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CHAPTER 10
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

10.1 General Comments

After over one century and a half of existence, A&B still leads the business in many of its
areas. The competition has been tough, that is why many years ago it realized that trying to
win a market-share battle using hundreds of different strategies, one per each
manufacturing site, was little less than impossible. This is why A&B decided to implement
a Japanese model that has proven to be effective in that and many other countries. That is
when TPM was shaped into what nowadays is A&Bs IWS. As was mentioned in this
research project, IWS pretends to really achieve an integrated working system in which all
areas of the organization synergically come together and join their individual efforts into a
massive one that struggles daily to achieve a common goal: success. The very continuance
of the business depends on it.
Owning manufacturing facilities in so many places around the world, A&B had to
look for a way to easily implement IWS in all of them. As experienced as A&B may sound
in these terms, the cultural characteristics of every place it has facilities at are as contrasting
and complex as different. In some places it went very smoothly, in others, it was tougher,
yet never impossible, so far. In the particular site where this research project took place the
company had to find a way to incorporate IWS into a non A&B culture since the site was
an acquisition. Many plant managers have come and gone and different leadership styles
have accomplished what many believe to be a miracle. The level of implementation of


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global company standards is outstanding, but there is still much more to do and the effort
needs to be sustained and oriented towards the company true expectations.
How A&B accomplished this is very simple. For this company, its most valuable
assets are precisely its employees and when one works in and around what you value the
most, no result is hard to achieve, if only, it takes more or less time. In this case, it has
taken its time due mainly to cultural characteristics that Tlaxcalas people possess; this has
been shown and justified during many sections of this work. Their reluctance to accept
without question whatever instructions they are given is quite unique in the country. These
people dont particularly like to be bossed around by foreigners, and this has made it
tougher to make IWS a part of their daily lives at the shop floor. Today, they know what it
is about, they know they have to carry it on and most of them actually understand and
accept what it is for, particularly the youngest ones, most of which were hired already
under A&Bs management. Those are the ones that the site has to put its hopes in, these
new members of the organization that know no other way to work but the one that IWS
preaches out loud. Eventually, the old force will be replaced by new generations that will
live surrounded by IWS. Perhaps it will take still another 5 years, perhaps even more, who
knows, but as for the moment, A&B requires not to lose its effort to put IWS into every
single activity it does, always abiding to the companys PVP which will ensure a fair and
decent treatment of whatever issues it has to deal with, may it be performance bonus
establishment or a new machine being set up at the site.
In this sense it can be concluded that cultural characteristics have actually made it
difficult to implement at 100% reliability all the global company standards, and the new
technology transfer project that was the core of this research project does not prove
otherwise. People were reluctant to get involved in what seemed much more work while


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still getting the same amount in their paychecks. They still havent fully accepted that all
this extra work is nothing more than a time-investment to later on obtain better work
conditions that will make their lives easier and their jobs so much better. They cant quite
understand how working systems can actually prevent machines from failing, quality
defects from appearing or safety incidents from happening. Trying to convince them that
integrated working systems can actually achieve that has been a major challenge. Small
daily victories will eventually lead to the final conquest of the cultural struggle.

10.2 Lessons Learned

The time has come now to conclude about each specific objective that was set at the very
beginning of this project.
As for the main objective, this document shows a detailed and justified analysis of
how both technical and cultural factors interact and affect the way the technology transfer
project was carried out at A&Bs manufacturing site in Tlaxcala. The particular issues that
affected the IWS implementation process are described in Chapters 7 and 8, with a
summary of both in Chapter 9 which is the case-study.
The first chapters clearly established the main socio-cultural characteristics of the
state where this research project took place along with a general overview of the Mexican
working culture. As it is mentioned in the first few lines of this document, any attempt to
understand the current situation at the plant is worthless if the general background is
ignored. This meant that a brief analysis of the cultural, social, economical and even
political situation of the context where the site is located was essential before any
comments could be given on the particular issue that is the main research topic of this


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project. Not being sociology, anthropology, economics or politics the background of the
author, perhaps the analyses that are presented are not as deep and thorough as the case
may require, but all the effort was put to achieve an objective and concrete approach.
Once the situation of the site was understood back from its roots, A&Bs corporate
culture was presented. This was done to first of all fully understand why this problem
exists, and then, how the company itself tries to deal with it. Along with the corporate
culture, the IWS principles were presented followed by the general expectations of the
company in this sense towards new engineering project, such as the one we discussed
throughout this document.
Once the status of both parties was identified, a series of both technical and cultural
aspects that are believed to be the most critical ones in terms of easing or preventing the
implementation of company standards in the development of the technology transfer project
were listed. An analysis of each point is given and a solution recommendation was issued
for all of them.
In terms of cost analysis, the company set heavy restrictions on this data, so just a
few basic examples are given throughout the document, mostly the ones considered to have
a higher relevance. It is possible to mention, though, that in general, the project costs
relating to difficulties in IWS implementation add up to about 15% of the total budget,
considering all the rework that had to be done, along with the extra supplies and spare parts
that have to be brought in urgently to meet the projects tough deadline , and not to forget
all the losses that are due to delays in start-up and quality defects that were identified and
that sent many tons of paper back to the stock preparation area.
It was finally recognized that there is still too much work to do to enhance the way
culture and technology co-exist at the workplace. No extra attention should be given to one


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or the other because a gap will always be left in the unattended one, a gap that can grow
enough to have disastrous effects on the general situation of the company. As much as a
company can invest in new and better machinery, it has to invest both time and money into
understanding how its workers feel, live and think, both inside and outside its facilities in
order to find better and more efficient ways to implement their corporate cultures,
harmonizing with the local one as well.
This particular company has to understand that not only are the good things and
accomplishments to be shared globally, it constantly promotes learning from the best, the
fastest, it constantly looks for the benchmark to reapply from, but it tends to forget, that
human nature leads us to learn from our mistakes or that of others. Failures and successes
are equally valuable in terms of learning; one can learn from the benchmark what it did
well to achieve a goal, but one can only learn from the unsuccessful what not do or how not
to do it, perhaps this can even be a far better example. In other words, A&B must come to
understand that whatever went wrong in one area of the business is not really something to
be ashamed of; it is the total opposite, a great opportunity not to make the same mistakes
again.
As this research project clearly proves, the design process of new technology is
critical for a given projects success. There is already design for assembly, for
manufacturing, environmentally friendly, etc. Why cant there be a design based on
cultural factors of different regions? As difficult as it may seem right now to conceive it,
imagine all the potential problems that could be solved before they ever appear just by
taking into consideration how a specific regions people think, feel and act. Plenty of re -
work and expensive mistakes can certainly be avoided.



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10.2 Conclusions

This research project achieved its purpose which was to investigate and analyze the
critical factors, of both technical and cultural nature, that affect how IWS standards can be
implemented during a technology transfer project in a manufacturing facility.
It shows how cultural problems can severely harm the business, and also that when
technology is not developed to easily blend into the place where it is supposed to in terms
of ease of operation, inspection and maintenance, a series of issues appear that require
immediate attention, distracting the efforts of the team members in matters that could and
should have been very well prevented if only basic details had been taken into account in
the design stages such as average height of those who were going to operate the machine or
how graphical they prefer instruction manuals to be. A serious amount of re-work is
usually the outcome of such design flaws. If each one of them is checked out on an
individual basis the cost might actually look ridiculous, but once they are all added up, the
obtained figures may easily resemble the areas monthly maintenance and repair budget.
Technically speaking, whenever the designers dont take into account the altitude at which
the motors and pumps will be operating, they accept the risk of the machine not working
properly, if not at all; whenever someone forgets to make corrections to mechanical
drawings and carries on the mistake to the next version, who knows what may happen in
terms of delays and losses. When things such as these happen, the result is that the
technical staff is devoted to solving problems instead of working in the systems that the
company expects the project to be run by such as AM, PM, FI, etc.
At a cost of several thousand extra dollars, which could have very well been saved,
this technology transfer project was definitely not an example of a smooth implementation


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of IWS from the design over to the delivery stages. The site has certainly learned a lot
from it and most likely (and hopefully), will not ever fall into the same mistakes or
omissions again. IWS has already developed a tool to prevent this; the problem is that the
site workers tend to see this document as more paperwork, instead of a valuable tool that
will help prevent lots of expensive mistakes from happening. This tool is the GSUM
(Global Start-Up Management), which is a checklist that covers all the stages of a
technology transfer project, from design to start-up, and that leads step by step through a
series of considerations that must be satisfied in order to guarantee a successful and hassle-
free start-up, this document is presented, in a modified version in Appendix D.
In future projects it is highly recommendable to ensure that the communication
process between the different areas flows in a much more efficient way, with access to real-
time information (except for highly restricted one) for the site engineering and production
teams, the US corporate one along with the suppliers, this way many misunderstandings
can be prevented and the final outcome will be closer to what is expected. Prior to the
beginning of an engineering project it wont hurt to review the case-study developed within
this document to let the executors beware that a technology transfer project is not only
about technicalities, the needs of the people that will be involved on an everyday basis with
the equipment have to be taken into account to avoid further problems.
There needs to be much more involvement from the pillar owners at the site in order
to really recognize how each pillar can help with within its scope of influence. This will
greatly help to maximize the efficiency of IWS methodologies that can help the
organization stay within the desired zero loss journey. No effort should be spared as far
as record keeping goes because both the mistakes and the achievements need to be
documented in order to allow learning from them.


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IWS is not a matter of isolated efforts; it requires the participation of the whole
organization, an integrated organization. Each pillar provides specific approaches to
specific problems; its members have the know-how and the huge commitment to contribute
to the companys goals. The resources and the information are there for whoever wants to
make use of them, it is just a matter of committing to the philosophy that for the past
several years has reinforced the position of the company and that allows anybody to
forecast a great and successful future at short, medium and long terms for the company.

While globalization is pushing to be more and more competitive, to be everywhere,
to be the best ones and beat everybody else, there is still a great need to recognize the value
of regional traits that cannot just be forgotten about because otherwise, no globalizing
effort will be ever worth making.