had help from 3M’s lab, marketing and manufacturing arms, notes McNerney, who was 3M CEO from 1999 until 2005. At 3M, McNerney implemented the controversial Six Sigma in research which was unpopular among many long-time 3M researchers and scientists. McNerney’s successor George Buckley scrapped Six Sigma in research.

Whether you agree on not with his very corporate position on engineering innovation, his speech is a worthwhile read. Not surprisingly, McNerney is an MBA type, not an engineer. However, his three employers - Boeing, 3M and GE - have all been engineering companies. Engineers rule in the rhetorical sense, but not in reality!