Word: piped
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Nearly everyone in business talks about improving productivity, but notable breakthroughs are rare. Last year productivity in U.S. manufacturing rose 4% v. 5.8% in 1971. Lately the workers at Kaiser Steel Corp.'s continuous-weld pipe mill at Fontana, Calif., have shown that dramatic gains can be made with only minor changes in methods and machines. In the last three months of 1972 they raised their productivity by a herculean...
...Stakhanovites* had a powerful incentive. Last October Kaiser officials announced that the 4,000-ton-a-month plant was being shut down, a victim of rising costs and stiffening foreign competition; a ton of two-inch Fontana pipe that sold for $300 was being offered by Japanese mills for $240. Recalls Dino Papavero, president of United Steelworkers Local 2869: "We asked management to give us a chance to make the mill...
Kaiser executives agreed to postpone the closing and adopt a few worker suggestions. A traveling saw that cut pipe into sections after it left the furnace was repaired and overhauled at a cost of only $3,000. Workers had been asking for the adjustments for years; once they were made, spoilage dropped from 29% of output to 9%. In addition, a few storage racks and inspection tables were rearranged to permit a smoother flow of work. Two crucial but low-paid employees who operated a pipe straightening machine were given raises from $3.70 to $4.07 an hour. And the workers...
Still, the successful experiment may fail to keep the plant open. Because labor accounts for only one-ninth of the cost of making Fontana pipe, increased productivity has trimmed the price of the finished product by only some $11 a ton. "That isn't the $60 it would take to match Japan's price," says Robinson. Kaiser executives refuse to disclose when a final decision will be made on the mill's fate. For the moment, Fontana workers are hustling and hoping on a day-to-day basis...
...movie opens with Beatrice's grimace at a department store mirror while she dons a platinum curled wig. She makes a garish picture--an aging belle whose talent for mimicry has twisted into selfmockery. She feeds on pipe dreams to bolster her comedy, but even these pile up to taunt her selfdeception...