General Motors spot welding maintenance study

GM researcher Jamie Sue audited spot welding plants, found 35 of 39 root-cause problems were maintenance issues (top 10 all maintenance). Canceled all GM research-side spot welding funding on the grounds that better research couldn't fix bad maintenance.

I gave Professor Hart in mechanical engineering — a new young assistant professor — his first research contract. I was told by ONR, we want you to find other people at MIT to bring in to think about welding problems. So I was going around giving away money. I was still barely an associate professor, and all of a sudden I had more research money than most of the full professors in the department. I started thumbing my nose at them, which didn't endear me to them, but I still got tenure. Then General Motors did something. I was funded by General Motors research, and Jamie Sue, who I have a lot of respect for, canceled the project. But it wasn't just me — he canceled all spot welding research at General Motors research. They did a study of the plants and found that out of 39 root cause problems, 35 were maintenance issues. The top ten were all maintenance issues. Jamie said, why should I be spending my research money to teach them how to make better spot welds if they're not going to maintain their equipment? And he was right.