A great interview on Bloomberg with the head of GE's Appliance business … he talks about having to take a "systems view of costs" and how design (innovation) and manufacturing cannot be separated. While he doesn't use the term 'Value Stream' he describes GE's application of the concept, "co-location".
We can hope GE walks the walk as well as they talk the talk.
AJ Sweatt says
Total Cost of Ownership – gotta love it. This is significant to me for 2 primary reasons (aside from the sensible approach). First, these are not the high-tolerance, low-volume items that we all thought would be reshored. Secondly, I was suspicious that many of the higher-profile companies were moving manufacturing closer to consumption for PR reasons – this guy obviously genuine and committed to sound business judgement. And resurrecting the Louisville KY appliance park is pretty cool, too.
Stephen H says
Great video and great to hear GE start to pull in this direction. Amazing some of the stuff he is saying is the same stuff out of books wrote in the 1980’s.
david foster says
I was going to say: It’s nice to hear a GE executive talking about something that doesn’t involve government funding/subsidies, for a change…..but toward the end there, he does mention that there are some government “incentives” involved….small part of the total investment, though, only about 5%.
GE had marked Appliance as “for sale”, but then the recession hit and no buyers materialized at the right price. I wonder how stellar a performance Campbell & friends would have to achieve before the “sell” tag is rescinded rather than just deferred and for Appliance to once again be defined as part of the core GE.
Paul Todd says
I know GE has taken some well-deserved shots in this forum and others over the years, but I am hopeful that this is indeed the start of a positive trend. GE has such a high profile that what they do can have a strong impact. Time will tell if they walk as well as they talk, but consider how far they have come from the mindless 70/70/70 outsourcing rules of the Welch era. I am impressed.
Andy Wagner says
GE has a long way to go. I fear much of the domain expertise and talent in manufacturing has already left or is on the verge of retirement. They have been absolutely shameless in their pandering for government dollars at state, local and Federal levels in recent years.
While there are many people sincere in their desire to restore the company to being product-focused, there remains a generation of Welch-trained executives in influential positions.