I would be more inclined to believe that it is the standard at every large corporation, period, regardless of nationality. It's the nature of the beast with almost any large organization; they simply cannot stop on a dime and change direction. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon.
Kodak - On the verge of collapse?
- Thread starter The Count of Merkur Cristo
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I would be more inclined to believe that it is the standard at every large corporation, period, regardless of nationality. It's the nature of the beast with almost any large organization; they simply cannot stop on a dime and change direction. This is not a uniquely American phenomenon.
I think it depends on where priorities are. If a company really wants quality to be a high priority they will make it so that it is easy to keep quality consistent.
In the case of Fuji it would seem that being able to tweak the quality of the product was/is given a lot of weight, and in the case of Kodak not so much. I think a recurrent problem with many companies was an attitude learned decades ago that customers will buy the product anyway. Unfortunately that attitude has caused many companies to trip over their own shoelaces and fall on their face in the past couple of decades.
Agreed.
I can testify to the general incompetence, ESPECIALLY in how workers are managed, and motivated, of several recent Simon School of Business graduates.
Today, most of the "employees" I work with are contractors who don't know their fate month to month. They don't get any decent benefits, and have no sense of job security. They see a scant few people promoted to "permanent" without any logic at all. And they are let go with 1 day's notice or less.
Then the people who run these projects keep wondering why the quality of work isn't stellar. These are the simon school graduates I'm talking about.
I'm like "Really? You won't tell your people if they will have a job next month, you just let one go with no notice, and you pay almost no benefits... and you can't figure out why the work isn't as good as you would like? REALLY? How much did your MBA cost the company?"
Kodak probably would have been better off if they just let a chicken make business decisions by pooping on a giant mat with the decisions populating random squares.
I can't say for sure, as I've only worked for American companies, but I have read a lot about certain large japanese and german companies who appear to be a different kind of animal.
I don't know if that is just more corporate PR though.
Oh, of course, the guy who I think was most responsible for missing the digital wave which is arguably responsible for the downfall was given an award last year
http://cee.illinois.edu/node/1280
You screw up and you get to retire with a nice pension and get inducted into your school's hall of fame. Naturally.
http://cee.illinois.edu/node/1280
You screw up and you get to retire with a nice pension and get inducted into your school's hall of fame. Naturally.
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Neognosis:
+ 1 and I bet those same Simon Business School graduates (and maybe even Wharton Business School grads), probably wouldn’t have a clue / idea in regard to modern business management strategies such Six Sigma and/or Lean Six Sigma. Such a shame and a waste of good talent.
I don't know anything about Six Sigma and/or Lean Six Sigma, but even the sound makes my stomach tighten, as I automatically suspect more corporate BS that is long on theory and self-important buzz words that is only going to get in my way and create "processes" that actually slow things down and make tasks more complicated.
Of course, knowing nothing about them, I am just giving you my first gut reaction. But I have this reaction because that seems to be what management most frequently brings to the job. They send one off to a seminar given by some guy I never heard of but that they all seem to worship, they come back, and things get more convoluted and there are a bunch of words flying around that I don't think anyone is using correctly or even really know what they mean... and things slow down, people get frustrated, and the people who can accomplish their job without this stuff end up going elsewhere. And you end up left with a manager who's gotten his "black belt" by implementing a "time saving process" that everyone hates, makes people feel less responsible and less empowered for their own part of the job, and causes people to stop caring.
Ok, Rant over.
I just needed to get that out. Going through something like this right now. What used to take me 20 minutes now takes 3 days. And I am just about fed up.
Of course, knowing nothing about them, I am just giving you my first gut reaction. But I have this reaction because that seems to be what management most frequently brings to the job. They send one off to a seminar given by some guy I never heard of but that they all seem to worship, they come back, and things get more convoluted and there are a bunch of words flying around that I don't think anyone is using correctly or even really know what they mean... and things slow down, people get frustrated, and the people who can accomplish their job without this stuff end up going elsewhere. And you end up left with a manager who's gotten his "black belt" by implementing a "time saving process" that everyone hates, makes people feel less responsible and less empowered for their own part of the job, and causes people to stop caring.
Ok, Rant over.
I just needed to get that out. Going through something like this right now. What used to take me 20 minutes now takes 3 days. And I am just about fed up.
No management method or theory based upon numerical statistics can make a film product acceptable to the artistic market when the corporate standards are well off from the taste and artistic demands of the client. The objective standards used by Kodak for their professional color films were so far off from what the professional market demanded; they survived in the 1970's with products that were awful-only because they were really the only game in town. (There is a funny joke here, too. I just saw a plug-in for PS that emulates 1970's Ektachrome in appearance. Yeesh!) No application of Harvard, Wharton, Simon, or Six Sigma would repair a product that was deficient in design for its intended market. I made an "off-the-record" crack to a Wall Street journal reporter that I kept Kodachrome "on top of my doghouse in the summer" to correct the color rendition and properly "age" it prior to use. Despite some other rather poignant technical comments, guess which one made the front page of the WSJ article on Kodak's products? (That was in May/June of 1986.)
(Note: If anyone could find that article on the web or other media, I would greatly appreciate a copy.)
(Note: If anyone could find that article on the web or other media, I would greatly appreciate a copy.)
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Did you ever have a chance to use Anscochrome? 
It was color film - in that there were colors on pictures.
It was color film - in that there were colors on pictures.Wow, Anscochrome was a bit prior to my time. Agfachrome was probably the closest I ever came to Anscochrome. Wasn't Ansco a part of GAF after WWII? However, I did have the opportunity (and I may have some unexposed rolls left) to use 3M ASA 1000 color slide film (E4 & E6). People worry about "noise" in digital now; back then, the 3M had grain the size of golf balls. But, with a diffusion filter, it had the potential for great art. (See the early work of photographer Robert Farber. He pushed his films 2~3 stops in processing.)
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