The Real Value Of Our Technological History

September 1, 2008

I had a chat with a friend / college who works at General Electric Nuclear Energy division who has been working there as a contractor for the past few years. Since the time he started, GEN got a new regional manager who got the brilliant idea of moving the entire operation to NC against the wishes of the vast majority of the staff. Adding insult to injury, he instated many oppressive requirements for all staff and just about anyone working there. It was not surprising that some of their most important staff members got fed up and moved. Keep in mind many of these engineers and scientists are not easily or replaceable as much of what they know is no longer taught in colleges or universities due to the public perception that nuclear power is evil and bad. The current crop of management graduates view human resources as nothing more than just a number and commodity which is why management treats staff and employees as a replaceable and disposable item. GEN recently bid on two power plants in TX and they lost the bid to Westinghouse. Losing this bid caused GEN’s partner Hitachi to investigate why this happened. Hitachi Japanese management was not pleased to discover what this district manager did while he was in charge over the past few years. He was fired on the spot by Hitachi management after Hitachi management figured out what happened. Hitachi now has big mess to deal with as the most important members of their staff got hired away by a French Nuclear Energy company or Westinghouse Nuclear. Once the French Nuclear Energy Company head about what was happening at GEN, they opened up a facility where these folks wanted to live, gave them a raise and bonus and they now work for the French.. It will be interesting to see if GEN can even bid on any new plant construction since they have lost the ability to design a nuclear power plant. They still have existing contracts to keep them busy for a while, but that won’t last forever. IMO, General Electric Nuclear division’s days are numbered… GEN is not alone in this technical brain drain. Hewlett Packard, Tektronix, Eastman Kodak, and many other cooperation are dumping their seasoned and experienced staff and replacing them with less expensive personnel and you see the results of this in the products they produce and sell. HP printers and instrumentation that were once considered a good, high quality product with real value and customer support has now been reduced to disposable junk. There is talk that HP might get out of the printer business due to competition. So much for Bill Hewlett’s efforts that got HP into the printer business. Tektronix now builds disposable instrumentation that is not user repairable, no service documentation, no parts support just warranty and if it stops working post warranty, ya throw it away. My Kenwood car CD player lasted 30 days post warranty before the rear channels quit and some of the front panel controls no longer work. It’s not repairable and the fix is to “get a new one”. The original SAAB / Clarion unit lasted for over 10 years. Speaking of SAABs, my 1991 9000 turbo has almost 330,000 miles on it. Everything works and is repairable, durable and properly designed. I would drive this car cross country with no worries as it has been properly maintained since I purchased it in 1994 from the original owner. They simply don’t build SAABs like this anymore. It was a dark day when GM got partial ownership of SAAB. Another once great engineering company with sound long tern values now builds up market disposable cars. No wonder why SAABs are not selling very many cars these days. To make things worst, GM fired and got rid of many significant staff members to “cut cost”. I suspect SAAB no longer has the creative and engineering ability it once had which will add to the companies demise. It’s all part of the disposable, consumable product ideology where a product sells on perceived need and marketing rather than actual value to the customer and meeting their real needs. Fact is, the throwaway capitalist driven society and culture is not sustainable over the long run. Growth is not endless, yet constant growth is at the core of the capitalist model for economic growth. The current world human population is about 6.4 billion and one must wonder how the earth’s resources could continue to support this population and beyond. The disposable and built in obsolesce ideology is not sustainable plan and simple. The knowledge and specific expertise individuals have should be preserved and respected and properly utilized by future generations.