He described how they measured atomic hand movements (reach, grasp, orient) in decimal seconds to balance the line. But he made a distinction that stuck with me:
Back then, the goal was Flow (smoothness), which inherently required some slack in the system. Today, he argued, the goal of modern management is Utilization (removing every micro-second of downtime).
His quote: "We deleted the 'waiting,' but we forgot that the waiting was the only time the human got to breathe."
I feel like I see this exact pattern in Software Engineering now. We treat Developer Idle Time as a defect to be eliminated by JIRA tickets, rather than the necessary slack required for thinking.
Ask HN: For those who have been in the industry for 20+ years, do you agree?
repelsteeltje•1h ago
For a couple of years I helped develop scheduling software for supply chains in process industry. We frequently optimized for throughput or resource utilization, but also for just in time or minimal latency. So goals differ, but it kind of works in industrial context.
Now, there has always been a tendency to also frame knowledge work like software development as though it's just industrial production. Hence (mostly futile) attempts to make things predictable, reproducible and "efficient". Where efficiency is bluntly taken to mean optimal utilization.