21–30 of 34 posts
Also compare Heathrow Terminal 5 with Madrid Barajas latest terminal. Both designed by the same British architectural firm, Barajas took about half the time to build, cost less and is an uncompromised design.
Heathrow is a mess. Everyone who travels regularly to southern England does everything they can to avoid it when flying. I don't know anything about this airport in Beijing. But comparing airports to Heathrow is just too easy. Any airport would look well managed compared to Heathrow.
I disagree, City's better if you're coming from Europe, but Heathrow still the best airport to get into London from anywhere else, especially Terminal 5. T5 had a lot of problems when it started, but now it's by far the best major airport terminal I've flown from. It takes me less than 15 minutes to get from the T5 tube station to sitting in the departure lounge waiting for boarding. It's almost as good as Eurostar.…
The only real thing he studied in this comparison is rehearsal and timing. The British death marched to an unrealistically optimistic date while the Chinese were finished and testing long before the ship date. Socio-technical systems theory is interesting but he doesn't explain how the Chinese did this better. The Chinese aren't exactly known for empowering their workers.
Also compare Heathrow Terminal 5 with Madrid Barajas latest terminal. Both designed by the same British architectural firm, Barajas took about half the time to build, cost less and is an uncompromised design.
I'm not sure how fair the cost comparison is. At the time, pretty much anything would have cost less in Spain - Britain was very expensive due to the high pound. A bit different now though.
Nearly half of the transit time was spent inside some kind of vehicle in a dark tunnel, an industrial looking processing center, crawling around dimly lit stairwells, and or other such place that clearly said to me "you should not be seeing this stuff! Pay no attention to all this stuff behind the curtains!"
It was ridiculous and absurd and would have been humorous if I hadn't been in a mad dash the entire time trying to make my connection.
After escaping on yet another aircraft I mulled for quite a while over what kind of madness could have come up with such an absolutely insane way of moving from one part of a facility to another...a distance I could have crossed by foot in less than 15 minutes.
Leaving aside the staff problems - British Airports Authority (who run Heathrow) and the RMT (Rail maritime and Transport workers union) have a history of confrontation which makes the whole Isreali-Palestinian thing look like a family game of scrabble.
Just to pick one example, the software was left in debug mode. Everybody knew this but it took 3 days to find the person with the contractual permission to tell them to turn debugging off. Not for any technical reason but just because everything was done by such a mesh of semi-privatized companies, contractors, sub-contractors, outsourcers etc that nobody knew who was in charge.
The UK has just abandoned an ID card scheme setup by the previous government. It's costing 20m quid to just work out how has done what, and who is owed what in order to shut the project down.
I found it weird that Deming wasn't mentioned anywhere in the second half of the article.
His work was mainly concerned with manufacturing/production, but is still (I think) well worth reading
Edited to add Deming's Seven Deadly Diseases as I think they're worth quoting here for those who don't wish to read the entire wikipedia article
The "Seven Deadly Diseases" include:
Lack of constancy of purpose
Emphasis on short-term profits
Evaluation by performance, merit rating, or annual review of performance
Mobility of management
Running a company on visible figures alone
Excessive medical costs
Excessive costs of warranty, fueled by lawyers who work for contingency fees
Neglecting long-range planning
Relying on technology to solve problems
Seeking examples to follow rather than developing solutions
Excuses, such as "our problems are different"
Obsolescence in school that management skill can be taught in classes
Reliance on quality control departments rather than management, supervisors,
managers of purchasing, and production workers
Placing blame on workforces who are only responsible for 15% of mistakes where
the system desired by management is responsible for 85% of the unintended
consequences
Relying on quality inspection rather than improving product qualityChina is successful with these things because they have a large number of excess staff, and the staff are very obedient. Britain typically has too few staff, and the staff are very independent. A person who has been to a chinese restaurant in china will understand the difference.
Heathrow is a mess. Everyone who travels regularly to southern England does everything they can to avoid it when flying. I don't know anything about this airport in Beijing. But comparing airports to Heathrow is just too easy. Any airport would look well managed compared to Heathrow.
China is successful with these things because they have a large number of excess staff, and the staff are very obedient. Britain typically has too few staff, and the staff are very independent. A person who has been to a chinese restaurant in china will understand the difference.
Service industries in China can't be expected to be superior based on their personnel numbers alone. Cultural paradigms can produce good and bad results - as when poorly paid workers with no expectations of tips and customers accustomed to certain things lead to a custom where to summon waistaff all you can do is loudly yell '服务员'...