Why government agencies need manufacturing engineers

(besides of course full employment)
You have heard (and perhaps witnessed) about "government inertia". Well, this is true sometimes, people cling to the way they have already done things. I wonder if I would have turned out like that, if I had stayed with my 1980 government job, instead of flitting off to work on software, on manufacturing, then seeking my way back to the shelter of a safe government job 25 years later..

So while some people cling to the old ways - we even have green bar reports! These are current, I am not talking about the ones in the 'time capsule' that were buried beneath my desk/shelving unit. Those were unearthed when they moved all of us - MPU reports from the 80's. (Minutes per unit, since we carefully track this type of activity - even without manufacturing engineers!) I didn't know you could still find printers to actually print those green bar reports on form-feed type paper. And now in a new environ, I can hear some accounting types tearing the pages apart. Interesting that I recognize that sound..

Ok back on topic - the other side of inertia is letting things spin out of control without paying attention. At the widget factory, you have to build a product to spec, get it to the customer on time, and have it actually perform its intended function. Oh! And of course you have to buy all the components and build and test it, and still make some money - you know to pay for all the carpet crawlers on the second floor, oh and all the birthday cakes so that each and every person can have their birthday celebrated on a separate day (ok so maybe *that* is how I ended up with 25 pounds to lose - at some point you have to stop blaming your kids, esp if you haven't been pregnant in over 10 years. Stop the cake and voila, 25 pounds gone! try this at home!)

So - in widget world to implement changes you have to do an ECO - Engineering Change Order. Everyone involved with the project needs to sign off. And even in our old Lotus-Notes world we had these with online signature capability. Nifty.

In government circles they haven't heard of this. But as people around me grapple with "why are IT projects always over budget?" and have no ideas, I am going to suggest they hire a tribe of manufacturing engineers. OK they might not fit in, too much static electricity in our environment. But think what we could gain - time & motion studies for every process. Test things before they go out the door (test those white papers and legislative concepts). Stress test them (Highly Accelerated Stress Screen) - see what the boundaries are of policies (seems I actually suggested this once.. I don't believe I was successful though). Do a quality check on components - see if operations in the field are really following administrative rules, which as we know have the Force Of Law.

And, they could implement an ECO process. You want to take IT project XYZ and its not going to meet the original requirements document - time for an ECO and everyone in the world will have to sign off. Is this really what we want, or what you in IT want.