LESSONS FROM MY CAREER: SYNTHESISING MANAGEMENT THEORY WITH PRACTICE

As I had mentioned in an earlier episode, The Ceylon Tyre Corporation, where I was the Industrial Engineer, had a technical collaboration with BF Goodrich, a global tyre manufacturer with plants in several countries. They arranged for me to visit their plant near Manila.

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If my memory is correct, I recall that the Sri Lanka rupee was stronger than the Philippine peso at that time. We were picked up at the airport by the Plant Manager, and the first thing he told my wife was, "Don't ever wear that chain when you go out". He told me, "Never wear that wristwatch when you go out".

On the way to the hotel, the police checked the car. We were asked to get out and were checked. Immediately, I formed a negative opinion of the country. Apparently, there were some bomb explosions in the city. Marcos's term was coming to an end. The general gossip was that Marcos had engineered the bomb blasts so that he could continue with Martial Law.

In 1980, Sri Lanka had no checkpoints, nor was anyone checked. When I entered a mall in the evening, the security guard thoroughly checked my wife's handbag and my camera case. I was surprised at these checks. A couple of years later, Sri Lanka was in the same boat.

The factory visit was great. I was struck by the comparison that at the Ceylon Tyre Corporation, we made 1,000 standard tyres with 2,000 employees, while at the BF Goodrich factory they made 2,000 tyres with 1,000 employees. Our labour productivity was awful. However, I learned a few things that we could improve back home.

Returning to the factory and resuming my job as the Industrial Engineer, I implemented some changes. Still, I found a lot of resistance from many others. I was determined to implement the famous Japanese “Quality Circles", where non-executive employees are trained and empowered to analyze production and quality problems and proceed in a systematic way to find the root causes, generate solutions and implement them with management approval.