Insider ider Guide G
The WetFeet Insider Guide to Careers in Manufacturing 2004 Edition
Helping you make smarter career decisions.
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Insider Guide
The WetFeet Insider Guide to Careers in Manufacturing 2004 Edition
Helping you make smarter career decisions.
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The WetFeet Insider Guide to Careers in Manufacturing ISBN: 1-58207-375-9 Photocopying Is Prohibited Copyright 2003 WetFeet, Inc. All rights reserved. This publication is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. No copying in any form is permitted. It may not be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, in part or in whole, without the express written permission of WetFeet, Inc.
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Table of Contents The Manufacturing Industry at a Glance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Industry Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Bottom Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Industry Breakdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Industry Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Picking and Choosing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Industry Rankings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Industry Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The Companies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 On the Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 The Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Real People Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The Workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Lifestyle and Hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Workplace Diversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
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Vacation, Benefits, and Perks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Career Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Insider Scoop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Getting Hired. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 The Recruiting Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Interviewing Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Getting Grilled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Grilling Your Interviewer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
For Your Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Additional Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
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At a Glance
The Manufacturing Industry at a Glance Major Pluses of Careers in Manufacturing
• You get to build tangible products that are used by real people. • You can problem solve to your heart’s delight. • You develop a skill set that is eminently transferable across industry sectors. • You have great latitude in where you can work within an organization; you get to have many careers within a single organization. • Manufacturing firms are spread throughout the country, so you, to an extent, pick where you are going to live. • A large number of manufacturing firms are involved in defense. Within this group you get the sense of pride that a patriotic endeavor entails. • The medical-device manufacturing sector is both growing and ethically satisfying. • Manufacturing companies hire candidates with a wide range of degrees, but still recruit candidates with engineering backgrounds most heavily. Major Minuses of Careers in Manufacturing
• Many of the areas within manufacturing are mature, so the chance of leapfrogging up the ranks is slim. • With the exception of some technology and medical manufacturing companies, many companies are located in the Rust Belt. • It’s a long road to the top—there aren’t many thirty-something CEOs running manufacturing companies. • The educational barriers to entry are high—many positions require technical degrees, and many nontechnical positions, such as marketing, are filled by former engineers.
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At a Glance
• The industry, as a whole, is shrinking. It’s no secret that companies have been moving factories overseas for many years. Recruiting Overview
• The manufacturing industry has a structured interview process for engineering, business, and science undergraduates. • Manufacturing companies have a respectable presence on campus for MBA recruiting. • Manufacturing companies accept lateral transfers readily from within the industry, but it is difficult to make a midcareer transfer without industry experience. • MBA opportunities span a wide range of disciplines, including finance, IT, operations, marketing, and HR. • The greatest number of opportunities for undergraduates is in engineering functions; finance majors will find the best prospects in treasury and corporate finance functions; generalist degree holders have fewer options. • Manufacturing companies recruit graduate-level engineers throughout their functional areas and PhD holders for research and development groups. • Engineering and business students typically go into rotational programs upon landing positions at manufacturing companies.
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The Industry
The Industry • Industry Overview • The Bottom Line • Industry Breakdown • Industry Trends • Picking and Choosing • Industry Rankings • Industry Glossary
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The Industry
Industry Overview History attributes to Henry Ford the autocratic utterance that people could have any color of Model T they wanted just as long as it was black. Marketers point to this incident as an example of Ford’s color blindness to consumer tastes— one man’s imposition of his taste on the market—the ultimate no-no in the age of customer-focused organizations. What that group of marketers doesn’t realize is that with no competition from the Japanese in the early part of the century and little from domestic competitors, black was the logical choice for a man obsessed with efficiency. Not only was it less expensive to manufacture cars of one color versus a rainbow of possibilities, cars painted black dried faster than those painted other colors. So, with cars spending less time getting painted, Ford could put more cars through the assembly line in any given period of time. More cars using the same resources meant lower per-car costs and therefore greater profits. If Henry Ford’s canny excites you, if your brain is cranking away at the solution to dozens of problems, you might be well suited to a career in manufacturing. But the manufacturing cosmos entails far more than optimizing assembly lines. At a basic level, manufacturing is the process of making things from materials and delivering a physical product. This allows for significant latitude in what you can call manufacturing—which is a good thing once you have been in the industry for a while and want to move laterally. However, for our purposes, we tighten the scope of manufacturing to include companies whose products require a degree of technical or engineering skill to either develop or produce. Also, in this Insider Guide, we look more closely at firms that produce discrete products—widgets— versus firms that have continuous production—vats of acid, for example. The constellations in manufacturing include, for example, Skunk Works projects a la
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Lockheed to develop state of the art military aircraft, projects at automakers to develop cutting-edge composite materials to lighten today’s ever-larger SUVs, or projects in medical technology firms to develop precision machinery to replace or augment human parts, all in addition to the challenging problems involved in
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making production more efficient and quality driven. People in manufacturing are forever dreaming up better mousetraps for whatever rodential problems are plaguing humankind and then executing those dreams on production lines throughout the world. Whether you want to develop these products, bring them into production, or market them, the manufacturing sector offers you—as a PhD, MBA, or undergraduate, technologist or businessperson— ample opportunity to challenge yourself and to do good for humankind. While manufacturing has gotten short shrift in recent years with the rise of the service economy and the information economy, it still occupies an undeniably large piece of the American psyche and a very real place in the heart of American business. Three of the 2003 top ten Fortune 500 companies belong to the manufacturing sector: General Motors, General Electric, and Ford. And while the behemoths of American industry hold their own, a whole new breed of manufacturers, in the guise of specialty medical and electronics equipment manufacturers, rank among the fastest growing and most profitable sectors of the economy. The medical products industry, for instance, ranked as the third fastest growing industry in 2003, according to Fortune, growing at an impressive 15.5 percent clip; the industry has even better profit growth, clocking in at 21 percent annual growth over the past 5 years. In this Insider Guide, we’ve highlighted 30 of the top manufacturing firms based in or with significant operations in the United States. But the list is much larger: Within each segment—motor vehicle and motor vehicle parts, aerospace and defense, electronics and scientific equipment, medical equipment, industrial and
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farm equipment, consumer durable goods, chemicals, and good old-fashioned conglomerates—are handfuls of Fortune 500 companies, making the final tally a large one.
The Industry
Within the firms are a gaggle of opportunities in technical and nontechnical disciplines. But don’t expect to get rich quick or move to a corner office within your first decade at a firm; unlike some software startups or those internet startups which are receding farther and farther back in memory, ascension at a manufacturing company is a rung-by-rung climb. “You aren’t going to get rich quick in this industry and there are a lot of qualified people who are going to be ahead of you,” says one insider. Moreover, though many companies hire all majors, some are definitely engineering-driven, with marketing and other functions taking their cues from the people in engineering.
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The Bottom Line The Industry
To paraphrase Orwell, some manufacturing sectors are more equal than others. Mature industry segments have been exported overseas for many years. Overall, the manufacturing industry is not growing in the United States. Within the industry, many sectors, such as aerospace and defense and the automobile industry are undergoing continued consolidation. In the last 3 years of recession, companies have undergone significant headcount reductions. In spite of increased defense spending and interest in homeland security, Raytheon and Boeing, two of the country’s largest defense contractors, each shed 12 percent of their workforce in 2002. Xerox decreased headcount by 15 percent in 2002, Rubbermaid and Emerson by 10 percent each. Bright spots abound, though, and they tend to be exceptionally bright. Areas such as medical manufacturing and specialty electronics manufacturing have been growing steadily. Medtronic increased its headcount by 7 percent, Danaher by 17 percent. Moreover, they stand to show even more growth with coming advances in nanotechnologies. While the industry as a whole couldn’t be said to be booming, the outlook is much more sanguine than for many other industries. Similarly, as the economy recovers, the industry will likely trend up along with it. For job seekers, especially recent college graduates, the outlook appears decent. Unlike many financial services firms that have closed down recruiting efforts altogether, manufacturing companies still appear to be hiring, albeit at a tempered pace.
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The Industry
Industry Breakdown Manufacturing is a broad term. Virtually any process that turns a raw material into a finished good through use of a machine can be considered manufacturing. If you look around at the objects strewn about the room in which you’re sitting right now, you’ll see that quite a few things are manufactured. However, we can break down the types of manufacturing based on what companies produce, or by industry; how they produce them, discrete or flow; and the level of engineering effort required to manufacture them. Our breakdown considers industry primarily, and then other characteristics within. The universe of manufacturing’s galaxies include aerospace and defense, automobile and transportation, chemicals and metals, consumer goods, electronics and high tech, industrial and farm equipment, and medical and biotech. Generally, sectors that involve technology and are less mature—especially biotech and medical manufacturing—are high growth opportunities, whereas ones that have reached maturity—chemical and metals, for instance—are waning and have seen much of their growth exported overseas. Somewhere in between the two are various consumer and specialty manufacturers that have forged niches in the marketplace, such as Bose in the consumer electronics realm, or have a U.S. base for executive leadership, such as Ford and GM in the automotive realm, that have varied and interesting opportunities for new graduates.
Aerospace and Defense Aerospace and defense manufacturers develop aircraft and spacecraft for the commercial sector, and military aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, tanks, and other products for the United States and other militaries. Nearly half of the aerospace and defense industry’s revenue comes from the latter half of the
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equation. Within the United States, there is only one major aircraft manufacturer— Boeing. Its only domestic rival, McDonnell Douglass, was swallowed up by the maker of 747s in 1997. However, buying McDonnell Douglass didn’t take out the competition—Europe’s Airbus Industries has been steadily gaining market
The Industry
share in recent years. In fact, it pulled ahead of Boeing in terms of aircraft delivered in the first part of 2003. Other companies manufacture aircraft parts—GE manufactures engines and Raytheon makes radar systems—but nearly half of all aerospace dollars come from the defense market (Hoover’s). Lockheed Martin derived more than 65 percent of its revenue from defense contracts with the U.S. government in 2002. Additionally, aerospace firms have large contracts with NASA. Lockheed and Boeing have agreements with NASA that equal 3 to 4 percent of their annual revenue—this includes the Space Shuttle, Satellite, Rocket, and other programs. If you’re looking at aerospace firms, you’ll definitely need to consider the possibility of working on defense projects. Typically, aerospace projects have a high technical complexity factor and low output—the processes aren’t overly standardized and require a significant amount of engineering effort to produce products. For engineers, this means that juicy problem-solving activities abound not just in product development, but also in production. Moreover, NASA and the defense department have more far-sighted designs than the next quarter’s profits, which means that their projects are often for cutting-edge technologies. The effect for people working in the industry is that you get to work on things that are decades ahead of what the general public will ever see. As an insider puts it, “defense is R&D for the rest of the economy.”
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Automobile and Components The automobile industry has been breaking new ground for more than 100 years, first in Europe with the invention of the automobile by Daimler and Benz, then
The Industry
through the introduction of mass production by Ford in Michigan, and finally through the introduction of lean production techniques in Japan by companies like Toyota. But the industry is more or less mature—the Big Three have dominated the U.S. market for many years. However, there’s a twist: The Big Three contains a hybrid German-American company, DaimlerChrysler; but note that the primary address of the company is in Stuttgart, Germany. It gets juicier: In August 2003, Toyota nudged out DaimlerChrysler as the number three automaker in the United States in terms of units sold. Moreover, U.S. companies own many premium foreign brands: General Motors owns Saab, while Ford owns Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, and Aston Martin. What all of this means is that automobile manufacturing is one of the most global of the manufacturing sectors. For job seekers, it means potential international assignments. Another good thing about automobile manufacturing is that its end user is a consumer and that consumer is highly influenced by marketing messages and design. Marketers and designers look out; automobile manufacturing is a hot spot for you. In recent years, SUVs have dominated the U.S. automobile market. Industry oracles speculate that China will be the next great revenue boon for automobile giants. Worldwide, the largest automobile manufacturers at the end of 2002, in descending order of sales, were General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
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Chemicals and Metals Chemical and metal manufacturers tend to be process manufacturers; their production is characterized by long, continuous runs. Picture sheets of steel rolling
The Industry
continuously out of a furnace. Chemicals and metals provide the building blocks for a myriad of other products. Large manufacturers like Alcoa not only produce aluminum for your Coke can, but also for 747s. Most of the world’s largest metal producers now reside overseas. None of the top five steel producers in the world are based in the United States. In the chemical world, many of the products are petroleum-based. For this reason, DuPont purchased (and subsequently spun off) the oil company Conoco. As with the metals industries, chemicals in the United States are somewhat stagnant but additionally subjected to the vagaries of the oil market. Less susceptible to prices of oil and commodity are specialty chemical manufacturers—companies like Eastman Chemical whose end product requires more engineering and production effort than commodity chemicals. For new graduates, most opportunities are in engineering. Because these companies sell primarily to other manufacturers, marketing opportunities are generally filled by people with technical or engineering backgrounds.
Consumer Goods Consumer goods manufacturers make everything from apparel to windows and wall coverings, and everything in between. Many companies in this field have design and marketing operations in the United States and manufacturing facilities overseas. Companies in this segment include Newell Rubbermaid, owner of Rubbermaid, Graco, and Calphalon brands. Many companies in the sector, like Whirlpool, manufacture products under both their own brands and on a contract basis for other brands; Whirlpool manufactures products under the Sears brand in addition to the Whirlpool brand.
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Because the engineering of consumer goods tends to be well established, the focus is on operations, management, marketing, and design.
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Electronics Electronics manufacturers (excluding high technology/computer hardware) divide themselves into two camps, consumer electronics manufacturers and industrial manufacturers. The consumer camp is dominated by foreign firms, such as Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic). This sector is, not surprisingly, closely tied to consumer spending and the overall health of the economy. And while everyone has a television and a CD player, the industry thrives on technology changes that create new markets. So, in recent years, DVD, flat screen, and home theater technologies have buoyed the industry. Domestic companies have found gold in niche markets. Bose, for instance, has developed a reputation for building very high quality compact speakers. In the industrial arena, electronics manufacturers tend to build controls and the products that are controlled by, well, those controls. Emerson, for instance, builds controls for things like appliances, valves, electronic devices, and heating and cooling equipment. Johnson Controls specializes in devices for the automobile industry and controls for buildings and climate-control systems. As you might have guessed, firms in the industrial space tend to be engineering focused, as their end customers are other businesses (which is not to say that they aren’t good marketers). Consumer electronics manufacturers have better opportunities for those of the nontechnical ilk.
Industrial and Farm Equipment John Deere plowed the way for the industrial equipment industry with the invention of the steel plow that broke through the tough but fertile sod of the Great Plains. Today, industrial manufacturers make equipment for agriculture as well as equipment
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for construction and mining and diesel engines for large trucks and generators. The undisputed leader in this category is Caterpillar, with more than $20 billion in revenue in 2002. John Deere follows with nearly $14 billion in revenue in 2002. Japan’s Komatsu, by comparison, had just over $9 billion in revenue in
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2002. Since most new construction and mining projects are overseas, the larger companies within the industry have developed significant overseas operations. As with many other manufacturing sectors, industrial and farm equipment manufacturers look for undergraduates with engineering degrees. However, because much of the focus of these companies is on production and manufacturing rather than product development, they look primarily for mechanical and industrial engineers. In the graduate realm, industrial and farm equipment manufacturers have relatively strong track records in hiring MBAs, especially in account management and business development positions.
Medical Manufacturing Medical manufacturing has become one of the hottest areas in manufacturing. Furthermore, it’s one of the only areas in which companies have posted doubledigit growth through the recent recession. Chalk this up to leaps in technology and to industry development. Companies like Medtronic and Boston Scientific produce not only implants like Vice President Dick Cheney’s defibrillator but also a host of surgical and related medical supplies. The industry has the unique distinction of combining manufacturing technology with medicine. For those who go into the field, there is a large degree of satisfaction from the knowledge that you’re doing something very good for mankind. The R& D process for medical manufacturing is more akin to that of pharmaceuticals than to industrial manufacturing. Product development includes huge development costs and a lengthy and costly FDA approval process. So, as with pharmaceuticals, a company’s fortunes ride heavily on the will of the FDA. The largest companies in the
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industry include Johnson & Johnson, GE Medical Systems, Baxter, Tyco Healthcare, Medtronic, and Boston Scientific. Medical manufacturers tend to hire for a wide range of functions, including
The Industry
both engineering and business positions. Many of the business opportunities are in business development and marketing. The firms in the industry also tend to have well-defined product manager roles. Finally, because the of the sector’s relatively rapid growth, not only are there likely to be more positions available than in other sectors, but the pace of advancement also tends to be more brisk than in other sectors.
Industry Trends Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is a hybrid of chemistry, physics, and engineering that manipulates molecules to achieve industrial goals. Nanotechnology describes any type of engineering that takes place at a scale smaller than 1,000 nanometers (a nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter). The uses for nanotechnology include applications in biology, instrumentation, computer hardware, and advanced materials. Much of nanotechnology research has jumped beyond primary research to practical arenas that are venture capitalist funded. For manufacturers, this means dealing with things that get, as one insider puts it, “smaller and smaller and smaller.” Some devices and applications include carbon tubes, the opportunistic use of a state of carbon in which it forms a tube; nano-machines wherein devices currently in
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development use miniature cantilevers as sensors; self-assembly, in which the tendency for atomic particles to self-assemble or form an orderly pattern is taken advantage of; as well as other uses in photonics and electronics. Large manufacturers, especially aerospace and defense contractors are already dealing with the implications
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of nanotechnology.
Six Sigma/Quality Sigma refers to the Greek symbol for standard deviation. Six sigma means controlling a process to six standard deviations—which translates into 3.4 defects per million. In other words, a maniacal focus on quality. Bill Smith, a reliability engineer at Motorola in the early 1980s, developed six sigma. During routine testing, Smith saw that products were failing at a much higher rate than predicted. He hypothesized that increased system complexity might be the cause of the failure. His solution was to build controls into the system so the process could be measured and acted upon before a final product was produced. He convinced Motorola management to adopt the program and the rest is history. Six sigma is still proliferating throughout manufacturing organizations. It is somewhat strange that an industry obsessed with precision would take so long to adopt the methodology. According to General Electric (GE), six sigma is a “disciplined methodology of defining, measuring, analyzing, improving, and controlling the quality in every one of the company’s products, processes, and transactions— with the ultimate goal of virtually eliminating all defects.”
Lean Manufacturing Lean manufacturing was developed by Toyota and its Toyota Production System more than a decade ago. Traditional manufacturing methodologies stress high utilization of machinery with slim regard for cycle time or manufacturing waste. Lean manufacturing, on the other hand, stresses reduced cycle times and waste.
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Cycle time refers to the amount of time that it takes to complete a set of operations. So in lean manufacturing, the goal is not to push more goods through a process— say, the painting area of an automobile assembly line—but rather to make a better process. Similarly, lean manufacturing attacks root causes by identifying
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“seven wastes”: overproduction, transportation, motion, waiting, processing, inventory, and defects.
Engineering Outsourcing Whereas manufacturing has long been outsourced to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), outsourcing has taken the next logical step up the value chain and begun to take over design and engineering functions. These firms are referred to in the industry as outside engineering companies. Companies like Flextronics, a contract manufacturer, already have added design and engineering capabilities to their offering to the electronics industry. Within the automotive industry, companies like MSX have already off-loaded some of the design effort from major companies. MSX, a company with more than 7,000 employees, engineered Ford’s entry into the European mini-car market, the Ka. MSX’s engineering outsourcing revenue has exceeded $500 million, and it’s growing. Industry pundits estimate that the engineering outsourcing market is growing at a 10 to 15 percent clip. It’s not just startups that are jumping into the engineering outsourcing fray. European automobile manufacturers Porsche and Lotus, always known for their design prowess, have hung out signs for outsourcing services. The value of these outsourcing companies comes in their ability to design cheaply and quickly—in the automotive industry’s case, this applies to niche markets—those that sell 150,000 to 200,000 units a year of a particular model. Other scenarios include firms seeking to build products that are at least partially out of their range of expertise. In addition to the automobile industry, the aircraft and medical device sectors are becoming large consumers of outside engineering services.
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Increased Defense Spending Industry insiders say that the government has committed to defense spending increases for the next 6 to 10 years. While this might not bode well for the
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federal budget, it does have advantages for people looking at careers in aerospace and defense. For those going into aerospace, this is good news. Defense spending increased by $166 billion from 2000 to 2003, to more than $350 billion in 2003.
Picking and Choosing Unsure of how to decide what kind of manufacturing company might be a good fit for you? Start by considering a few basic questions.
What Do They Make? What a company builds, quite obviously, will tell you a lot about the company you’re going to work for. Since people go into manufacturing at least partly because they are excited by the prospect of creating a tangible product, it makes sense that you should know, be comfortable with, and even excited by what your firm makes. Specialty manufacturers tend to hire people with an interest in their products— a stereophile might work at Bose, a biker at Harley-Davidson, and so on. What the company makes also has a bearing on what kind of culture the company embraces. Partially, companies embrace the culture that their product suggests. Therefore, a mountain bike manufacturer might have a playful, outdoorsy culture.
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Medical product manufacturers demand a high degree of ethics from their workers—after all, their products are life and death matters. Technically complex and forward-looking companies (i.e., ones whose technology is new) tend to foster looser cultures with a heavier focus on creativity than more established
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companies. In the medical products field, for instance, companies impress an air of creativity on their workers. Companies with established products, where the technology and innovation play a role in the production process versus the product design, tend to have more rigid cultures, ones that foster efficiency and cost savings. “We’re not browbeaten, but you do sense that the management is more concerned with following the rules than doing the right thing,” says one automobile industry insider.
How Big Is the Company? The size of companies in the manufacturing industry varies dramatically, from behemoths perennially among the very largest companies in the country (and world) to startups with handfuls of employees and everything in between. This variance in size corresponds to an equally large range of opportunities, career paths, and workplace environments that are open to you. The three largest companies in the industry—General Motors, Ford, and General Electric—have revenues over $125 billion each (larger than the gross domestic products of some small countries); GM has more than 340,000 employees. These firms offer structured management training programs and the ability to move through a number of diverse operations (though less diverse in the automobile industry). GE is known as one of the top management training grounds anywhere. These companies are especially interesting for finance majors, as their treasury operations deal with staggering figures. The downside of these large organizations is that their organizational structures can be cumbersome and career progression slow relative to industries like consulting and investment banking.
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Small manufacturing companies combine the excitement of a startup with the satisfaction offered by building things you can touch. Especially interesting are companies in the ever-growing medical technology and specialty electronics industries. These companies tend to have limited programs for new graduates
The Industry
and often seek midcareer professionals to fill their ranks. Also, many, like Bose, were founded by entrepreneurial professors and researchers and have a campuslike culture.
Where Are They Located? Manufacturing companies are sprinkled across the country and industry sectors have their own epicenters, so picking an industry sector can draw you into a particular region of the country. The headquarters of automotive giants are huddled around Detroit; aerospace manufacturers hang their hats in the Southwest; medical and specialty electronics manufacturers find themselves near the brain trust of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and other college towns; and traditional manufactures are strewn throughout the Northeast—aka the Rustbelt. If you are in a line job, however, you could end up placed in a facility anywhere in the country, and possibly throughout the world. Many firms separate R&D facilities from operations facilities, as the two have vastly different cultural requirements. If you’re lucky enough to work in a corporate think tank, you’ll likely be set up in different digs than those of your operational counterparts. And what digs they are. Boston Scientific has R&D facilities in San Diego; many manufacturers, hoping to soak up the Silicon Valley mystique, have R&D facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The most well known of these is Xerox’s PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), which, when asked to come up with the office of the future 30 years ago, dreamed up the mouse, Ethernet, the graphical user interface, and laser printing.
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How Do You Feel about the Military? As mentioned before, aerospace and defense companies derive nearly half their revenues from military contracts. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop
The Industry
Grumman are among the largest defense contractors in the country, and each derives a large portion of its sales from the military market segment. All of which means that if you go into an aerospace firm there’s a good chance that you’ll end up doing at least some work on military projects. For many people, this instills them with a sense of pride and patriotism. If you have qualms about building weapons, however, beware of this aspect of aerospace manufacturing.
Industry Rankings The following rankings are intended to give you some idea about the size and scope of work of companies within the manufacturing industry. Not every company is included on the list—rather, it is a sampling of the leading companies. We developed the following ranking of top manufacturing firms by looking at Fortune 500 firms that were involved in some aspect of manufacturing. We then selected the top firms within each subsector based on revenue, growth, and industry reputation. To this list we added firms that both had exciting and growing operations coupled with a reputation for hiring top talent. We then ranked the chosen firms according to revenue of the last full fiscal year.
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30 Top Manufacturing Companies with Major U.S. Operations
Rank
Company
Subsector
2002 Revenue ($M)
General Motors
Motor vehicles & parts
186,763
2
Ford Motor Company
Motor vehicles & parts
163,630
3
DaimlerChrysler
Motor vehicles & parts
157,107
4
General Electric
Diversified
131,698
5
Toyota
Motor vehicles & parts
128,965
6
Ingersoll-Rand
Industrial & farm equipment
89,501
7
Boeing
Aerospace & defense
54,069
8
BMW
Motor vehicles & parts
44,315
United Technologies
Aerospace & defense
28,212
10
9
Dow Chemical
Chemicals
27,609
11
Delphi Corp.
Motor vehicles & parts
27,427
12
Lockheed Martin
Aerospace & defense
26,806
13
DuPont
Chemicals
24,522
14
Honeywell
Aerospace & defense
22,274
15
Caterpillar
Industrial & farm equipment
20,152
16
Northrop Grumman
Aerospace & defense
17,206
17
Raytheon
Aerospace & defense
16,962
18
3M Company
Diversified
16,332
19
Xerox Corp.
Electronics & scientific equipment
15,849
20
Emerson Electric
Electronics & scientific equipment
13,824
21
Whirlpool Corp.
Consumer durable goods
11,016
22
Newell Rubbermaid
Consumer durable goods
7,454
23
Medtronic
Medical equipment
6,411
24
Cummins, Inc.
Industrial & farm equipment
5,853
25
NCR Corp.
Electronics & scientific equipment
5,585
26
Eastman Chemical
Chemicals
5,320
27
Danaher Corp.
Electronics & scientific equipment
4,577
28
Black & Decker Corp.
Industrial & farm equipment
4,394
29
Boston Scientific Corp.
Medical equipment
2,919
30
Bose Corp.
Electronics & scientific equipment
1,600
The Industry
1
Sources: WetFeet analysis, Hoover’s, Fortune.
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The Industry
10 Largest Defense Contractors
Rank
Company
2002 Federal Defense Contract ($M)
1
Lockheed Martin
17,000
2
Boeing
16,600
3
Northrop Grumman
8,700
4
Raytheon
7,000
5
General Dynamics Corp.
7,000
6
United Technologies
3,600
7
Science Applications Int.
2,100
8
TRW Inc.
2,000
9
Health Net, Inc.
1,700
L3 Communications
1,700
10
Source: Department of Defense.
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Top Farm Equipment Manufacturers
Rank
Company
2002 Revenue ($M)
Caterpillar
20,152
2
Deere & Co.
13,947
3
Illinois Tool Works
9,812
4
American Standard
7,795
5
Parker Hannifin
6,149
The Industry
1
Source: Fortune.
Top Chemical Manufacturers
Rank
Company
2002 Revenue ($M)
1
Dow Chemical
27,609
2
DuPont
24,522
3
PPG Industries
8,067
4
Ashland
7,792
5
Rohm & Haas
5,727 Source: Fortune.
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The Industry
Industry Glossary 1:10:100 principle. The business case for quality management. Its premise is
that a defect that is caught at its source has a cost, but the cost of fixing the defect once it has left a work area is tenfold that original cost, and 100-fold once it has reached an external customer and must be repaired. 5 S. An approach to elimination of waste based on five principles: sort,
straighten, sweep, standardize, and self-discipline. They make less sense than they do in Japanese as they strain to capture the meaning of the Japanese originals in words beginning with S. 7-step process. A problem solving process developed at Teradyne containing,
of all things, 7 steps: 1. Select a theme. 2. Collect and analyze data based on that theme. 3. Identify the root cause. 4. Plan and implement a solution. 5. Confirm results. 6. Standardize the solution. 7. Reflect on and critique the process. A&R. Automation and robotics.
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Activity-based costing (ABC). A managerial accounting technique that, unlike
traditional managerial accounting, breaks down the costs of a product by the set of activities used to produce that product. For instance, rather than lumping all effort to produce a product into labor, ABC calculates the cost of each of
The Industry
the significant activities required to produce a product from the customer order to delivery. Alignment. The process of matching supplier capability with market or user
needs. Andon board. Based on the Japanese word for lamp. A visual device, such as a
colored light, in a production area displaying current status of the production system and alerting team members to emerging problems. For instance, a green light would mean OK; yellow, a problem emerging; red, a major problem. Part of the Andon concept is that any worker on the assembly line can change the status of the assembly line if she detects a problem. Balanced plant. A plant that balances it capacity and resources directly against
market demand. Benchmarking. The process of measuring performance and results and comparing
them to those of similar organizations. Bottleneck. The process in a production line that limits production. For instance,
the painting process in an automobile assembly plant might only have a throughput of two cars an hour, where all the other processes have throughputs of more than four cars an hour. The painting process, therefore, would be the bottleneck. A production line’s maximum throughput is equal to its bottleneck. Breakthrough. A dramatic improvement in a work process. Brownfield. An existing plant or facility, based on greenfield. It connotes not only
the sense of not-new but also industrial contamination.
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Chaku-chaku. A method of production in which an operator moves from
station to station to follow a piece of work through the production process.
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Constraint. Any factor that limits production capability. Covariance. The phenomenon wherein one variable affects other variables within
the same group. Cycle time. Time required to complete a set of operations. External setup. A die that can be set up without stopping a machine. Flow production. The process of production in small quantities and sequential
steps, rather than in large batches. Greenfield. A new plant or facility, as opposed to brownfield. Human factors. The discipline of studying human responses to products and
environments and assimilating that knowledge into product and environmental design. Internal setup. A machine or die setup that can only be accomplished with a
machine stopped. Inventory. Inventory includes all raw material, work in process, and finished
goods that have not yet been sold to a customer. Just in time (JIT). A production methodology whereby inventory is kept at a
minimum by producing only what current demand requires. The three principles of JIT are takt time, flow production, and pull systems. Dell Computer’s made-to-order model of doing business is an example of JIT. JIT production not only frees up capital that would be otherwise tied in inventory, it is also critical in industries where inventory obsolesces quickly—such as in the computer industry.
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Kai aku. Change for the worse—never a good thing. Kaizen. Continuous improvement through incremental improvements. Kanban. Japanese for card, a resupply order attached to a product, triggering
The Industry
production further up the supply chain. Lead time. The time it takes to produce a single product, from customer order,
through manufacturing, to shipment. Lean manufacturing. The approach developed by Toyota of shortening the time
of production of a product from customer order to delivery through the elimination of waste and incidental work. Mass customization. The practice of developing customized products on
standardized components. For instance, a clothing manufacturer might develop a line of clothing with multiple jacket styles (customization) but with uniform, both in color and size, zippers and buttons—thereby allowing the producer to minimize inventory while maximizing product variety. Mass customization works on the principle of carefully selecting what components of a product will be nonstandard. Nanometer. One billionth of a meter. Nanotechnology. The area of research that concerns itself with the development
and use of devices and components that have a size of 1 to 100 nanometers. The size of these devices is so small—on the atomic or molecular level—that it brings quantum effects into play. Pareto chart. A problem-solving tool in the form of a vertical bar graph showing
the bars in descending order of significance from left to right. A Pareto chart focuses improvement activity on a few major causes rather than on the many insubstantial causes. This framework is called the Pareto principle. The meme has
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spread with viral efficiency throughout business and organizations as the 80/20 rule, in which 80 percent of the problems are accounted for by 20 percent of causes.
The Industry
Poka-yoke. A mistake-proofing device or procedure to prevent a defect during
order-taking or manufacture. Process. A series of definable, repeatable, and measurable steps used to complete
an action. Pull system. As-needed production based on signals (kanban) from downstream
processes that tell the upstream processes when to operate. Push system. A system in which production occurs and “pushes” product down
the supply chain regardless of product demand and downstream factors. Push systems tend to be inventory rich and risk overproduction. Run chart. A data plot of a process over time used to detect trends and errors
in production. Sensi. (Lean Production) An outside master who is brought in to assist in
production. Shusa. (Lean Production) The team leader responsible for designing a new product
and putting it into production. Six sigma. The mantra of almost every American manufacturer; a methodology
for increasing control of production processes and thereby increasing customer satisfaction. Sigma refers to the Greek symbol for standard deviation. Six sigma means controlling a process to six standard deviations—which translates into 3.4 defects per million. In other words, a maniacal focus on quality.
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Suboptimization. The process by which productivity gains produced by
optimization in one activity are offset by productivity losses in another. Supply chain management. The process of optimizing the events in the life of
The Industry
a product from manufacturer to retail. Takt time. The desired time between output of units of production, synchronized
with customer demand. This principle is key to lean production. Total quality management (TQM). A philosophy of process improvement based
on five tenets: customer focus, continuous improvement, measurement, total involvement, and systematic support. Utilization. The percentage of a resource’s capacity that is used. Visual controls. The use of visual tools such as color coding, labels, symbols,
Andon boards, and the like to serve as guides in the production process. Waste. In lean production, the things that make production fat. Specifically, there
are seven wastes in lean production. The Japanese term for waste is Muda. 1. Overproduction 2. Transportation 3. Motion 4. Waiting 5. Processing 6. Inventory 7. Defects
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Whiplash effect. The disconnect between supply and demand in manufacturing
that produces hyperbolic swings, or whiplash, in inventory. The effect works because of the lags between retailer, wholesaler, distributor, and producer. Each agent works independently, meeting his own needs and padding inventory as
The Industry
needed, which produces wild fluctuations in inventory.
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The Companies The following are profiles of 30 top manufacturing companies, listed alphabetically. If net incomes contain a negative value, no percentage change is given. Rather, a marker of “P” is given if a company has moved from a loss to
The Companies
a profit and an “L” is given if a company moves from a profit to a loss, or continues to post losses for both periods listed here.
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3M Company 3M Center St. Paul, MN 55144 Phone: 651-733-1110 www.3m.com For Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M), the chain of innovation began with its invention of the world’s first waterproof sandpaper in 1920. Building on its experience of making grit stick to make sandpaper, the company developed a wide range of adhesive products, including Scotch Cellophane Tape, Post-It Notes,
The Companies
and asphalt roofing shingles. Today, 3M sells its 50,000-plus products in seven operating segments: industrial (advanced adhesives, tapes, and abrasives); health care; transportation; graphics and display (reflective materials and optical films); safety, security, and protection; consumer and office (tape); and electro and communications (insulating products). More than half of 3M’s sales come from overseas markets; the company’s operations are based in 63 countries, and its products are sold in more than 200 countries. To combat slumping sales in the late 1990s, 3M cut its workforce and sold several health care businesses and its Eastern Heights Bank. It continued to cut jobs through 2002—about 2,500 jobs.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
16,332
16,079
1.6
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
1,974
1,430
38.0
68,774
71,669
–4.0
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2002 Company officially changes its name from Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing to 3M. 2002 Acquisition spree includes Solvay Fluoropolymers, Emtech Emulsion Technologies, Polymer Engineering Corp, and Corning’s lens business. 2002 Merges with AiT, a secure ID firm.
The Companies
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The Black and Decker Corporation 701 E. Joppa Road Towson, MD 21286 Phone: 410-716-3900 www.bdk.com With inventions like the portable screwdriver and hand-held electric drill in the early part of this century, Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker equipped Americans for a new industrial era. Since then, Black & Decker has grown into a leading manufacturer of power tools, electric lawn and garden equipment, and commercial
The Companies
and residential building products. In the past few years, the company shed several peripheral businesses—including its small-appliance division—and streamlined its global operations to concentrate on its strengths, such as its DeWALT power tools brand. Other main brands include its namesake Black & Decker, Enhart, Kwikset, and Price Pfister.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
4,394
4,333
1.4
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
229.7
108
112.7
22,300
22,700
–1.8
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2003 Bids for acquisition of Masco’s Baldwin Hardware and Weiser Lock businesses. 2003 Sells European security hardware business.
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Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) Petuelring 130 D-80788 Munich, Germany Phone: +49-89-382-0 www.bmw.com U.S. Headquarters: BMW of North America, LLC 300 Chestnut Ridge Road Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677
The Companies
Phone: 201-307-4000 The motors that BMW’s middle initial stands for started off not as the automobile and motorcycle motors for which the firm is now famous, but for the motors that spun the propellers on aircraft. The blue and white fields of the firm’s logo, a stylized version of a propeller spinning, attest to this. Nowadays, the company’s reach extends far beyond the BMW name. It owns not only the BMW brand, but also Rolls Royce and MINI. Though BMW has had the rights to the Rolls Royce name since 1998, it only began producing the cars itself in 2003; before then, Volkswagen produced the famed luxury sedans. BMW began producing automobiles in the United States in 1995 with the opening of its Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant. The plant, into which BMW pumped $800 million, spits out Z3, M, and X5 models. Overall company car production was more than 1,050,000 units in 2002, including both the BMW and MINI brands. More than half of those sales were from the BMW 3 Series models. The company increased unit production by more than 15 percent in 2002, which it parlayed into a 30 percent rise in revenue and comparable rise in income; not bad for a company that started the post–World War II years making three-wheeled vehicles.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
44,315
34,070
30.1
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
2,117
1,653
28.1
101,395
97,275
4.2
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2003 Begins production of Rolls Royce cars in Goodwood, England.
The Companies
2002 Takes control of Rolls Royce. 2001 Launches MINI brand in the United Kingdom. 2000 Sells Land Rover SUV unit to Ford and Rover car unit to the Phoenix Group.
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The Boeing Company 100 N. Riverside Plaza Chicago, IL 60606 Phone: 312-544-2000 www.boeing.com Boeing is a widebody in the aerospace industry, commanding stature as a leader in both commercial aircraft and defense systems. Nevertheless, the skies have not been terribly friendly to mighty Boeing in recent years. It remains second to Lockheed Martin on the list of the nation’s largest defense contractors, and it
The Companies
recently lost out to Lockheed Martin on the Defense Department Joint Strike Fighter contract. In the civilian realm, it has had to contend with Airbus Industries nipping at its heels; in fact, Airbus overtook Boeing in aircraft deliveries in the first two quarters of 2003, 149 to 145. Airbus also surpassed Boeing in aircraft orders in the same period. Moreover, Airbus’s gigantic A380, twin-deck, 550passenger aircraft currently scheduled to go into service in 2006 has stolen some of Boeing’s thunder as the developer of premier aircraft. For its part, Boeing has bet that the future of commercial aviation will not go to larger jets, but rather to fuel-efficient, long-range craft, a la its 7E7. Boeing estimates that the craft will hold 200 to 250 passengers and have a range of 6,500 to 8,000 nautical miles. Within the commercial jet market, Boeing is capitalizing on the trend toward regional jets with its 717 offering. Still, the recessionary economy and continued threats of terrorism have proved to be a substantial headwind to the jet maker. On the flip side, some of those same factors have been a boon to its defense systems business. The recent war in Iraq has been a virtual who’s who of Boeing products, from the F-18 Hornet to cruise missiles, to stealth B-2 bombers, to the Apache helicopter. Less bellicose output of the defense unit includes the Space Shuttle and various other space systems.
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On the research end of things, Boeing’s answer to Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works program is called Phantom Works; a tacit acknowledgement if ever there was one that Lockheed was doing something very right.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
54,069
58,198
–7.1
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
492
2,827
–82.6
166,000
188,000
–11.7
Number of Employees
The Companies
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2003 Announces work on 7E7 midsize, long-range aircraft. 2002 Boeing’s headcount shrinks by 20,000 from the previous year-end. 2001 Moves headquarters to Chicago from its longtime home outside of Seattle.
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Bose Corporation The Mountain Framingham, MA 01701-9168 Phone: 508-879-7330 www.bose.com A private company founded by MIT professor Amar Bose, Bose is arguably the number-one manufacturer of high-quality audio equipment, with sales accounting for 25 percent of the world market. Bose is known for making its speakers extremely small, yet capable of producing rich sound. Since its creation, Bose
The Companies
has continually sought new areas where sound systems could be redesigned. In 1983 it offered its first stereo system designed specifically for cars. In the late 1980s Bose designed speakers for use in Zenith televisions. In 1992 its speakers were used in Space Shuttle flights, and in 1997 Bose partnered with IBM to improve the sound quality in PCs. One of its most successful products continues to be its Wave radio, a small product that produces a deceptively large sound. The company manufactures its products in the United States and Northern Ireland and has operations throughout the world.
Key Numbers March 2003
March 2002
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
1,600
1,300
23.1
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
n/a
n/a
n/a
8,000
6,999
14.3
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2001 Introduces Wave PC Interactive system. 1999 Begins selling online.
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Boston Scientific Corporation 1 Boston Scientific Place Natick, MA 01760 Phone: 508-650-8000 www.bostonscientific.com Boston Scientific Corporation is the world’s largest medical device company dedicated to minimally invasive therapies. The company specializes in cardiovascular and endosurgery products such as catheters, coronary and ureteral stents, microguidewires, polypectomy snares, and lithotripsy devices. While still under the name
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of Medi-tech, the company introduced its first products in 1969, a line of steerable catheters, versions of which are still used today. In 1979, John Abele and Pete Nicholas partnered up to buy Medi-tech and transform it into a large-scale corporation. Boston Scientific went public in 1992 and undertook an aggressive acquisition strategy, growing from approximately $2 million in 1979 to more than $2.9 billion in 2002. Headquartered in Natick, Massachusetts, the company operates 21 technology facilities in France, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the United States. Each of the company’s six divisions specializes in a particular field of medical technology such as cardiac electrophysiology, microvasive endoscopy, microvasive urology, interventional cardiology and radiology, or endovascular neurosurgery. Boston Scientific markets and sells many of its own devices, creating plenty of employment opportunities beyond research and development including regulatory affairs, finance, legal, IT, HR, sales, and marketing. The cardiovascular division develops medical technologies for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and accounts for 70 percent of the firm’s revenues. Products include stents, balloon catheters, guidewires, ultrasound imaging systems, atherectomy and atherotomy technology, embolic
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protection filters, and vascular sealing devices. Currently, this division is investigating new treatment options such as gene therapy, drug-eluting stents, and stent delivery systems, hoping to find ways to restore blood flow to heart muscles damaged by cardiovascular disease. The company’s endosurgery product line accounts for the remaining 30 percent of revenue and produces devices within the areas of oncology, vascular surgery, endoscopy, urology, and gynecology.
Key Numbers 2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
2,919
2,673
9.2
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
373
–54
P
13,900
14,400
–3.5
Number of Employees
The Companies
2002
P = company has moved from a loss to a profit. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2003 The company’s Maple Grove, Minnesota, plant is named a top 10 manufacturing plant by Industry Week magazine. 2002 Acquires Smart Therapeutics and Inflow Dynamics. 2001 Amasses more than 20 FDA approvals and makes six acquisitions.
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Caterpillar, Inc. 100 NE Adams Street Peoria, IL 61629 Phone: 309-675-1000 www.caterpillar.com Will it play in Peoria? The Peoria, Illinois–based Caterpillar has been proving that heavy manufacturing can thrive in the United States since 1925; in fact, the company is the world’s largest earth-moving and agricultural machinery manufacturer. The company builds equipment for construction, logging, mining, power generation,
The Companies
and agriculture, as well as engines for a large number of industrial applications. The company has plants on every continent but Antarctica and distributors with 1,200 outlets worldwide. Its distributors are very loyal and very large, with many having multibillion dollar operations. These distributors have allowed the company to thrive, providing impeccable service to their customers, for whom a day of downtime can mean multi–million dollar cost overruns. The company derives nearly one-third of its sales from domestic operations and one-third from engine sales.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
20,152
20,450
–1.5
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
798
805
–0.9
68,990
72,004
–4.2
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2003 Forms venture with Eaton Corporation to provide electrical distribution switching products. 2002 Buys FCC Equipment Financing Corporation. 2001 Restructures, closing plants and putting executives in early retirement. 2000 Purchases British Sabre Engines to gain a foothold in the sub-300horsepower engine category.
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Copyright 2003 WetFeet, Inc.
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Cummins, Inc. 500 Jackson Street Columbus, IN 47202-3005 Phone: 812-377-5000 www.cummins.com Cummins is the world’s largest manufacturer of large diesel engines. Ask any big-rig driver what he has under his hood and it will likely be a Cummins engine. Even drivers of not-so-big rigs get around with Cummins—the company supplies engines for DaimlerChrysler’s Dodge Ram pickup. Cummins designs, manufactures,
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distributes, and services electric power generation systems, engines, and related technologies, including fuel systems, controls, air handling, filtration, and emissions solutions. The company reaches its customers through some 500 company-owned and independent distributors in 131 countries and territories. Cummins comprises four business units: 1. Engine: engines and aftermarket products for heavy- and medium-duty trucks, buses, RVs, and light commercial vehicles, and for equipment in the construction, agricultural, mining, marine, rail, and government markets 2. Power Generation: electric generators, power systems, and related accessories, components, and services 3. Filtration and Other: filters, silencers, exhaust systems, turbochargers 4. International Distribution: 17 company-owned and three joint-venture distributors with 111 locations that provide Cummins products and related services to end users in 50 countries and territories
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
5,853
5,681
3.0
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
82
–102
P
23,700
24,900
–4.8
Number of Employees
P = company has moved from a loss to a profit. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
The Companies
2001 Forms joint venture with Westport Innovations to build natural gas, lowemission engines. 2001 Signs long-term agreement with PACCAR, maker of Peterbilt and Kenworth trucks, to supply engines. 1999 Sells its Atlas Crankshaft division.
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DaimlerChrysler AG Epplestrasse 225 70546 Stuttgart, Germany Phone: +49-711-17-0 www.daimlerchrysler.com U.S. Headquarters: 1000 Chrysler Drive Auburn Hills, MI 48326
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Phone: 248-576-5741 There’s no mistaking the fact that DaimlerChrysler wants to be the world’s leading automotive, transportation, and services company. After the merger of Europe’s largest industrial company and one of the Big Three American car manufacturers in 1998, DaimlerChrysler became a truly global powerhouse. Its car, truck, train, aerospace, and financial services businesses all hover at or near the top of their respective industries—the company is second in carmaker sales. The company sold four million passenger cars and commercial vehicles in 2002. Chairman Jürgen E. Schrempp heads up a 13-member board including the heads of the operating and functional divisions. A supervisory board made up of ten shareholders’ representatives and ten employees’ representatives approves major company decisions and appoints the board. Forty-two billion euros will be invested in 2003 to 2005 to sustain growth of manufacturing facilities in 37 countries. Taking advantage of the world’s fastest-growing commercial vehicle market in Asia, DaimlerChrysler acquired 43 percent of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, a unit created and spun off by Mitsubishi Motors in January 2003. DaimlerChrysler also expects to acquire a 50 percent share in a planned spin-off business by Hyundai Motor Corporation, which will be called Daimler Hyundai Truck Corporation.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
157,107
136,256
15.3
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
4,995
–590
P
365,571
372,400
–1.8
Number of Employees
P = company has moved from a loss to a profit. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
The Companies
2003 Forms partnership with Volkswagen to deliver 120,000 diesel engines a year for Chrysler brand cars in Europe. 2001 Announces elimination of 26,000 jobs in North America over 3 years. 2000 Daimler Benz veteran Dieter Zetsche replaces James Holden as head of the Chrysler division.
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Danaher Corporation 2099 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20006 Phone: 202-828-0850 www.danaher.com Danaher Corporation has two major business units, its Process/Environmental Controls unit and its Tools and Components division. The controls group produces such things as monitoring, sensing, controlling, and testing products under such brands as Veeder-Root, Fluke, and Pacific Scientific. The tools group serves as
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an original equipment manufacturer for such entities as Sears’ Craftsman tools. Though the company is public, Danaher’s sibling executives, Chairman Steve Rales and Director Mitch Rales, own approximately 30 percent of the company. The Rales brothers have built Danaher through a series of crafty acquisitions, not all of them successful.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
4,577
3,782
21.0
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
290
297
–2.5
29,000
23,000
26.1
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2002 Acquires Thomson Industries. 2002 Divests itself of API Heat Transfer. 2001 Attempts to acquire Cooper Industries, but backs out after it learns that Cooper is involved in a number of asbestos lawsuits.
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Delphi Corporation 5725 Delphi Drive Troy, MI 48098 Phone: 248-813-2000 www.delphi.com The world’s largest auto-parts maker, Delphi spun off from its parent, General Motors, the world’s largest automobile manufacturer, in 1999. GM remains the company’s biggest customer. The company makes just about everything electrical or mechanical that goes into cars. Its main business units include dynamics,
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propulsion, and thermal and electric, electronics, safety, and interior. The company put its lackluster businesses into a unit called Automotive Holdings Group. Delphi is looking to move beyond its dependence on GM through development of product lines for the aerospace, medical, and high-tech industries.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
27,427
26,088
5.1
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
343
–370
P
192,000
195,000
–1.5
Number of Employees
P = company has moved from a loss to a profit. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2002 Shortens its name from Delphi Automotive Systems to Delphi Corporation, on the hope that it can diversify beyond the automotive supply business. 2001 Buys Eaton Corporation’s automotive switch unit. 2001 Announces that it will shed 11,500 jobs.
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Dow Chemical Company 2030 Dow Center Midland, MI 48674 Phone: 517-636-1000 www.dow.com The largest chemical company in the United States, and one of the largest in the world, Dow Chemical produces a broad array of plastics, chemicals, and pesticides. However, the future of plastics started looking a little less bright at the start of the decade when Dow posted a string of losses, the first in 10 years, in 2001 and
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2002. Founded in 1897, the company first produced chlorine bleach and later became a developer of plastics. After a period making pharmaceuticals and other consumer plastics, Dow sold most of its consumer and pharmaceutical subsidiaries in order to concentrate once again on chemicals. Today, Dow supplies more than 3,500 products used for antifreeze, paint, and dry cleaning. In addition, Dow has expanded its agricultural biotech sector, which produces fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides, and increased its production of chemicals used in the packaging and automotive industries. In 2001, Dow acquired Union Carbide, another mammoth chemical company. Dow seems to be a magnet for bad publicity. Claims that its Dow Corning joint venture’s silicone gel breast implants leaked led to a huge class-action suit against the company in the 1990s. Now, as the owner of Union Carbide, Dow is taking heat for its handling of the aftermath of the 1984 Bhopal poison gas disaster, which killed 8,000 people, and in the following years, killed some 20,000 more who were exposed to toxins. Most recently, Dow has been trying to avoid paying for a full cleanup of the Bhopal site; also, in 2002, Dow sued Bhopal victims who protested at its Bombay facilities for causing “loss of work.” Dow is also facing PR problems resulting from the allegation that its Cargill Dow joint venture is producing genetically modified foods without sufficiently notifying consumers of that fact.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
27,609
27,805
–0.7
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–338
–385
L
49,959
52,689
–5.2
Number of Employees
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
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2003 Announces job cuts of up to 8 percent of its workforce, or 3,000 to 4,000 employees. It cuts 1,200 employees in the first quarter. 2002 President and CEO Michael Parker is dismissed. 2001 Acquires Union Carbide.
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E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company 1007 Market Street Wilmington, DE 19898 Phone: 302-774-1000 www.dupont.com Better known as DuPont, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company is the second largest chemical company in the United States and one of the few companies that is incorporated in Delaware that actually has headquarters in the tiny Mid-Atlantic corporate haven. The company has six major business units, down from eight prior
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to restructuring. These units include coatings, agricultural chemicals and seeds, electronic materials, polymers and resins, and safety and security materials. The recent economic climate in the United States hasn’t treated DuPont well—the company announced 5,000 layoffs in 2003 and is struggling to become profitable. In an effort to stick to its core and growing businesses, DuPont is seeking to sell its INVISTA subsidiary, maker of Lycra and Nylon.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
24,006
24,726
–2.9
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–1,103
4,339
L
Number of Employees
79,000
79,000
0
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2002 Acquires semiconductor chemical manufacturer ChemFirst. 2001 Sells its pharmaceuticals business to Bristol-Myers Squibb for $7.8 billion. 1999 Buys Herberts paints from Hoechst.
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Eastman Chemical Company 100 N. Eastman Road Kingsport, TN 37660 Phone: 423-229-2000 www.eastman.com Originally a division of Eastman Kodak, Eastman Chemical went public in 1994 when Kodak spun off the chemical division and has since grown into a producer and marketer of specialty and container plastics, fibers, coatings, adhesives, specialty polymers, performance chemicals and intermediates, and
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fine chemicals and custom-manufactured products. Eastman Chemical now comprises three business segments: (1) Voridian Division, which makes polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics and acetate fibers; (2) Eastman Division, previously called the Chemicals Group, which focuses on specialty chemicals and plastics; and (3) Developing Business Division, the newest division, which manages nontraditional growth opportunities.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
5,320
5,384
–1.2
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
61
–179
P
15,700
15,800
–0.6
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2003 Announces plans to cut about 600 jobs by mid-2004. 2002 Scraps plans to split off into two separate companies. 2000 The company restructures into two business units, chemicals and polymers, and acquires McWhorter Technologies.
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Emerson Electric Company 8000 W. Florissant Avenue St. Louis, MO 63136 Phone: 314-553-2000 www.gotoemerson.com Founded in 1890, Emerson started out as a maker of electric motors and fans. Today, the company has more than 60 divisions. And it’s not just an appliance manufacturer. Key areas for the company, in addition to appliances, include network power, which produces power solutions for telecom and data networks; process
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management, which provides solutions that optimize process plant productivity; climate technologies, which makes heating and cooling systems; storage solutions, which makes shelving for homes and businesses; tools designed for professionals and do-it-yourselfers; motor technologies, which produces motors to power everything from home appliances to industrial applications; and industrial automation. Key brands include RIDGID tools, In-Sink-Erator garbage disposals, and Emerson fans. The company has concentrated its manufacturing efforts on Asia, Eastern Europe, and India to control costs.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
13,824
15,480
–10.7
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
122
1,032
–88.2
111,500
124,500
–10.4
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2001 Sells Chromalox electric heating and controls division. 2000 Acquires telecom division of Jordan Industries. 2000 Buys European firm Ericsson Energy Systems.
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Ford Motor Company 1 American Road Dearborn, MI 48126 Phone: 313-322-3000 www.ford.com It took 20 years of experimentation to manufacture the Model T that would satisfy Henry Ford. That happened in 1908; the car took speeds up to 45 mph and ran 13 to 21 miles to the gallon. In 1913, Ford began mass-producing autos, a move that brought the price of a car down from $850 to $260. To streamline production
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in 1914, the company stopped making red, blue, green, and gray cars—they were available in “any color so long as it is black.” Today, Ford is the top truck maker in the world, with the F-series heading up its collection. Throw cars into the equation, and it falls to second place behind General Motors. The company’s recognizable brand names include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo, Jaguar, and Aston Martin, and it also owns substantial percentages of Mazda and the Hertz rental car firm. Ford Motor Credit is the top auto-financing business in the world. Despite its size, the Ford family, descendents of Henry, keeps close control of the company; the family owns approximately 40 percent of voting shares in the company.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
163,420
162,412
0.6
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–980
–5,453
L
350,321
354,431
–1.2
Number of Employees
L = loss. Source: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2002 Announces 35,000 job cuts worldwide, the majority of which are to come from U.S. plants. 2002 Sells its Think electronics division and Kwik Fit auto maintenance division. 2001 William Clay Ford, Jr., becomes CEO after Nasser is ousted.
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General Electric Company 3135 Easton Turnpike Fairfield, CT 06828 Phone: 203-373-2211 www.ge.com General Electric is the grandfather of all electronics companies and one of the most recognized brand names in the world, tracing its origins back to Thomas Edison. Subsidiary companies include GE Capital Corporation, one of the world’s largest financial services companies and itself divided into four units (GE Commercial
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Finance, GE Consumer Finance, GE Insurance, and GE Equipment Management); GE Appliances, known for its “we bring good things to life” advertising campaign; the National Broadcasting Company, home of Friends and ER; GE Aircraft Engines; GE Consumer Products; GE Industrial Systems; GE Medical Systems, an $8 billion company; GE Plastics; GE Power Systems; GE Specialty Materials; and GE Transportation Systems. Under former CEO Jack Welch, this empire grew to be the largest company by market capitalization in the stock markets and spawned a veritable industry in leadership the Jack Welch Way—a style that stressed letting the best managers prove themselves and letting underperformers go before they became deadwood. This adoration of Welch’s tactics subsided in recent years as public scrutiny focused on his GE retirement package, which included all-expense-paid use of the company’s swank Manhattan apartment and the company jet—both of which came to light during the divorce filings of Welch’s second wife, Katherine Beasley Welch. Current CEO Jeff Immelt, the hand-picked successor to Welch, has done an admirable job of keeping GE’s ship (powered of course by GE engines) on course.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
130,685
125,679
4.0
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
14,118
13,684
3.2
315,000
310,000
1.6
Number of Employees
% Change
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2003 Announces plans to acquire Vivendi’s media holdings, which include Universal Studios and USA Networks. 2001 Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE Medical Systems, replaces Jack Welch as CEO of GE. 2001 Purchases Heller Financial for $5.3 billion. 2001 European antitrust regulators block GE’s attempt to acquire Honeywell.
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General Motors Corporation 300 Renaissance Center Detroit, MI 48265 Phone: 313-556-5000 www.gm.com General Motors (GM) has been mass-producing cars since 1901 and now distinguishes itself as the largest U.S. exporter of cars and trucks, with operations in more than 190 countries, and the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. GM says it was the first to offer a closed body as standard equipment (1910), to
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use an electric self-starter (1911), to offer a comprehensive service policy (1926), to develop the built-in trunk (1933), and to offer an electric vehicle to consumers (1996). Along with brands commonly associated with GM—Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, and Pontiac—some of the less apple pie brands under the GM umbrella include Saab and Saturn, not to mention stakes in Fiat, Subaru, and Suzuki. In 2003, the company expects to reduce the number of white-collar jobs at GM by 3 to 6 percent. The company is also returning its new product development focus from trucks to cars. Indeed, GM recently announced plans to sell small cars developed in a joint venture with Daewoo in North America. GM subsidiary Hughes Electric produces digital entertainment under the DIRECTTV Brand, information and communications services, and satellite-based private business networks. GM also makes locomotives and heavy-duty transmissions, and General Motors Acceptance Company (GMAC) is its financing arm.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
186,763
177,26
5.4
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
1,736
601
188.9
350,000
336,500
4.1
Number of Employees
Sources Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
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2003 Announces sale of its armored vehicle defense unit to General Dynamics for $1.1 billion. 2003 Makes deal to sell its 20 percent stake in Hughes Electronics to Rupert Murdoch’s New Corp. 2002 Fiat sells its stake in GM (which it received in exchange for GM’s stake in Fiat in 1999) to an investment bank to raise cash. 2000 Announces that it will phase out the Oldsmobile brand.
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Honeywell International, Inc. 101 Columbia Road Morristown, NJ 07962 Phone: 973-455-2000 www.honeywell.com Honeywell International was created in 1999 after AlliedSignal acquired Honeywell, Inc. The new company took Honeywell’s name and AlliedSignal’s headquarters. Honeywell has four major business units:
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• Aerospace, which makes aircraft engines and equipment • Automation and Control Solutions, the thermostat and climate control group • Specialty Materials, which makes materials used in semiconductors and electronics • Transportation and Power Systems, which includes the FRAM and Prestone brands Honeywell’s history goes as far back as 1885, when inventor Albert Butz made the first crude version of a home thermostat. The company eventually became the world’s largest manufacturer of climate-control systems for home, business, and industry. In the mid-1980s, Honeywell immersed itself in the aerospace industry, becoming the world’s leading integrator of avionics systems. AlliedSignal brought to the party chemical expertise in the aerospace, automotive, and engineering fields. The two companies’ combined product offerings run the gamut from smoke detectors to carpet fibers to antifreeze to space navigation systems. AlliedSignal also brings to Honeywell International its near-mystical six sigma management method, which the company defines as “a measurement of total quality to know how effective we are in eliminating defects and variation from our processes.”
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Flagging earnings resulted in large-scale layoffs, with about 17,000 jobs cut in 2000 and 16,000 more announced in 2001. However, the country’s increased emphasis on defense and homeland security has been a boon to Honeywell: The company announced more than $1 billion in contract wins in 2002.
Key Numbers 2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
22,274
23,652
–5.8
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–220
–99
L
108,000
115,000
–6.1
Number of Employees
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2002
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis..
Recent Milestones
2002 David Cote, a GE alumnus, becomes CEO. 2002 Buys Invensys Sensor Systems, an automobile and airplane sensor and control manufacturer, for $415 million. 2002 Acquires Ultrek’s closed-circuit TV business. 2001 Deal to be acquired by GE falls through when European regulators don’t approve the takeover.
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Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited 200 Chestnut Ridge Road Woodcliff Lake, NJ 07677 Phone: 201-573-0123 www.irco.com Ingersoll-Rand is a big solid company that manufactures big solid things and a few smaller ones. The company started out manufacturing steam-driven rock drills in the 1870s. It still makes drills, but has branched out in a number of directions.
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The company manufactures refrigeration and climate-control systems under the Thermo King and Hussman names. It provides security and safety-related products and services for residential, commercial, and institutional buildings. Kryptonite and Schlage are among its many security-related brands. The company also makes industrial productivity solutions such as Ingersoll-Rand tools. And, of course, Ingersoll-Rand makes drills and other construction-related equipment. The company has grown and profited year after year, but 2001 was tough on everyone including Ingersoll-Rand, which announced 51 site closings and 4,000 job cuts that year. In 2002, the company had to settle a class-action lawsuit brought against it related to its reincorporation as a Bermuda corporation. Additionally, 2002 saw Ingersoll-Rand shed some of its bulk—11,000 jobs, or nearly 20 percent of its workforce.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
8,951
9,682
–7.5
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–174
246
L
45,000
56,000
–19.6
Number of Employees
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2001 The company moves its headquarters to Bermuda, saving the company more than $40 million a year in taxes. 2001 Purchases National Refrigeration Services and bicycle lock–maker Kryptonite. 2001 Acquires Hussman International refrigeration for $1.8 billion.
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Lockheed Martin Corporation 6801 Rockledge Drive Bethesda, MD 20817 Phone: 301-897-6000 www.lockheedmartin.com It’s no accident that Lockheed Martin is headquartered outside of Washington, DC; like any customer-focused organization, Lockheed Martin wants to be close to its customers. And it has a good customer in the Federal Government, which accounts for approximately 80 percent of the firm’s revenue. Lockheed Martin is the poster
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child for the military industrial complex. The company, formed by the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta in March 1995, has become the leading aerospace and defense company in the world, ahead of Boeing and Northrop Grumman. Lockheed’s products include the F-16 and F-22 fighter jets, the Trident II missile, and management services for some NASA space operations and Department of Energy sites. Some of the company’s lower profile activities include ship and submarine combat systems, air-traffic control systems, and fire-control systems. While Lockheed’s strong government ties have solidified the firm’s industry standing, they have also raised concern about a lack of competition within the defense industry. In 1998, the Pentagon and the Department of Justice took steps to stop the proposed merger of Lockheed and Northrop Grumman; Lockheed later backed out of the deal. To cut costs and strengthen its focus on core activities, the company has reorganized and consolidated itself into five principal divisions: systems integration, space systems, aeronautics, technology services, and global telecommunications.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
26,578
23,990
10.8
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
500
–1,046
P
125,000
125,000
0
Number of Employees
P = company has moved from a loss to a profit. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2002 Awarded $12.7 billion contract to provide F-16s to international clients.
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2002 Sells COMSAT mobile communications for $100 million. 2001 Named lead Joint Strike Fighter (J-35) contractor, a deal estimated to be worth $200 billion. 2001 The company unveils plan to shed $3 billion in costs.
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Medtronic, Inc. 710 Medtronic Parkway NE Minneapolis, MN 55432 Phone: 763-514-4000 www.medtronic.com Fifty years ago, Medtronic was a start-up medical equipment repair shop. Today, the Minneapolis-based company is the number-one manufacturer of implantable biomedical devices. The company sells products for cardiac rhythm management, cardiac surgery, treatment of vascular conditions, neurologic and diabetes treatment
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and diagnosis, and spinal and ENT (ear, nose, and throat) treatment. To some extent, Medtronic has fueled its growth with strategic acquisitions that have given the company access to new technologies quickly. But that’s not to say the company doesn’t innovate in-house. Medtronic operates 26 research facilities around the world, and devotes 10 percent of revenue to R&D. Indeed, between 1969 and 1998, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Medtronic ranked first in the world in terms of number of patents issued for medical devices.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
7,665
6,411
16.4
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
1,600
984
62.6
28,000
26,050
7.5
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2001 Buys medical device makers MiniMed and Medical Research Group. 2000 Announces partnership with Johnson & Johnson and GE Medical Systems to provide online product ordering. 1999 Buys Sofamor Danek, a spinal implant maker; stent maker Arterial Vascular Engineering; and Xomed Surgical Products.
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NCR Corporation 1700 S. Patterson Boulevard Dayton, OH 45479 Phone: 937-445-5000 www.ncr.com NCR Corp. began as the National Cash Register Company, maker of the first mechanical cash registers. NCR introduced the world to retail bar-code scanning in 1974. It continues to forge into uncharted technological territory. In the 1980s, the company was focused on computer hardware. The company was purchased
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by AT&T in 1991 and was spun off to AT&T investors in 1997, becoming an independent, public company once more. In recent years, NCR Corp. has spun off computer hardware operations to concentrate more on products and services for business. The company has focused on providing business solutions in areas like customer resource management, customer relationship management, data warehousing, and payment solutions as well as point-of-sale systems and ATM/selfcheckout technologies.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
5,585
5,917
–5.6
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–220
217
L
29,700
30,445
–2.4
Number of Employees
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2000 Buys Ceres Integrated Solutions, a customer relationship management software solution provider. 2000 Purchases 4Front Technologies, an outsourcing service provider.
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Newell Rubbermaid, Inc. Newell Center 29 E. Stephenson Street Freeport, IL 61032 Phone: 815-235-4171 www.newellrubbermaid.com Newell Rubbermaid is no plastic tiger, but a conglomerate of decentralized companies that manufactures and distributes a wide variety of consumer products, including storage and cleaning products, writing utensils, home decor products
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(the company is the world’s largest picture-frame manufacturer), kitchenware, and toys. The company has a strong brand portfolio that includes household names such as Rubbermaid, Calphalon, Levolor, Mirro, Graco, Sanford markers, Goody hair products, and Rolodex. Pursuing a strategy of growth through acquisition since the 1960s, the firm has bought more than 75 companies and has enjoyed a string of strong sales-growth years. In 2001, Newell Rubbermaid purchased Gillette’s stationery products business and changed CEOs. The company recently expanded into hand and power tools with its acquisition of American Tool Companies in 2002 and American Saw and Manufacturing in 2003.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
7,454
6,909
7.9
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–203
265
L
47,000
49,425
–4.9
Number of Employees
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2002 Acquires American Saw & Manufacturing. 2002 Acquires American Tool Companies.
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2001 Acquires Gillette’s stationery business.
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Northrop Grumman Corporation 1840 Century Park East Los Angeles, CA 90067 Phone: 310-553-6262 www.northgrum.com Sprawling like one of the aircraft carriers its Newport News division builds, Northrop Grumman is the country’s second largest defense contractor. The company comprises several business units—electronic systems, integrated systems and aerostructures, ship systems, Newport News, component structures, and
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Logicon Inc., its information technology subsidiary. Northrop designs, integrates, and manufactures military surveillance and combat aircraft, defense electronics and systems, airspace management systems, information systems, marine systems, and precision weapons. The company has sold its commercial aerostructures segment but is holding onto its military aerostructures business. Since 1990, Northrop has developed and expanded from being an aircraft manufacturer into its current status as one of the leaders in high-tech defense systems. The company has manufacturing facilities in 26 U.S. states, Canada, and England. In 2001, Northrop secured its position as a top gun in the defense field with the acquisition of Litton Industries, a maker of navigational systems for ships. The company went on to purchase the ships on which to install its new navigational tools, purchasing Newport News for $2.6 billion and thus becoming the world’s largest naval battleship builder. In 2002, Northrop acquired the space and electronics unit of TRW, which manufactures defense satellites, lasers, computer systems, and communications equipment. Northrop is now a leading producer of military satellites and missile and integration systems.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
17,206
13,558
26.9
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
64
427
–85.0
117,300
93,300
25.7
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2002 Acquires TRW for $7.8 billion.
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2001 Acquires Newport News Shipbuilding, maker of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. 2001 Acquires Litton Industries for $3.8 billion.
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Raytheon Company 141 Spring Street Lexington, MA 02421 Phone: 781-862-6600 www.raytheon.com Raytheon opened for business more than 75 years ago and in that time has risen to the fourth-leading spot in the aerospace and defense industries. Raytheon means “light of the gods,” and the company has always aimed to light the way for customers through innovation. In the 1940s, Raytheon adapted radar technology
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to invent microwave cooking; in the 1990s, it adapted infrared technology to enable Cadillac drivers to see in the dark. In the defense arena, Raytheon invented guided missile technology and created both the Tomahawk and Patriot missiles. Raytheon is divided into four main divisions: electronics; command control and information systems; commercial electronics, products, and services; and aircraft. The company solidified its leading position in the industry through a series of strategic mergers and acquisitions throughout the 1990s. In 1997, the company merged with Hughes Electronics and acquired Texas Instruments’ defense division. In an effort to pay for its acquisitions, the company has been paring down its businesses to focus on missile, radar, and defense-related products and services, in addition to its commercial division.
Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
16,760
16,867
–0.6
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
–640
–763
L
76,400
87,200
–12.4
Number of Employees
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2002 Sells its aircraft integration unit for $1.13 billion. 2001 Issues 29 million new shares of common stock.
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2000 Sells its flight simulation and training business, an engineering and construction unit.
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Toyota Motor Corporation 9 W. 57th Street, Ste. 4900 New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212-223-0303 www.toyota.com Toyota’s stars keep rising; the Japanese automaker recently became the third largest automobile maker in the United States, outselling DaimlerChrysler in cars and trucks for the first time ever in August 2003. And while its 4Runners and Lexuses continue to sell well, the company has made a concerted effort to produce fuel-
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efficient cars—its latest, the Prius, has become a hit among the cognoscenti in places like Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Aside from cars, Toyota manufactures forklifts, develops housing, and provides financial services to support its auto business. The company is known for its Toyota Production System, which pretty much has defined lean manufacturing and just-in-time concepts. The firm has developed a global production platform, with ten plants in the United States, alongside those in Japan, India, and Europe. Unlike many of the other leading automobile manufacturers, Toyota’s expansion has largely been through organic growth, with few outright acquisitions.
Key Numbers March 2003
March 2002
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
128,965
107,443
20.0
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
6,247
4,177
49.6
264,096
246,702
7.1
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2002 Forms joint venture to produce resin fuel tanks. 2001 Opens manufacturing plant in France.
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2000 Reaches deal with Chinese government to produce cars in China.
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United Technologies Corporation One Financial Plaza Hartford, CT 06103 Phone: 860-728-7000 www.utc.com Spectators at the 1853 World’s Fair oohed and aahed at the performances of Elisha Graves Otis, founder of the elevator company that would eventually become a key part of United Technologies Corporation (UTC), who demonstrated the use of the first safety mechanism for elevators by cutting the rope as he rode up and
The Companies
down in an early elevator. Other companies that would become part of UTC developed steel propellers and the earliest air conditioning system—and Lindbergh’s first solo flight across the Atlantic was in a Ryan monoplane equipped with an adjustable propeller manufactured and designed by a company that would become part of UTC. Today, UTC companies focus on designing and manufacturing aerospace products and industrial systems; UTC subsidiaries include Pratt & Whitney (aircraft engines), Carrier (heating and air conditioning systems), Otis (elevators and escalators), Sikorsky (helicopters), Hamilton Sundstrand (aerospace and industrial systems), and International Fuel Cells. Troubled by a slow economy and problems in the commercial airline industry, UTC cut more than 4,000 jobs in 2001 and restructured the company to focus on its aerospace and building systems units. UTC also deferred its acquisition activity in order to maintain a stronger balance sheet. For job seekers, UTC is hard to beat—Minority MBA magazine selected it as one of the ten best employers in the United States, Fortune ranked it as one of the most admired companies in its industry, and UTC peppers its benefits with liberal tuition reimbursement programs and stock options.
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Key Numbers 2002
2001
% Change
Worldwide Revenue ($M)
27,980
27,486
1.8
Worldwide Earnings ($M)
2,236
1,938
15.4
155,000
152,000
2.0
Number of Employees
Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
Recent Milestones
2002 UTC’s Sikorsky division acquires Derco Holdings.
The Companies
2001 Restructures and trims 4,600 jobs from its payroll. 2000 Makes a failed bid for Honeywell.
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Whirlpool Corporation 2000 N. M-63 Benton Harbor, MI 49022 Phone: 269-923-5000 www.whirlpool.com The largest appliance manufacturer in the United States and second largest in the world, Whirlpool has been in the business of making waves in the appliance world since 1911, when Upton Machines of Michigan started making motor-driven wringing and washing machines. Upton’s first order of machines went to Sears
The Companies
Roebuck & Company, initiating a business relationship that has lasted for more than 87 years. Today, Whirlpool makes appliances under the Kenmore brand for Sears, in addition to the Whirlpool brand that retails for the mass market. Over the years, the company added the first automatic dryer and vacuum to its stable of home appliance products. In addition to sales in the United States, Canada, and Europe, Whirlpool is focusing on emerging markets in Latin America and Asia.
Key Numbers
Worldwide Revenue ($M) Worldwide Income ($M) Number of Employees
2002
2001
% Change
11,016
10,343
6.5
–394
21
L
68,000
59,000
15.3
L = loss. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2002 Purchases remainder of Mexican appliance maker Vitromatic and renames it Whirlpool Mexico. 2002 Purchase a 95 percent interest in Poland’s second largest appliance maker, Polar.
The Companies
2000 Company goes through massive restructuring.
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Xerox Corporation 800 Long Ridge Road Stamford, CT 06904 Phone: 203-968-3000 www.xerox.com Never call Xerox a copycat; the company invented the photocopying industry. The company string of innovation pearls include PARC, its famous R&D campus in Palo Alto that invented, among other things, the mouse, the graphical user interface, laser printing, and Ethernet. Xerox calls itself “the document management
The Companies
company.” Around that rallying cry it produces copiers, printers, scanners, fax machines, document management software, and consulting services. In recent years, Xerox has struggled somewhat to maintain an even keel. It underwent a major reorganization in 1999 and has had trouble finding steady leadership. The company went through two CEOs in the late 1990s and early part of this decade before finding Anne Mulcahy to fill the CEO spot in 2001. Where the company doesn’t waver is in its commitment to diversity. First and foremost it walks the talk of diversity, with a woman CEO. Additionally, Fortune named Xerox one of the “50 Best Companies for Minorities” in 2003 (13th on the list). Within the company, there are a number of “caucuses” for individual groups that fall into place along the lines of gender, race, or sexual preference.
Key Numbers
Worldwide Revenue ($M) Worldwide Income ($M) Number of Employees
2002
2001
% Change
15,849
17,008
–6.8
91
–71
P
67,800
78,900
–14.1
P = company has moved from a loss to a profit. Sources: Hoover’s; WetFeet analysis.
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Recent Milestones
2002 Pays $10 million fine to settle complaint with the SEC regarding reporting its earnings; restates earnings. 2001 Begins using contract manufacturer Flextronics to manufacture products. 2001 Sells its customer financing operations to GE Capital.
The Companies
2001 Sells its stake in its Fuji Xerox joint venture.
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On the Job • Compensation • The Roles • Real People Profiles
On the Job
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This section samples some of the opportunities within the manufacturing industry, both for people with technical and for those with nontechnical backgrounds. Manufacturing companies typically recruit a variety of engineers, both with undergraduate and graduate degrees, for manufacturing positions and computer science and some natural science–degree holders for a number of supporting roles. Companies hire a number of MBAs and nontechnical majors for marketing, finance, information management, procurement, and human resources roles. The number of roles across the industry is mind numbing. To avoid unnecessary confusion, we don’t describe general support roles that don’t differ from their analogues in other industries; instead the focus here is on industryspecific opportunities. We’ve divided the job descriptions into those that are generally for undergrads and those for advanced-degree holders and MBAs. Major areas covered here are design and product development, research and development, sales and marketing, manufacturing, supply chain, finance, and
On the Job
other roles particular to the industry.
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Compensation Undergraduate Engineers earn top dollars out of the gate, but salaries tend to taper off after about 10 years for engineers in the manufacturing industry. To put this in engineering terms, the salary is a curve over time that becomes asymptotic around the high five digits. Contrast this with business and nontechnical degree holders, who earn $15,000 to $20,000 less starting but have the potential to earn much more. Typically salary in the manufacturing industry is based on degree type (which dictates positions) and industry sector. Undergraduates with degrees in chemical engineering draw in the best average starting salaries, clocking in at just over $50,000. Electrical engineers fare nearly as well, with entry-level salaries at nearly $50,000. Mechanical engineers draw in a salary in the mid-$40,000 range, industrial engineers in the low $40,000s. Large companies will often rotate individuals through different
On the Job
entry-level posts, so the actual title doesn’t matter with these types of companies. There’s significant variance in salaries across industries. Salaries in the medical instruments industry are among the highest. Electronic component manufacturers also pay higher, according to insiders we spoke with. Salaries in these two sectors can run up to $10,000 higher than those in the other sectors. The industry hires few pure science majors, and those graduates typically earn less than engineers. Undergraduates with business degrees from top schools earn respectable salaries, too, according to insiders we spoke with: Business degree holders from a top public university averaged salaries in the low $40,000 range—finance majors earn a bit more, marketing a bit less, and MIS types earning top dollar out of the bunch.
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Graduate Current MBA salaries reflect two phenomena: (1) a recession and its attendant poor job market, and (2) the crop of dot-com flotsam that decided to go to business school after their start-ups tanked just now graduating and pumping up the supply of freshly minted MBAs. Manufacturing shows less of the munificence that consulting or financial services does. Nevertheless, recent hires from top 20 MBA programs said they received offers in the range of $70,000 to $80,000 for marketing and finance posts at a Big Three automobile manufacturer. MBAs going into medical and electronics fields received loftier remuneration; however, “we are looking for people who have technical undergraduate degrees and experience,” a medical manufacturing insider says. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. For graduate engineering holders, insiders we spoke with said the degrees garner
On the Job
25 percent to 30 percent higher salaries than their undergraduate equivalents.
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The Roles Research and Development R&D Fellow
Education: PhD R&D researchers are the mad scientists in an otherwise sane corporate world. They conduct independent research and develop new technology—all independently. Their research is intended to work toward new products and in the strategic direction of the company for which they are working. They are very active in the scientific and professional communities, presenting papers, attending conferences, and visiting with people in the marketplace. They are often the industry experts in their company’s core technologies. Though much of the work is independent, they interact with product design teams and collaborate with other members of
On the Job
the scientific community. R&D Engineer/Scientist
Education: BS, MS Experience: none to 5 years Research and development engineers perform experiments and test within the goals and scope of the R&D center. The R&D engineer designs tests, supervises technicians carrying out tests, documents results, and communicates those results to senior team members and cross functional teams.
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Product Design and Development Human Factors Specialist
Education: BS in psychology, industrial engineering, or related field Experience: 1 to 4 years Human factors engineers and user experience specialists are the poets in a sea of engineers: They think creatively about how humans interact with technology and the world around them to design better products. The human factors specialist helps design products and is an expert in the way that humans interact with technology and machines. The human factors specialist performs situational analysis, humanin-the-loop scenarios, and ergonomic and kinematic studies. He is typically a member of a product design team. Product Development Manager
Education: MBA, BS in engineering Experience: 3 to 4 years pre-MBA
On the Job
A product development manager might determine scientific and technical goals within broad outlines provided by top management. Her program might include the redesign of a product, improvements in manufacturing processes, or development of a product offering. She might make detailed plans for the accomplishment of these goals. For example, working with her staff, she may develop the overall concepts of a new product or identify technical problems standing in the way of project completion.
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Product Design Engineer
Education: BS, often MS, in an appropriate engineering discipline (mechanical, electrical, chemical) Experience: 5 years Product design engineers often spend time on the shop floor as manufacturing engineers or in customer-facing roles before they make it to the vaunted position of product engineer. Product engineers are the link between the conceptual world of research and development and the very practical world of manufacturing. Typically, the product engineer will work as part of a product design team that consists of a core group of designers as well as cross-functional members from manufacturing, research and development, finance, and marketing. Product design teams work together to determine product roadmaps and time frames for different markets. They determine which products can be developed from available technology, set a timeline for those products, and then develop and design the product to meet market needs. The product design engineer is often also responsible for testing of a product to make sure it meets the intended design goals. The role requires many talents, not only engineering and problem-solving
On the Job
abilities, but superb communication skills, excellent financial and forecasting abilities, and a passion for meeting market needs. Test Engineer
Education: BS in an appropriate field Experience: none to 5 years The test engineer ensures that a product meets the specifications on which it was designed. She develops test criteria and test cases, runs or supervises tests, and then documents and communicates test results. She is the gatekeeper who prevents poorly designed products from being manufactured.
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Product Design Sculptor/Modeler
Education: BA in industrial design, studio arts Experience: 3+ years Product modeler is one of the most creative positions in the industry. Modelers take engineering drawings, interpret them, and create from them clay or other appropriate models of a product. While modelers strive for some degree of verisimilitude, they also capture the spirit of the product they model. Modelers generally have great latitude how they choose to express a product.
Operations Manufacturing Engineer
Education: undergraduate degree in engineering, math, or physics Experience: 3 to 5 years Manufacturing engineers are the people that make manufacturing happen—they take a product design and figure out how that product will be manufactured. They
On the Job
define, design, and improve the machinery and low-level processes by which products are created. The role is a big one. The manufacturing engineer develops processes, identifies and prioritizes improvement opportunities, and executes those improvements. He is well versed in process technologies, automation equipment, operations methodologies, statistical controls, and affiliated technologies and methodologies. He documents changes in processes, communicates those changes, and oversees the implementation of those processes. He typically works with small teams in the manufacturing area and is considered the technical resource in a plant.
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Operations Engineer
Education: BS in mechanical or industrial engineering Experience: 1 to 5 years Operations engineers take what’s given to them on a shop floor—manpower, material, machinery and their specific processes, and the floor itself—and create the desired product with the most appropriate manufacturing process given those resources. The work takes considerable imagination and communication and an ability to work with other people, especially assembly-line employees. It is one of the most human of all the engineering positions in manufacturing. The job requires significant aptitude in work requirements, ergonomics, and problem solving. Operations Manager
Education: MBA, technical undergraduate degree (often) Experience: 3 to 4 years pre-MBA Most MBAs in operations roles have technical or engineering backgrounds. They essentially oversee engineers, and it is critical to be able to not only talk the talk,
On the Job
but earn the respect of the people they are supervising. Operations managers will typically form an operations team and hire design and operations engineers and support personnel to flesh out their teams. As with any team environment, operations managers communicate copiously. They also spend a good deal of time in the trenches, on the shop floor, problem solving and getting an understanding of the company’s operations. Typical work includes process analysis, production planning, and scheduling within budgetary and time constraints. This career route leads to plant manager and eventually COO (chief operations officer).
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Finance Corporate Financial Analyst
Education: MBA or BA Experience: 3 to 5 years The financial analyst provides a fairly standard function within the manufacturing industry. Duties include developing financial forecasts, monitoring spending versus budget, preparing financial reports, evaluating new business opportunities, modeling cash flows of new and potential products, performing sensitivity analysis, and developing processes for organization. Corporate Finance Manager
Education: MBA or BA Experience: 7+ years A typical corporate finance role found throughout the manufacturing industry, the finance manager oversees the financial operations of a department or group.
On the Job
Her responsibilities include hiring new talent, mentoring and evaluating group members, supervising development of reports and forecasts, planning forecasts and budgets, managing compliance issues, and developing departmental policies. Financial Analyst, Treasury
Education: BA, MBA Experience: 0 to 7years Treasury activities include all functions related to cash management and shortterm finances—the current assets portion of the balance sheet. For companies like General Motors, whose cash and marketable securities topped $38 billion in 2002, this can be the equivalent of being treasurer of a small country. Assign-
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ments in treasury span a broad range. Activities might include forecasting cash flows, identifying short-term investments, analyzing risk on a foreign currency, managing credit risk of suppliers, analyzing the company’s cost of capital and suggesting ways to improve it, or implementing a short-term paper policy.
Supply Chain Supply Chain Analyst
Education: BS/BA Experience: 0 to 3 years The supply chain analyst works to ensure that the processes involved in the supply chain are optimized through performance analysis, development of better processes, development of metrics and programs by which to measure the success of the supply chain, support teams in production process development, and reporting on the supply chain to managers. Supply chain analysts often work to implement lean manufacturing or some other specific manufacturing doctrine. Procurement Specialist
On the Job
Education: BA, BS Experience: 0 to 5 years The procurement specialist conducts and manages the processes for obtaining services and supplies for the company. He manages all supplier-related activities and evaluates supplier performance and ensures satisfactory contract completion and closure. He develops supplier requirements and requests for proposals. He then evaluates supplier responses and negotiates contracts with potential suppliers.
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Marketing and Sales Marketing Analyst
Education: BA/BS Experience: 1 to 3 years The marketing analyst supports sales and marketing departments by providing management with sound analysis of internally generated data and by developing external market models. Some duties include generating reports for marketing and sales groups, providing custom analysis as directed by managers, providing market and competitive data to sales and marketing teams, and developing market models based on competitor pricing and product offerings. Product Manager/Product Marketing Manager
Education: MBA (often), BA/BS Experience: 7 to 10 years The product manager owns a product from the business perspective. She is
On the Job
responsible for developing marketing plans and activities for specific products or product lines to gain a foothold or gain a more advantageous place within the marketplace. She develops business and positions plans for her product or product line, oversees market research for the product (either in house or contract), manages product launches and rollouts, maintains a close eye on competitive activity (via the marketing analyst), works to differentiate the product in the marketplace, and works with cross-functional teams, especially research and production engineering, to establish new products to add on to the product line or to develop a new product line. The position requires interplay between the market and engineering— the product manager takes market requirements and translates them into product features based on a product platform and engineering capabilities. In marketdriven companies, a product development group develops a product based on market requirements, rather than the other way around.
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Territory Manager
Education: BA/BS Experience: 1 to 5 years Territory managers are typical in consumer product manufacturing organizations, such as Black & Decker and Newell Rubbermaid. Territory managers typically are responsible for sales at distribution partners’ stores in a given area. They work to make sure that partners stores such as Wal-Mart or Home Depot properly merchandise the company’s products, advise them on new products, and generally work as account managers for major accounts. Territory managers often are responsible for a group of field representatives. Sales Manager
Education: BA/BS Experience: 5 years The sales manager ensures that the sales team meets forecast targets and realizes sales potential in his market segment. He manages associates and develops them
On the Job
through coaching, training, and a variety of other levers. Technical Sales Representative
Education: BS engineering or science, often MS and MBA Experience: 4 to 5 years The technical sales rep is a combination of an account manager, product specialist, and market expert. The sales rep is assigned to a customer or group of customers (depending on size of customer) whom she persuades, based on the merits of her company’s product, to purchase the product. She often travels, is on site with the customer, and has deep technical knowledge of a product. The job, then, requires that special blend of sales and communication skills combined with an ability to explain technology.
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Real People Profiles Manufacturing Engineer, Aerospace Manufacturer Degree: BS, mechanical engineering Experience: 4 years Manufacturing engineers often rotate to the position from other engineering roles. “I came to the role from one in design engineering. From that vantage point, I learned about the manufacturing engineer role—there’s a significant amount of teamwork,” says an insider. The manufacturing engineer’s job is to figure out how to manufacture a product has just been designed or improved or to figure out how to make the design process better. “The good thing about aerospace manufacturing is that it’s highly specialized manufacturing—we’re not pumping out hundreds of thousands of parts—there’s a lot of engineering effort involved
On the Job
in it,” say an insider. She continues, “no day is typical, but I’ll give it a shot.” A Day in the Life of a Manufacturing Engineer
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8:00
I leave the house for work—it’s a beautiful September morning outside of Dallas.
8:20
I pull into work and check my e-mail first.
9:00
I have a meeting with the product design team—we go over the requirements for a new product that we won a contract for. The product? I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you (kidding). But one cool part of the job is that I have “secret” security clearance. Also, it makes you proud to build things that will help the troops. The other members of the team include two product design engineers, the test engineer, and a materials specialist. It’s important for me to get my ideas in now, because I’ll have to make this thing manufacture-able.
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10:30 I go to my desk and work on the computer for a few hours. This is engineering and a huge part of the work is problem solving. In this case, I have to figure out how our machines are going to make the product that is completely new—not just something that’s been rolling off the assembly line for 100 years. This is complex stuff, and it’s very interesting. 12:30 Lunch in the cafeteria with the product design team. I go out on the shop floor—uh, this is manufacturing, and you work at the plant, you have to be in touch—I talk to people working on the line. These are people much farther along on their career trajectories as well as with a different education level. A big part of the job is communication. You have to be able to communicate in every imaginable way. With the people on the shop floor, I need to make sure that not only is the production process going correctly, but also that the machines are working properly.
2:00
Meeting with the plant manager—a routine update on the status of my projects. He is also my mentor, so I take the time to discuss some next career steps—of rotating back into a product design role.
2:45
More problem solving. This will take the remainder of the day—our new product is supposed to go into production in a week, so there may be some long nights ahead. That’s the nature of the job. There are times when you stick around until the job gets done, it’s not a question. You also have a burning desire to solve the problem. That’s the real reward. But those are a few peaks, and you have to know how to relax and enjoy the many periods when it’s not chaotic. I typically work 45 to 50 hours a week.
6:00
I return some e-mails that stacked up during the day—one from a fellow manufacturing engineer that had a solution for me—BINGO! That takes care of a big hurdle to get our new product into production. I shut down the computer and head out for a quick trip to the gym.
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On the Job
1:15
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Financial Analyst, Automobile Manufacturer Degree: BBA, finance Experience: 18 months Large manufacturing firms typically have rotational and management development programs for undergraduates with finance degrees. The program puts you through 6-month stints in various finance functions: treasury, corporate finance, accounting, manufacturing, product development, or in the marketing and sales organization. Each gives you a flavor of the different aspects of the company and finance. “This is the best training imaginable,” says an insider. With each function, there’s a lot of spreadsheet work. “Everything I do revolves around Excel,” says an insider. “It’s a great job, though I do feel that the organization is a bit overwhelming at times,” he continues.
On the Job
A Day in the Life of a Financial Analyst
8:30
Get to work—I know what’s waiting for me. There’s a report that I know my boss will want a status report on as soon as I get in. Of course, I open the e-mail and there’s that Outlook message sending a receipt that I opened it. I call him immediately and let him know that I’m waiting on a number from the procurement specialist. We’re analyzing the costs we’re spending on a supplier. It’s all about knowing, managing, and lowering costs here.
9:00
I begin work on another spreadsheet. This time, it’s working on a forecast for next year for the plant. I’m on the home stretch of a rotation in manufacturing. I prefer corporate finance, but you have to know how the company operates—there’s no better way than this.
9:30
I drop by the desks of various people from whom I need numbers—the operations people, HR, procurement. A big part of the job is getting the information and getting it quickly. The spreadsheet work is just heads down at the computer. I get the people work done in the morning before their calendars get filled. That way, I can pester them throughout the day if they haven’t got it for me.
12:00 Bagged lunch, just like high school. Multiple Power Bars. I take a few minutes to read personal e-mail at my desk.
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12:30 Tweak financial forecast for next year. 1:00
Meet with my boss about the model—a stickler for detail. We go over it cell by cell.
2:00
I work on corrections based on my previous meeting.
3:00
Plug in numbers from all the requests I made in the morning.
4:00
Conference call with a sister plant to go over the budgeting process—or how we’ll do it similarly.
5:00
I type up the meeting minutes and send them off, reply to various e-mails, and send my boss a copy of my spreadsheet for the forecast.
5:30
I’m out—Friends is on tonight, and I get to spend a night at home with my girlfriend.
Sales Rep, Aerospace Manufacturer Education: MBA, BS mechanical engineering Experience: 4 years pre-MBA with company, 2 years post-MBA The sales rep and business development jobs at aerospace and manufacturing companies are ones that afford the most travel. “For me this job works because
On the Job
it lets me do the business development work that I wanted to get into (and the reason I got my MBA) as well as lets me stay close to aerospace,” says an insider. “I spend a lot of my time, and am, in fact, based around DC,” he continues. The job is similar to any other sales position—in fact, it’s very much like custom software sales. You identify your clients, you make a lot of contact with them, you find out their requirements, and bring back a team and solution that will meet their needs best. It’s a very iterative process, and it’s mostly about finding out about how you can meet their needs. It just so happens that what we’re selling is going to aid in our national defense. Having a technical background isn’t necessary for the job, but it does help. “I find that the engineers I’m working with take my requests more seriously because I was once in their shoes. They can’t say to me I don’t understand,” says an insider.
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A Day in the Life of a Sales Rep
9:00
I’m in my office outside of Washington, DC. I’m feeling a bit guilty about the Krispy Kreme I had on the way to work. I call my liaison who keeps tabs on legislation on the Hill. There’s no news yet on which way they are headed. However, right now, it looks like our proposal will get the go-ahead.
9:30
I meet with our group VP to discuss our positioning on the proposal. We’re crafting the wording exquisitely. There’s no need to risk losing a huge deal because of our prose. We wrangle on this for a while.
10:30 I set up a conference call with our engineering team that’s based out in the Midwest. I sit in Virginia with my VP. We go over their iteration of our solution. It sounds good. Then we go over the roles that we’re going to play when the client comes to tour our facility. This is as carefully staged as a Broadway production. 12:00 Lunch—the guilt about the doughnut lingers so I forgo food and take a walk around the building.
On the Job
12:30 I check e-mail, tinker with our proposal, call legal, and have them take a look at it.
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1:00
I call up our client, chat, see what’s on his mind, and most importantly, how he thinks things are going. He’s on our side, I think. We’ve worked with him before and we’ve built up a rapport. It’s important to talk to clients frequently—not only does it build a relationship, but they give you an endless stream of clues as to what they want. In this case, he’s mentioning their reservation—our pricing—and what they want to see.
2:00
I call up the team lead out in the Midwest—just making sure that they’re on schedule and that what they told us this morning isn’t changing.
2:30
Legal calls back, the proposal looks fine, but for some very minor revisions.
3:00
Meeting with the entire group to review our projects, give status updates, and the like. They’re closely linked so we need to keep abreast of what everyone else is up to.
4:15
More e-mail and paperwork.
6:00
I leave the office and head out for a drink with one of the client’s entourage.
8:30
I get home and spend some time with my wife and baby girl.
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Marketing Manager, Medical Device Manufacturer Education: MBA, BA Experience: 5 years There is sometimes confusion between a marketing manager and a product manager position—many times they are the same job. However, as a rule of thumb, product managers tend to be more technical or concerned with the development or definition of a product, whereas marketing managers face outward more—that is, they are concerned with the pricing, distribution, and target market in addition to the product. “I have a background in pharmaceutical sales,” says an insider, “so, even though I don’t have a technical background, I’m very familiar with how you have to market to health care professionals.” She continues, “There’s something extremely rewarding about making a product that saves people’s lives. How many people can say that their work does that?” As a marketing manager, you’re essentially concerned with the four Ps of marketing: product, place, position, and price. This is the beauty of working at a product company—you have a total product to think about, and in a holistic way. There’s
On the Job
a good deal of satisfaction that comes with having total responsibility for a product. Our insider adds, “There’s a lot of responsibility: If the product fails in the market place or doesn’t meet revenue targets, that weight goes on your shoulders.” A Day in the Life of a Marketing Manager
8:30
Who doesn’t check e-mail when they first arrive in the office?
9:00
Call our market research firm to ask some questions about their projections for the demand for stents in the next 5 years.
9:30
Meeting with a cross-functional team—engineers, scientists, policy experts—to cover progress on an addition to the product line they are working on. This is a hugely cautious process.
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10:30 Pricing meeting with my manager and other product managers. I run over my proposal for pricing on our product line extension and we discuss how it fits in our overall strategy. 12:00 Go out to lunch with one of our partners, then meet with the head of cardiovascular surgery and listen to how his group approaches procedures and what their needs are. I power through e-mail that’s built up during the day, run some sales reports for my product, and follow up with the market research firm.
5:30
I head home
On the Job
3:30
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The Workplace • Lifestyle and Hours • Workplace Diversity • Vacation, Benefits, and Perks • Compensation • Career Notes • Insider Scoop
The Workplace
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Lifestyle and Hours Manufacturing is one of the precious few industries left where there is a balance between life and work. Industry insiders are quite happy with their lifestyles— most work 45- to 50-hour weeks. In many cases, though, those hours aren’t evenly distributed over the year. During product introductions, changes in production processes, and other disruptive events, engineering effort increases significantly. People in the industry are expected to, and should love, to stick around until they have solved the problem. On the flip side, insiders tell us that these occasions aren’t all that frequent, and the perk is a good work-life balance. Many companies in the industry offer flex-time arrangements, where employees are expected to work a set number of hours over 2 weeks, but can choose, to a certain degree, when to work them. In general manufacturing is a good industry to work in. A number of manufacturing companies made it on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list in 2003, including Medtronic, Harley Davidson, and Guidant. Of course, hours tend to increase as you climb the corporate ladder; however, even managers feel that they aren’t overly taxed. “This is a good place to work, the people are very nurturing,” says an insider. Manufacturing is also not the go-go lifestyle of consulting. The pace tends to be less hectic than that of many other industries. Some insiders carp about the bureaucracy of larger companies and the existence
The Workplace
of some crevices for deadwood to hide in—of course, we’re talking about organizations the size of small cities. Travel is fairly limited in the industry. People in engineering and manufacturing functions don’t travel much as part of their day-to-day duties. Sales and marketing executives, however, do some traveling, but not nearly like that of consultants. Additionally, most salespeople travel within a territory, so cross-country sorties are kept to a minimum.
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Workplace Diversity While manufacturing isn’t exactly known as a rainbow of diversity, things are changing. Cummins and Xerox both made Fortune’s “50 Best Companies for Minorities” ranking in 2003, while General Electric and DuPont made Working Mother’s “100 Best Companies for Working Mothers” list in 2003. Still, that’s a short list considering the number of companies in the industry. Most executives holding offices in the manufacturing industry are still white men. Chalk part of that up to the nature of the businesses, which tend to be engineering focused. And most engineering degrees are not earned by women or under-represented minorities. Even today, women receive only approximately 20 percent of the engineering degrees handed out each year, and only about 14 percent in mechanical and electrical engineering—two degrees favored by manufacturing companies (Engineering Workforce Commission 2001). Nevertheless, companies are making efforts to increase diversity in the workplace. As one insider puts it, “there’s a real business case for diversity in our industry—it’s about solving problems—and the more angles from which you look at a problem, which diversity brings you, the more likely you are to be able to solve those problems quickly and elegantly.” Most major manufacturers have affinity groups to promote diversity in the workplace and make hiring minorities and people of color a priority. Some, like Raytheon, have gone to great lengths to make diversity a priority. “It’s not just talk with our executives, there’s
The Workplace
involvement all the way up to the CEO level.” Raytheon also gets kudos for launching Louise Francesconi, its VP and president of Missile Systems, to Fortune’s list of “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” in 2003. Xerox tops that with the only manufacturing company with a female CEO, Anne Mulcahy (number three on the list).
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Vacation, Benefits, and Perks When it comes to benefits and vacation, manufacturers tend to stack up in the middle range—that is, there aren’t outrageous benefits, but neither are benefits lean. GM for instance, offers 14 paid days off a year, a standard 2-week vacation policy that ratchets up to 5 weeks after 22 years of service. 401(k) plans are standard throughout the industry, but employer-matching programs are less common. GM, however, does offer matching 401(k) plans to its employees. Xerox is one of the best companies in the industry when it comes to benefits; its package includes matching 401(k) plans, vacations that build to 6 weeks, tuition assistance, and other “cycle of life” benefits such as adoption assistance and eldercare assistance. The biggest perk that is unique to the manufacturing industry derives from the nature of the industry itself—that is, it creates products, which employees are eligible to receive discounts on. So, while you probably can’t spring for a Tomahawk missile (besides, there’s no space in the garage), you can get hefty discounts for your Bose stereo if you work at Bose, your Jaguar if you work at Ford, or your Saab if you
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work at General Motors.
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Compensation One of the best things going for manufacturing is its low profile. While graduates flock to publishing and media and other “sexy” jobs that don’t cover bar tabs in cities whose costs of living edge up with that Tokyo, the manufacturing industry pays solid salaries in areas that don’t require a platinum card to buy groceries. Undergraduate salaries in engineering fields tend to pay between $40,000 and $50,000, while initial salaries for business degree holders hover around $40,000. MBA salaries tend to start at $70,000 to $80,000, but we heard from one insider whose MBA fetched under $70,000. The industry does pay bonuses based on individual performance, but the lackluster economy has eroded a large chunk of incentive compensation. Even in good times, though, bonuses would be closer to 10 percent of base salary. The manufacturing industry, unlike venture capitalism or investment banking, is not an industry for people trying to strike it rich. An insider adds, “I wouldn’t trade this life for one of 80-hour weeks and double the pay.” Indeed work-life balance is a mantra heard in manufacturing almost as much as Om is in a yoga studio.
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Career Notes The career trajectories that take shape in the manufacturing industry reflect the size and type of manufacturing that a company performs. There’s not a single path to executive management that can be laid out as the path to partner at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. Furthermore, the path is a longer one than in consulting or financial services. Most CEOs of Fortune 500 manufacturing firms started out in the same company they would eventually run 30 years before they became CEO. Contrast that with the 7- to 10-year track to partner at consulting firms. Technical people fill a large portion of the ranks of manufacturing firms. And many of the CEOs of manufacturing companies climbed up from the ranks of engineers. Former CEO of GE Jack Welch was himself a PhD technologist, and Boeing CEO Phil Condit began his career as aeronautical engineer at Boeing. Finance is another well-trod path; Richard Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, began as a financial analyst in the company’s treasury department. Also, manufacturing companies are becoming more market focused and less engineering driven, which does portend a change in this pattern. As a rule of thumb, the less technology required to manufacture a product and the more likely the company’s customer is a consumer, then the company is likely to be less engineering driven. Insiders agree that the best way to get ahead is to go big early. “You need to get in on and take charge of a large, high-profile project
The Workplace
early—it’s a big company and that’s the only way you’ll get noticed,” says an insider.
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Insider Scoop What People Really Like Eureka! Many of the professional jobs in manufacturing are engineering roles. Ask
an engineer what she likes about her job and she’ll (at least the ones we spoke with) tell you that there’s an incredible satisfaction solving a problem and getting something to work. “It melts when I’m working on a problem,” says an insider. Whether it’s finding a way to manufacture the product that seemed to exist only on paper or breaking up bottlenecks in production, people in manufacturing love the ability to think creatively. Moreover, the cultures of many firms are set up to support innovative, creative thought. The real world. “You deliver a real product, you can put it in your hand and touch
it, it’s not a ‘solution’ or some other intangible thing,” says an insider. There’s a certain amount of satisfaction that occurs when you see something you’ve designed roll off the assembly line. Ticket to ride. The skills in manufacturing are eminently transferable to other
companies in another sector as well as throughout the manufacturing industry. “The processes are fairly similar,” says an insider, “which means that it’s not a big leap to go to another company or even another sector.”
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Room to grow. Manufacturing companies tend to be big and within them there’s
a lot of room to migrate to other roles—from product design to assembly line— without leaving the company.
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Big and beautiful. Manufacturing companies are big and stable. And because they
didn’t balloon out in the dot-com boom, they also didn’t have to cinch their belts like other companies did in the current recession. Says one insider, “I know my company will be here tomorrow.” Cool things. Whether it be a life-saving surgical stent or a Hummer, manufacturing
veterans love the things they make. Got a life. You won’t be putting in many all-nighters like your investment banking
buddies. Manufacturing employees rarely log outrageous hours, giving people a chance to enjoy their lives; the predominance of flex time compounds this.
Watch Out! Call in the arborist. Companies in the industry often have hundreds of thousands
of employees, and those employees are enmeshed in a complex organizational structure, replete with under-performing people hiding in the cracks. Some industry insiders gripe that there is a fair amount of deadwood in these organizations. Beware the military industrial complex. Some insiders complain that the
complexity of manufacturing companies creates a somewhat stifling bureaucracy. “It’s not a startup where you can push your ideas through in a day,” says an insider. Biding time. Upward mobility in the manufacturing industry is relatively slow. There
are ranks of qualified people ahead of you on the road to the executive suite.
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No Oz. There’s no twister to sweep you away to some fanciful kingdom—
manufacturing companies are situated squarely in square states. If you’re a cosmopolitan type, you might have to make your own fun in a factory town.
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Getting Hired
Getting Hired • The Recruiting Process • Interviewing Tips • Getting Grilled • Grilling Your Interviewer
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Getting Hired
The Recruiting Process While manufacturing isn’t exactly a high-growth industry, there are some sectors that are growing rapidly, even through the most recent recession. This is especially true of sectors like medical device manufacturing. The downside is that with so few other jobs out there in the economy, people who were formerly looking for jobs in industries like telecom are now looking in manufacturing; imagine a single flower blooming in a meadow and a whole hive of bees looking for pollen. Nevertheless, companies we spoke with will still be looking to fill their ranks with new recruits in the upcoming recruiting season. The industry hires both seasoned and green hires—so not all recruiting comes from universities. If you’re an experienced hire with the right skill set, your best bet is to find a headhunter or look directly at company websites for jobs. For undergrads and engineers, most companies have a set of target schools from which they recruit. If a company you’re interested in doesn’t recruit, call the company directly to schedule an interview. You’re better off calling than using the Web in this case, as 3 years of recession have created a tsunami of online applicants. For MBAs and business undergraduates, there are a number of manufacturers with well-established management rotations. Ford’s rotational program, for instance, is well regarded and accommodates finance, operations, HR, and marketing professionals. But many of the full-time slots in such programs are taken up by people who have gone through summer internships. For companies whose end customers are businesses or other industries, many of the best opportunities are for people with technical undergraduate degrees.
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Special Notes for Undergraduates Most major manufacturing companies populate their entry-level positions through college recruiting drives. Though they primarily hire engineers, they do have spots open for business majors and some liberal arts majors. Most business jobs tend to be in corporate finance and IT, with some positions open in marketing and human resources. The best way to find out about these opportunities is through your career center or on a company’s website for a roster of target schools. Many smaller companies don’t have the resources to conduct extensive on-campus recruiting drives, or they do so only at a few campuses. This shouldn’t deter you from applying; many candidates have landed jobs this way. Nevertheless, you’ll need to be persistent in this economy. Once you land a position, you’ll find that most large firms have a rotational program and some type of “university” for new recruits. Companies offer very challenging work from the get-go. “It’s a constant learning process here,” says an insider, “I learned more here in the first month of work than I did in my entire undergraduate career.”
Special Notes for MBAs Most major manufacturing companies do have established MBA recruiting programs, but they hardly have the recruiting juggernaut found in financial services and consulting. Firms that recruit heavily tend to have spots open for all disciplines—operations, finance, marketing, and human resources. And relative to the size of the firm, recruiting for MBAs is small in manufacturing firms. As with undergraduate recruiting, manufacturing firms do most hiring from a list of target schools. If the firm doesn’t hire at your school, you still may still be able to schedule an interview with some tenacity. Your chances of landing an interview at a firm that doesn’t recruit at your school increase manifold if you have a technical background. Firms that have consumers as end users tend to hire more nontechnical majors—
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that is, the Fords and Black & Deckers of the world. Companies like Boeing and Raytheon often have people with technical backgrounds, former engineers, to populate their sales and business development benches. If you’re trying to sell a product to engineer, who better to do that than a former engineer?
Interviewing Tips The manufacturing industry covers a wide landscape both in terms of types of companies and types of jobs; there is no single set of interview questions that will work for all people at all times, or even most people most of the time. Moreover, there is wide variability in how companies within the industry interview. Ford, for instance, conducts initial interviews at career fairs at its target schools—screening for fit, credentials, and general competency—and then flies candidates to a “Leadership Conference,” basically a group interview session, to evaluate candidates in more depth. Firms vary in their use of behavioral and case questions. More and more firms are moving toward a group interview and role-playing process in second-round interviews; they are looking for leaders and communicators and people that fit in with the culture. Firms have a six-sigma mentality and are looking for candidates with built-in quality. You should be meticulous in every part of your selfpresentation. You also need to be able to communicate. “That’s really what we’re looking for; if you can’t communicate your solution to anyone, how is it a solution?” an insider asks. That means you need to be able to communicate both in oral and written contexts. Moreover, people skills are paramount and
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political savvy is key—as a manufacturing employee, you’re very likely to be working with people who have been on the job 30 years longer than you and possibly with little advanced education. This means you need to be able to deal with people unlike you. Expect interviews to cover these social aspects of work as well as your technical or subject matter expertise. Though no one expects you to be an expert in the industry, you can only help yourself by familiarizing yourself not only with the vocabulary of the industry but also with the basic structure and issues of the industry. Your interviewers will appreciate that you speak the same language, and this will give you an advantage over your fellow interviewees—it helps to go native. To this end, there is no single book that covers the manufacturing industry completely. But if you are going into a factory setting, Eliyahu Goldratt’s The Goal is a must. If you are interviewing at GE or a company run by a GE alumnus, be sure to read Jack Welch’s Jack: Straight from the Gut; the book gets straight to the heart of GE culture. We’ve included a list of recent articles about the manufacturing industry in the “For Your Reference” chapter of this guide. It can only help you to be informed about the industry. By doing your homework, you’ll show employers that you’re serious about the job as well as add subtlety and complexity to your understanding of the industry that will help you in any scenario the interviews may throw your way. By gaining an understanding of the industry you’ll also find out who the dogs and the stars are and which ones would make the best employers for you. Once you’re up to speed on the industry, you can investigate job functions in your discipline and match them against your skill set. Since companies often rotate new hires through jobs as part of leadership programs in their first few years at the company, they often look for aptitude and general competency rather than a singular skill set—though this isn’t the case with PhD hires. In any case, you’ll want to show your interviewer that you’re able to hit the ground running and execute as soon as possible.
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While personal relationships don’t bind the industry together the way they do in the entertainment industry, venture capital, and other, less structured environments, you should check to see if you have any contacts in the company you’re interested in. Continue by researching the pedigrees of the executive management team. Companies often hire a larger proportion of candidates from their alma maters. Set up an informational interview to get the scoop on the company, culture, and interview process, as well as how to get your resume in the right hands. This is especially critical in a time when recruiters are inundated with resumes from job-hungry candidates.
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Getting Grilled Here are some general questions that companies often ask. Many more will apply specifically to your discipline. • Why do you want to work in the manufacturing industry? • What are your short- and long-term goals? • Tell me about a time you had to use persuasion to reach your goals. • Tell me about some of the ways you communicate with your peers when you work in a group. • When you work in a group, what role do you play? • Tell me about a time when you worked in a group with members from diverse backgrounds. • Tell me about a time when you had to motivate a team to finish a project. • Tell me about how you deal with unstructured problems. • Tell me about a time when you took a leadership role on a project. • Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and the steps you took to reach it. • Give me an example of a time you didn’t meet your goal (or failed).
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Grilling Your Interviewer The following are good general questions that suit most companies in the manufacturing industry. You’ll also want to think of questions specific to the sectors and companies you are targeting. • What are some of the effects that mergers and acquisitions have had on your industry (corporate culture, culture clash, and others)? (This is especially true of the aerospace and defense industry.) • To what degree have you applied lean manufacturing principles to your organization? What improvements have you seen? • What are some of the representative career paths of people who started at the company 5, 10, 15 years ago? • How does your company support sustainable growth? • How will your company perform in a protracted downturn? • How are your business units integrated? What are some of the ways different business units interact? • What are some of the career avenues I can explore 5 years down the road?
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For Your Reference
For Your Reference • Articles • Books • Additional Resources
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We gathered the following articles, books, and online resources from our interviews with industry insiders and through our own research. They provide a grounding in the classics in the literature of the world of manufacturing as well
For Your Reference
as a jumping-off point for you to explore the industry at large, businesses within the industry, and major themes and topics of the manufacturing sector.
Articles “Closing in on Perfection”
Developments in ultra-precision machine tools have brought levels of precision in manufacturing down to nanometers. Source: Gene Bylinsky, Fortune, June 9, 2003.
“Jeep Builds a New Kind of Plant “
DaimlerChrysler’s Jeep builds a factory that ties suppliers with the assembly line. Source: Philip Siekman, Fortune, November 11, 2002.
“Elite Factories”
Information technology and computers are transforming factories. The article provides two stunning examples, a BP chemical factory and an R.R. Donnelly printing house. Source: Gene Bylinsky, Fortune, August 11, 2003.
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“How Timkin Turns Survival into Profit”
A “manufacturer’s manufacturer” discusses the current recession and the tectonic shifts that it will induce on the industry.
For Your Reference
Source: Adam Aston, BusinessWeek, April 7, 2003.
“A Twist of Faith”
An engineer turns an “impossible” idea into a fortune—the story of the Philips head screw. Source: Paul Lukas, Fortune Small Business, December 1, 2002.
“Lean Manufacturing? Fat Chance!”
Regular BusinessWeek contributor Lisa Bergson muses on dealing with the reluctance of workers to accept any type of change on the factory floor. Source: Lisa Bergson, BusinessWeek, May 24, 2002.
“It’s All Made in China Now”
The author discusses the rise of China as a manufacturing powerhouse. Source: Bill Powell, Fortune, February 19, 2002.
“New Products from Rented Brains”
The outsourcing movement has caught wind in the soul of manufacturing. Engineering and development functions are increasingly being outsourced abroad and to specialty firms. Source: Stuart F. Brown, Fortune, September 4, 2000.
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For Your Reference
Books The following books are not so much how-to manuals as they are lively accounts of life within manufacturing companies. Many of these volumes are considered classics, because of their lively telling, the management principles they illustrate, the unique historical situation they describe, or any combination of the three. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox (North River Press Publishing, 1992) This narrative dramatizes one plant manager’s discovery of operations techniques and subsequent turnaround of a factory in the Rust Belt. A B-school classic. Jack: Straight from the Gut
Jack Welch with John A. Byrne (Warner Books, 2001) Jack Welch’s best-selling book about his years at GE. A must for anyone going into GE or a company run by GE alumni. My Years with General Motors
Alfred P. Sloan (Doubleday, 1996) The legendary chairman of GM’s account of his transformation of American business.
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The Reckoning
David Halberstam (Avon, 1988) Popular historian and story-teller David Halberstam insightfully recounts the
For Your Reference
rise of the Japanese auto industry and the parallel events in the U.S. auto industry. The Six Sigma Way: How GE, Motorola, and Other Top Companies are Honing Their Perfomance
Peter S. Pande, et al. (McGraw-Hill, 2000) Pande, et al., delve into the ways in which GE and Motorola have used the process improvement in their organizations to achieve stellar operating and financial results. Six sigma refers the tenant of statistical process control that allows for only 3.4 parts per million standard deviation from a defined process. Skunk Works
Ben R. Rich (Little, Brown, 1996) A recent classic on the history of Lockheed’s famous Skunk Works program in the Mojave Desert as well as the principles that allowed for creativity and rapid development.
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For Your Reference
Additional Resources The following links provide useful online resources for the manufacturing industry. • Association for Manufacturing Excellence: www.ame.org • Lean Enterprise Institute: www.lean.org • National Association of Manufacturers: www.nam.org • Nanotechnology Glossary: http://nanotech-now.com/nanotechnologyglossary.htm • National Nanotechnology Initiative: www.nano.gov
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