The founding fathers of quality
For nearly five decades, Donald S. '46 and Armand V. '42 Feigenbaum have been initiating and implementing quality control and management systems at some of the world's largest corporations.
Donald is one of the acknowledged world leaders in systems management and systems engineering and co-author with his brother, Armand, of the very successful recent book, The Power of Management Capital, from McGraw-Hill, with editions also in China, Brazil, Japan, Korea and many other countries.
Armand – known as “Val” – is the originator of Total Quality Control and Management, an approach to quality and profitability that has profoundly influenced business management strategy. His book on the subject has been published in many languages and is the basic text on quality systems and improvements.
Natives of Pittsfield, Mass., both received their undergraduate degrees at Union, Val with a B.A. in industrial administration and Don with a B.S. in electrical engineering. Their many honors include honorary doctorates from the College and other institutions.
Several years ago, a Business Week profile summed up Armand V. and Donald S. Feigenbaum's approach to quality control and management in two sentences: “Never Mind the Buzzwords. Roll Up Your Sleeves.”
For nearly three decades, the magazine noted, the two former General Electric Co. engineers, working behind the scenes, have been streamlining operations at such corporations as Tenneco, Union Pacific, Citicorp, Pirelli, Fiat, Johnson Controls and 3M.
“Their advice is pragmatic, and it saves companies big bucks,” the magazine said admiringly.
You might assume that the two men who have the ear of leading executives around the world would operate out of high-powered offices in New York City.
You would be wrong.
Instead, the two brothers share an attractive suite in the headquarters of the company they founded, General Systems, Inc. It looks out over the city square in Pittsfield, the city in the Berkshires where they were raised and where they returned to live. Val is the company's president and chief executive officer and Don is executive vice president and chief operating officer. Together, they form General Systems' executive office from which they manage the company's global operations.
That Val and Don Feigenbaum eschew the fancy trappings of the big city comes as no surprise when you talk with them. Soft spoken and unassuming, they take a conservative approach with their customers (they don't use the word client). Shunning quick fixes or slash-and-burn tactics, they get to know each customer individually as they seek to eliminate inefficiencies and instill a commitment to quality.
Every inefficiency and disconnect eliminated, they say, reduces total product costs and improves end user satisfaction. Every company committed to total quality is a company that is being managed to serve its customers – and it is the customers who, in the end, decide the quality of a company's products and make their purchase decisions accordingly.
CREATING RESULTS AND RELATIONSHIPS
The brothers do not see themselves as consultants, a word that connotes an outside advisor, nor do they see their company as a consulting company.
“General Systems is an execution company – an implementation company, an engineering company – in a broader sense than the word is typically used,” Val says. “We think of ourselves as systems engineers or systems managers. What we want to do is create results and relationships with customers.”
Adds Don, “We don't advise people. We work with people to build something. Most people think of systems as computers. We see people, machines, and information that have to be integrated. We build the internal processes.”
And it works. When the Feigenbaums and General Systems were called in by Tenneco, the company reported failure costs of $2.9 billion a year. The chief executive officer of Tenneco, in a recent book, has written that in three years the Feigenbaums' Cost of Quality approach created $2 billion of savings – real margins without sacrificing the core businesses or the company's valuable people.
The CEO said, “We called it 'soft restructuring,' but really it was our 'silver bullet.' ”
And it is principles such as these that the Feigenbaums emphasize for their corporate customers throughout all of the 24 industry groups that General Systems has served.
The brothers note that they have worked for two “generals” in their lives. One, of course, is General Systems, which they founded in 1968. The other is General Electric, where together they put in 42 years of experience before striking out on their own.
CONNECTING, NATURALLY
The General Electric connection is, in a way, a natural. Their mother's father had gone to work at GE in Pittsfield at the start of the 20th century. (“He knew Charles Steinmetz and spoke about him,” Val recalls fondly.) Their mother, Hilda, was a concert pianist, and their father, Samuel, was a CPA who ran his own accounting firm.
Val was an apprentice toolmaker at GE right after graduating from Pittsfield High School, but came to Union after he was told it was a good place for someone who wanted to become a balanced engineer.
“If you look at the unique character of Union – its small size and its blend of the liberal arts and engineering – that appealed to me,” he says. “It was the right decision – a place where I could spend all afternoon in a lab and edit the college paper at night.”
Don had a variety of summer jobs while he was in high school, one as an assistant to the cutters in a local textile mill, one as an usher in the local theater. He came to Union intent on becoming an engineer, but left after two and a half years to join the Navy during World War II. After serving with the Seabees in the Philippines, he restarted his junior year at Union.
“I still wanted to be an engineer, but not one who sat in the corner pushing a slide rule,” he says. “I wanted a liberal, broad education.”
Both men rose quickly at GE. Val was director of quality at GE's huge Schenectady operations in his early twenties, and Don rapidly moved up to major management responsibility in the company's jet engine business before leaving to become general manager and chief operating officer of International Systems Co.
“We learned a great deal at GE, but we wanted to be our own boss as much as anyone can be,” Val says. When their paths crossed on a plane in Sao Paulo, they decided the time was right. Val left GE, where he was worldwide director of manufacturing and quality control in New York, and he and Don launched General Systems with headquarters in New York City.
Their first morning in business they received a call from Volvo of Sweden that led to their first assignment, a two-year project applying systems engineering techniques. Success there led to other work in Europe for such companies as Alfa Romeo and Renault, in Japan for major organizations, and back in the U.S., where General Motors and Bechtel were among their first customers.
Soon realizing that they were going to be traveling all over the world (half their business has always been international), they decided they may as well do that from the place they always called home, and they moved their company headquarters from New York to Pittsfield.
SERVING THE WORLD
Today, General Systems' list of companies served includes many American and global corporate leaders such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Cummins Engine, Ford, John Deere, SKF, Shell, Volkswagen and IBM, as well as organizations in Japan, Brazil, China and other countries. And the brothers continue to write. Their latest book, The Power of Management Capital, from McGraw-Hill, has been attracting a large number of readers throughout the world.
Both Val and Don point out that Pittsfield has a long history of success in technology and is a good environment for the headquarters of a company like General Systems. “Our international customers know the big U.S. cities as well as we do,” Val says, “but Pittsfield and the Berkshires are a welcome experience for them. They call Pittsfield the World Capital of Total Quality Management.”
Don mentions how their recent keynote speech to a major management conference in Dubai was delivered. “They sent a team from Germany to holograph us so we were speaking and walking and talking in Dubai, when we were in fact at our desks here.”
And the brothers emphasize these points with a wall clock in their outer office with a gold star placing Pittsfield at the center of the global business geography.
SERVING THE COMMUNITY
The two say they feel a great sense of responsibility toward their hometown, and they have had leadership roles with the Berkshire Bank, the Berkshire Athenaeum, Hancock Shaker Village, Colonial Theatre and the Berkshire Museum, among other institutions. That level of involvement mirrors their years at Union, where their activities included a fraternity (Kappa Nu), the Student Council, Concordiensis and the Philomathean Society.
These days, the brothers give no evidence that they plan to slow their pace.
“Our grandmother always said that people rust out faster than they wear out,” Don says. “So we continue to get out among our customers and stay completely involved in helping transform the people we work with.”
Adds Val, “I like to recall another one of our grandmother's admonitions – the minute you close your mind is when you think your teachers have nothing left to teach you.”
The Union Experience
'Converging education'
Val and Don Feigenbaum regularly return to campus, where they admire such changes as the new House System and Converging Technologies. For eight years they have sponsored the Feigenbaum Forum, designed to stimulate dialogue about the integration of corporate management principles in the administration of institutions of higher education. They are particularly pleased with the impetus from the Forum.
“Look at the conversation over the years,” Don says. “Everyone who attends is interested in his or her own discipline, of course. But they are also interested in producing well-educated students, and these days that means knowing both the liberal arts and engineering.”
“One of the phrases we like is 'organization transformation,' and this is what is happening at Union,” Val adds.
“One of Union's challenges is to recognize its own strengths,” he continues. “Today, if you're a pure technician, Heaven help you in terms of your career. You'll be obsolete in two years.”
“Union, with Converging Technologies, recognizes that technology by itself isn't enough,” Don says. “It's converging education. We're going to live in a technologically advancing society with constant social and cultural pressures. So, get as broad an education as possible, but not so broad that you don't have a profession.”
“Transformation is a constant process,” Val observes. “Still, if you had to invent a college that fits the times, you'd invent what Union is right now.”
And Don adds that “with the experience I have had – and if I had to do it over again – I would go to Union.”