2 Feb 2012

Production Cluster

Recently, somebody dropped some old letters at my desk. I could read every word but could not understand a single sentence. I would be much obliged if readers may enlighten me on what they are talking about.

Dear comrades,

We have extensive discussion among various involved parties concerning the situation in the factories and would like to propose the following action plan:

1. Trial run ‘production cluster’ instead of limiting to individual ‘factory’. Karl has listed out the potential benefits as follows:
- Workers can continue to work in their own factory first, instead of being re-allocated to other factories
- Balance production lines and finishing time among different factories
- Manpower management

2. Workers
- We are actively recruiting part-time workers to work in factories with large workload.

We understand this will create anxiety among workers, and will definitely continue to monitor the situation. On the other hand, we really need the help and contribution of everyone to have a trial on this.

Best wishes,
Mikhail


Dear comrades,

1. We all agree that the tin factory needs more staff. But we have difficulty in finding more workers from our pool. Siberia has stopped allocating workers to the tin factory in the previous months.

2. I am a bit disappointed at stopping the trial run of the ‘production cluster’ concept. While I fully agree that we should not always ask workers from one factory to help in another factory on a regular basis (but should try other ways), the main reason behind the concept is to act as a buffer to meet unexpected shortage of workers or surge in tin demand.

Karl


Dear Karl and Mikhail,

The major drawback of the proposed ‘production cluster’ system is that it is hard to implement the quota system at the same time. Quota system is the main incentive for efficient work and punctuality.

I am a believer of a fair system with incentive and punishment rather than a Utopia system that everybody is working hard for the benefit of the system and willingly offer their helping hands when others are in need (the whole reason why communism failed).

Friedrich

1 comment:

  1. Dear Vincent,
    I see your difficulty in understanding these languages because the correspondences are actually multilingual and they don't understand each other neither. They are (1) a Japanese manager who tries to execute the concept of "Toyota Production System", (2) a trustful follower of Joseph Stalin from USSR, and (3) Asilvio Berlusconi, an authentic Italian.

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