Too many Chiefs and not enough Indians: May 20, 2015 Delete This Entry Edit Tribute Details
Levels of Management is becoming a major problem in progress

By Russell E. Theisen CM PE IEEE LSM

Russ Theisen started working a Martin Marietta Orlando Aerospace in 1966 as a Reliability Engineer.
He helped introduce the Computer into the Manufacturing Test for missiles and soon he was responsible for all Computer Laboratory development.
Russ Theisen was responsible for some 12 Computer Laboratory Proposals to implementation.
When Russ Theisen joined the Martin Marietta Aerospace Company in 1966, he was only 5 levels from the president, but as time passed, Martin Marietta hired many retired Military Officers both Army and Air force, and the Administration had to find some busy work for the new hires to do.

Many were given special projects to modify the way Martin Marietta did business,
In hopes of improving the business development process and reducing the costs of doing government business.

One of my projects was to provide a small Compute Laboratory for a cheap development cost and the contract agreed to allow me to rent the computer equipment in order to greatly reduce the development time and cost.
The contract had a special budget for the rental of equipment and I used it frequently.

The problem of adding upgrades to my rented equipment was usually very inexpensive and the turnaround time with the special agreements that I had with the vendors that we dealt with.

One time I needed a memory upgrade for the Development Compute and I talked to the vendor and asked how fast could he upgrade the computer with the options described in the (PO) purchase order If I got the PO to him on a Thursday and he said that he could have the upgraded computer to me by the following Wednesday.
I told him that would be great and I completed the PO and submitted it to the Procurement department by Wednesday and Expected to be placed by Thursday of that week, since I had received all of the Procurement approval signatures on the PO before I submitted it.

The Monday of the following week, I called the vendor to ask how he was doing with the upgrade. He told me that he had not received the PO yet. I was surprised since it only took one day to get my customer approved POs through Procurement. I called the procurement department to find out what was the holdup and was told that a new approval was required for all POs, that had the word “computer” in it. It seems that a new hire, an Army Cornel had issued a Company memo that required all PO with the word “computer” in was to be sent through another review cycle in the Capital Expenditures department and my PO had he word “Computer” in its description.

I tried to trace the PO to check on its progress and each time I did I found that it had been sent to some other department elseware in the Company for approval.

(Note: each time anyone approved the PO it was sent through internal mail which took from one to three days.)

It seemed that the (ICM) Internal Company Memo did not account for rental equipment, but only Capital Expedites. But the way it was written, this was not clear so everyone who handled the PO forwarded it to the Capital Expenditures department for approval.

I finally tried to find out where the PO was and why it had not been sent to the vendor.

I started to generate a flow chart to see who got it , what they did with it and where did they send it, and who did they work for and what Internal mail address and where they were located in the Company.

Before I was through, I found out that it was sent to over 32 different individuals and it was still not submitted to the vendor.

The Flow chart showed that it spent 43 days going through the internal mail.

I was furious and I took the flow chart and I went to the originator of the New ICM to confront him.

When I found him, Fred Curtis he was holding a meeting that I barged in and interrupted the meeting.

I asked him why he was causing months of delays on my simple rental computer and how much cost had he caused in other programs of larger computers.

He said that he did not cause any cost to any program.

I handed him a copy of the flowchart and asked him to call any name on the flow chart and ask them
-When did you get the PO,
- What was your internal mail address?
- Who do you work for, and their phone number
- What did you do with it,
- Where did you send it and why,
Who do you think was responsible for this new change in procurement procedures?

All said it was the Fred Curtis memo that caused the big interruption to standard procedures.

Fred Curtis said that my flow chart was wrong and I did not know what I was talking about.

I asked Fred to call any on the flow chart and ask them if they handled the PO and what did they did with it and why.

I told Fred Curtis that he had caused over a month’s delay in my rental and I was sure that all computer purchases were impacted much more than my small computer rental PO that had every approval signature on it, before I had submitted it over a month earlier.

Fred Curtis said that he would investigate and show me that I was wrong.

I said please do, and while you are at it, you might learn how the company actually works before you generate another memo.

Fred Curtis did his investigation and finally modified the PO process to not include Customer approved procurement or rental equipment.

By the time I left Martin Marietta in 1992, I had helped develop over 28 delivered Military Defense Systems.

And I was now 14 levels from the president and procurement that had taken just 1 week, now took over 3 months.

Isn’t progress wonderful?

Levels of Management is the main problem to progress.

Too many chiefs and not enough Indians

Russell E. Theisen CM PE SLM-IEEE Retired