Talk given at CodeMash2016. In the mid-late 20th century, industry giants asked themselves; “How do we continuously improve?”, “How do we build a quality product?” and “How do we design for end users?” These are the same challenges that we face as software developers and designers today. Issues with technical innovation, resource constraints, and organizational support, are experienced not only in zeros and ones but on the road and in space. In the early 20th century, the U.S. was considered a global leader in economic and scientific achievement. After those major innovations in transportation, space exploration, and computer science, American industries focused on manufacturing advantages, such as mass production and repeatable use. Progress was now measured by process improvements, adapting to market changes and ability to pivot. Why has the tech industry continued to boom, while other industries struggle? Using examples from General Motors and NASA, this talk examines their failures in reliability, collaboration, and product design. Take a step back in history to relive the experiences of these pioneers, learn from their past failures, and how they apply to crafting software products today.

1. Software Development
Lessons Learned
from Industrial Failures
in the 1980s
CHARLOTTE CHANG / @pushorpull

3. CHARLOTTE CHANG / @pushorpull

8. Why Automotive,
Aerospace &
Software?

9. invention

10. influence

11. adventure

13. Photo:

14. 20th century

15. Photo: US Library of Congree, id ppprs.00626

16. Leo Baekeland

18. Photo: 20th Century Fox

22. Photo: Associated Press

23. Photo: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

25. IMAGE CREDIT: LIBRARY.UPENN.EDU

26. IMAGE CREDIT: THEHISTORYBLOG.COM

27. IMAGE CREDIT: codex99.com

28. IMAGE CREDIT: s300.photobucket.com/user/etmassey

30. Photo: BIGFOOT®

31. Photo: @thepandorasociety.com

32. William Durant
Alfred Sloan

33. "Any colour you like as long as it's black."
[Ford]
"A car for every purse and purpose."
[Sloan]

34. Fremont Assembly Plant
1961-1982
Photo: Rain, Belinda, Photographer (NARA record: 8464467) - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

35. 1,072 vehicles daily

42. “It was considered
the worst workforce
in the automobile
industry in the
United States.”
- Bruce Lee,
UAW leader
Photo:Frank Langfitt/NPR

43. Photo: Marc Soller
“Sex, Drugs and The Assembly Line”

44. 1982

47. CAFE standards
The Corporate Average Fuel
Economy (CAFE) standards are
regulations in the United States, first
enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1975,[1]
in the wake of the Arab Oil Embargo, to
improve the average fuel economy of
cars and light trucks (trucks, vans and
sport utility vehicles) produced for sale
in the United States.

48. Voluntary Restraint
Agreement
Photo:toyota-global.com

49. HELL FREEZES OVER!
-Car and Driver

50. Photo: http://liker.engin.umich.edu/

51. Mannering and Winston
(1991, Brooking papers)

52. AP Photo/Str

53. photo: Taj MuttHall Dog Diary

54. “I believed it was the
system that made it
bad,
not the people.”
- Bruce Lee
Photo:Frank Langfitt/NPR

58. photo: fendygaze/deviantart
Kaizen

61. “Never stop the line”

62. the andon cord

64. AP photo/Paul Sakuma

65. Photo: Historic Images Outlet

67. Other GM Plants?

68. The Flint sit-down strike against General Motors,
Feb. 11, 1937
UAW/FACEBOOK
workers

69. management

75. $743mil
$2.5mil
$5.2mil
$35mil
$5mil
$7mil

77. Jack Smith
CEO 1992-2000

78. Second Round of Changes:
PEOPLE
● some team concepts, put together a book
on how each factory should run and why
● a team that went to each factory to
implement these changes
● Lots of people in GM still didn't see the
need to change. By the late 1990s, the
company was posting huge profits selling
trucks and SUVs, which made the loss in
market share seem less urgent.
First Round of Changes:
PROCESS
● Andon cords and inventory control
● No change in culture
● Workers and managers continued their old
antagonistic ways. In some of the factories
where they installed the andon cord, workers
got yelled at when they pulled it. A few plants
even cut the cords down.

79. During Jack Smith’s tenure
reduced
duplicity in
organization
invested in
Asia/Pacific
1993
turned a profit
of $2.5 billion
1994
earned $4.9
billion
terminated
Oldsmobile
brand

81. Toyota Celebrates 10-Millionth Vehicle Made in Kentucky;
First Camry Rolled Off Line at Georgetown Plant in 1988

84. 2015
Consumer
Reports
Most Reliable
Cars

85. so what?

88. Conway’s Law
organizations which design
systems ... are constrained
to produce designs which
are copies of the
communication structures
of these organizations

90. Fourteen Points for Management
Seven Deadly Diseases of Management
Seven Wastes of Software Development
5 Why’s
Two Pillars of the Toyota Production System

94. how successful are we?

96. The Machine that Changed the World (James Womack, Daniel Jones, Daniel Roos)
NUMMI, NUMMI 2015 (This American Life, NPR)
...and the internet.

97. Thank you!
Charlotte Chang
pushorpull