Where is your next 747 coming from?
Today was the last flight of the BA747s. I remember well the first time I was on board one, in steerage, and then in more recent times when I was on the upper deck. A great craft that has been with BA for half its lifetime, in many ways symbolised it and certainly made it a lot of profit, and even to step on board had an air of glamour about it. No more.
However, time moves on. To illustrate the point, as part of my degree course at Queen’s, I spent a whole afternoon sketching different versions of the clothes iron. From the original and ornate cast iron version, that had a section for a hot coal, through all the gradual changes to it right to the modern bells and whistles steam iron.
Frankly, I did not understand why at the time…what had this got to do with engineering, with fast cars, motorbikes, engines, power?
However, it is a message I have never forgotten, and one I’ve kept reflecting on over the years. Everything changes, everything moves on. If one is not moving on and developing, and improving, one is surely moving backwards. Try selling an original cast iron version of the modern steam iron now.
Each of the ISO Standards has a whole section on Improvement. Many organizations that you will never hear of overlook this in their businesses. The best organizations, the household names, have this front and centre. They seek improvement ideas at every turn, from every possible source. They invest in exploiting these ideas to their maximum, recognising that not all of them will make them a fortune, in the sure and certain knowledge that one of them might, just might, be the next 747.
