Rosie the Riveter

See the AP story published yesterday, Dec 30th...

60 Years Later, Rosie Still Riveting

It's too bad segregation still existed in the U.S. workplace; imagine what we could have achieved without that hurdle. The TWI principles were built on the foundations of Democracy, "We the People", the proof is how TWI district representatives tapped into the productive power and creative talents of millions of workers through this program during the war. In researching the history of TWI, I stumbled across this gem in the Job Relations files which discusses the purpose of the J-programs.

I like this snippet because it gives us a clue about why TWI worked in the U.S. war production period and why it worked in war-torn Japan, and why it still works today in an environment that is vastly different then when TWI was introduced. I suspect that, knowing how TWI contributed to winning the production war and especially why it worked, prompted Gen. MacArthur to import TWI to the Japanese workplace. I wonder if he knew that Japanese companies would build their standardized work philosophies on the industrial engineering principles built into TWI and still use them, unchanged, 60 years later:

“We are not going to work out any theoretical principles, but we are going to get experience in using some skills that have been developed in sound industrial practice. These methods have been tried and tested. They are the product of experience. They apply regardless of whether there is a Wagner Act or not. They apply whether you are dealing with a man or a woman, a black or a white, a Republican or a Democrat. Why is this so? Because people are people once you get under their skins, regardless of political or religious creed, regardless of race or color.” emphasis author's, not TWI Blog's.

Job Relations Archive Document, 1940

For more info on the Rosie the Riveter National Park, visit the website!

To learn more about TWI, come visit learn and share with me and others at the TWI Summit in Orlando, May 5-9, 2008!