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The Allegory of the Humidifier: A case study of Return on Investment in Systems Engineering
Author(s) -
Sampson Mark E.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.1994.tb01807.x
Subject(s) - liberian dollar , allegory , productivity , investment (military) , business process reengineering , simple (philosophy) , operations management , business , computer science , economics , industrial organization , operations research , engineering , finance , history , political science , macroeconomics , lean manufacturing , politics , law , philosophy , epistemology , art history
Following is a case study of the down stream affects of short term decisions based solely upon short‐horizon cost savings. A case is made for “no decision is a island” and documents how a simple (<$10k) initial decision had million dollar impacts down stream. This allegory also points out the importance of getting our Systems Engineering right before launching into other productivity improvement programs–JIT, reengineering efforts, cycle time reduction, Continuous Improvement, and others‐all of which points out the key importance that Systems Engineering should be playing in our companies.