Well, I come at it from the factory floor up. I say, this is where the rubber meets the road, where the money is made or lost. Working process, inventories, management of the flow of materials through that plant, quality of the product, delivery times -- it's all right there. But most electronics engineers or computer people don't want to go rummaging around factory floors. Instead, these bright young engineers from the traditional CAD/CAM companies develop intellectual solutions.
They work, on paper. But no one accepts them.The most common executive attitude is, "We'll give it to them and they've got to do it." But I learned working down there that these guys are pretty doggone smart. You take a good tool-and-die marker and he can blow away 95% of the world in mathematics.
I always ask, Now how would a guy like Pork Chop react to something like this? He was this guy I used to work with. I used to deliver steel to the machines, and to take it out you had to lift it up with a crane, one piece at a time. But Pork Chop came up with a better idea. He had a little metal hook he could hook on the side of the cart and just slide the bar down. He didn't want to strain himself -- and he could do the job 10 times faster.
In Japan, top graduate engineers don't go up in the office. They go to the factory floor, because that's where the action is. That's starting to happen here, too. We're getting the bright young Purdue and Brigham Young grads with degrees in manufacturing engineering. These guys are going onto the factory floor, getting to know the Pork Chops of the world, talking to them and watching them.
"We probably would not have given up a quarter of the company to the employees if it weren't for People Express." -- Frank Borman
Former astronaut Frank Borman has been the president of Eastern Air Lines Inc. since 1975.
We went from being a public utility to being one of the most competitive industries in the country overnight. We were simply deregulated.
Boy, have we changed since then. We've changed with the ownership; we've changed with profit sharing; we've changed with employee involvement. The free market has turned disciplinarian.
We can certaionly compete with the new airlines. The entrepreneur in the airline business doesn't have the advantage he may have in other industries. Most often, people who are successful on their own have a specific idea or a unique product. But the people that start the small airlines have only one advantage: very low labor costs.
What we have to do is adjust to a labor rate that's vastly different from what we've been used to. Carriers have taken different approaches to that. Some have filed Chapter 11 -- Continental. Some of them have used brute force -- American. We've tried to use a middle ground, which is persuasion. We've tried to bargain people down. In return, we've made entrepreneurs out of our employees by including them in the ownership of the operation. But in all candor, we probably would not have given up a quarter of the company to the employees if it weren't for People Express.
The Peoples and Air Atlantas of this world have complicated our lives enormously. But a broad airline with a comparable product with low labor costs, like a Continental, is in my mind a much more significant concern than something like an Air atlanta.
"Our people recognize they're building something far greater than a corporate entity: They're building a philosophy." -- Michael Hollis
Michael Hollis, a former senior fellow at Dartmouth College, left a vice-presidency at the Wall Street investment firm of Oppenheimer & Co. in 1981 to begin the research and raise the $50 million he needed to start Air Atlanta Inc. Flying since February 1, 1984, the airline carried 175,000 passengers -- mostly business travelers -- in its first 11 months. It flies to Atlanta, Miami, Memphis, and New York City.
There's a lot of doom and gloom about airlines, but we're the cutting edge of what's happening in this dynamic industry. If you talk to our people, you'll see how involved they are. They're excited about being a part of something that's new, that's refreshing. Our people recognize they're building something far greater than a corporate entity: They're building a philosophy.
If you look at the great industries of our country, you can see where individuals have put their whole life earnings at risk, have gotten their friends to be part, and invariably have built great confidence. Federal Express is just one example. At Air Atlanta, we have nearly 400 employees in the family, and you need only get on the airplane to see the level of enthusiasm they have for this company and our future together. We train them our way, in the profit-productivity-service mind-set, using a lot of what Fred Smith uses at Federal Express.
I'm from Atlanta, and I want to contribute something to the Atlanta tradition of excellence in transportation. My father as in transportation here 40 years ago: He was a porter for the Southern Railway. I grew up here. I went to the public schools. So I feel that I have a debt to repay.
We're in business to ensure and deliver a high return on our investors' capital. But we're also in business to assure that our employees, those who make it happen every day, get a good return on their investments, the sacrifices and the contributions they make.
"Fred Smith, my name is Skip Carroll. I just wanted to tell you that I'm proud to be working with you." -- Francis Carroll
Thirty-nine-year-old Francis "Skip" Carroll left a job with a messenger service in Chicago 16 months ago to become a courier for Federal Express Corp.
