-Henry Ford, remarking about the 1909 Model T in his autobiography - My Life and Work (1922)
Henry Ford is well recognized as the innovator of the assembly line - enabling the technology of mass production. His game-changing developments in the interchangeability of parts and labor produced mechanized assembly lines that increased the production of automobiles from 2 per day to over 6,000 per day. Instead of requiring each craftsman to master every component of vehicle production, individuals were trained and cross-trained on localized system components. Leveraging advances in tool technology and automation, the individual components were produced at a frenetic rate -- drastically reducing time and cost of production.
The fabled Ford assembly lines are the archetype for the "Mindless Machine System Model". This wild improvement in product availability soon led to customer demands for customization (a not-so subtle code word for "choice"). This Mindless Machine comprised of gears, tools, transmissions and semi-skilled workers only functioned when all of the parts operated in unison. Different visions of how to improve the process could not be incorporated "on-line" or "in-line" -- they required development "off-line" and the upgraded components were included only when the assembly line was retooled. While a fantastic innovation in production efficiency, this solution did not allow for continuous innovation within the system.
Alfred Sloan of MIT Sloan School of Management fame, innovated the creation of Divisions within large organizations which enabled them to "predict and prepare" for inevitable customer choices at a more rapid rate. The resulting "Uniminded Biological System Model" incorporated the use of budgets and forecasts that allowed for planned upgrades and innovations. Individuals were tasked as "Directors" and "Officers" of the organization, charged with researching future customer desires. However, this model suffers from an inability to distribute the vision throughout the organization and the need to manage conflict between competing ideas and divisions.
In 1881, Joseph Wharton - a successful scientist, businessman and co-founder of the Bethlehem Steel company, established the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the world's first collegiate business school. While at Wharton, the late Russell Ackoff, Anheuser-Busch Professor Emeritus of Management Science, developed the "Multiminded Social System Model" of Purposeful Systems. Ackoff championed the innovation that organizations have a purpose. Rather than being formed as a reaction to forecast changes in consumer demand, these systems have choice and can choose their future. Instead of a mindless machine, or a uniminded organism, all stakeholders of a multiminded social system participatively design a future and realize it through experimentation and successive approximation.
As an example of Google's success, Blogger.com this week introduced a new feature called the Blogger Template Designer. Rather than predict the design features and color schemes in vogue with users, the Blogger Template Designer permits deep customization of the blogger's website. Customers can choose black-on-black if they desire, or any other color scheme for that matter. All while Google learns from the compilation of user choices so it can glean trends from the data and learn how better to serve their customers in the future. If folks have difficulty understanding Google's success, it is only because they chose not to look.
