I used to work in a Specialist Hydraulic Consultancy where productivity was measured by Quality NOT Quantity. We HAD to get the answers to the client’s questions correct – at the peril of multi-million pound industries (water companies, oil and gas companies etc) having even bigger problems with pipe bursts or un-wanted leakages and future expenditure for new equipment etc. The technical side of it often got lost on the ‘average’ client as they, clearly, hadn’t had the training or understood the concepts. In order to rectify this, we had a team who went out and gave presentations (sometimes free of charge) to the client’s who had used us many times. This was often to the junior engineers in these companies who then grew up with the concepts and ideas and the need to investigate them in detail. This belief and understanding of the necessity of the work on future projects held us in good stead and was never considered as ‘money lost’. It was the company’s belief that the more others understood what we did, the more likely they were to identify which future projects may require specialist assistance – hence the future work load was ensured (albeit with no fixed dates, of course).
As one American company said on a project in Singapore, when told to rip out $10 million worth of equipment they had just installed and replace it with something we suggested that would work – “Why should we trust you?”. Our reply. “Because we are right!” Can’t do something like that if you are trying to get out loads of little jobs (with small profit margins) when considering the implications of the a much bigger picture of ‘Overall Productivity’! All industries differ (I fully agree) but just a few thoughts of an area and industry I was involved in for over 35 years.
British Engineering was built on Quality (bridges and aqueducts from the Victorian period that are still in regular use today, for example).
