Word: shopped
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...shop floors like Red River's where the changes are starting to show the most impressive results. Worn-out humvees used to be brought into a poorly lit, dirty and disorganized loading bay; now the vehicles move through a bright, gleaming shop floor--with American flags draped from the ceiling--in an assembly-line method, complete with a horn that blares every 23 min. to signal a move to a new station. Workers called waterspiders (named for the bugs that flit across the top of ponds) scurry back and forth to fetch tools and equipment for higher-skilled mechanics...
...manager who has worked at Red River for 30 years, says he was skeptical of the new management regime at first. "I thought it was just going to put me out of a job," Moore says. "But I've turned around 180 degrees--I can see what an efficient shop...
...course, what works in a humvee repair shop may not translate to an air-conditioned cubicle. "While cost savings are easier to achieve and see in a production facility, how do we measure success in the legal department?" asks Ron Davis, a civilian executive at the Army Matériel Command. "We can't use 'cases lost.' But we could look at speeding up how long it takes to produce a paper. Or how we might be able to get a recruit into the system faster...
...Evans, the Army's efforts are much more than a business-school exercise. "This is not only an economic transformation but a huge cultural change," he says. In the corner of every office at Red River, and on all the shop floors, stands a black cutout figure of a soldier with a helmet and rifle at the ready as a constant reminder of who the customer is and that the smallest errors can have the most serious consequences on the battlefield. A sign affixed to the front of the silhouette soldier says, WE BUILD IT AS IF OUR LIVES DEPEND...
...exceeded only by its peril--no other market is as cutthroat or has devoured so many players so relentlessly. Some, like J Sainsbury, bailed out after years of fruitless effort; others, like the French hypermarket chain Carrefour, lasted a nanosecond. Ahold, a Dutch company that owns the chain Stop & Shop, was bruised by an accounting scandal. Delhaize, the Belgian owner of Food Lion, holds on grimly as Wal-Mart makes chopped meat of the industry's profit margins...