How do you think the UP Way [aka: Toyota Way; Lean Initiative] factored into the current downsizing? I wonder how all those that jumped in with both feet feel now?. All the promises given to get on board. "This will not lead to layoffs" we were told. "All the RR wants, is to make your jobs easier". The Toyota Way describes how taking care of the core employees is the foundation for success. This step was bypassed.
Any thoughts and/or experiences you would like to share? Feel free.
Two different industries. Makes no sense to the railroad. Wasted a lot of money on that nonsense
Toyota forecasts at least five years out. UP forecasts at most five days out.
How many times have you heard executive leadership cling on and parrot new management process/culture managment/strategic vision/courage to scare/diverse empowered workplace jingo?
All the damn time. And yes, it doesnt take deep familiarity with lean/kaizen principles to know how incompetent up management is when they start dabbling in the latest hip cool thing thier old college bud "liked" on myspace oh what came up in a hot game of scrabble over the weekend at beths lakehouse in okoboji.
Sadly, some lower level mangement may have already had a black belt, but they were scared to speak up or already had been blackballed, or had already fled the toxicity.
Up is by far the most jacked up company operating today.
And, if they werent a goverment sponsored monopoly in thier market, theyd be a penny stock at best.
lances turn is coming, just watch the postings
If you read the Toyota Way or studied lean management you would see that the process was never implemented at UP. The UP Way is some nonsensical PowerPoint mas----ation material created by University of Phoenix dropouts. My guess is 90% of UP managers have never read the Toyota Way.
2fzj - As an investor, I’ll take the one that generates good income consistently over the long term, and leave the short term pump and dump schemes to the day traders looking for a quick buck.
@2qca yet UP is making a billion more a year on much lower volume. Gee as an investor which one do I want- the one making more money or the one moving more cars (for free apparently)??????
BNSF will wipe youpee right out of the
Industry. Disgusting carloading down to
170.000 and BNSF @ 240.000
This is a corporate pump and dump. Dave Cote did the same bs with Honeywell. He has Jim Cramer go out and tell the public how well the company is doing all while backstage they are driving the workers into the ground with lower wages and astronomical healthcare benefits. Then the stock soars (pump) and then cote and the rest of them sell off (dump) their stocks. Then they are investigated by the sec “yank yank” and nothing happens and then the next ceo comes in and has to clean up the mess. Anyone who has UP stock should sell before the reports come out how f’ed up the company is. This bs psr is just an excuse to can everyone do they can show on the next couple of quarterly reports how much money they made and “saved” on “overhead”!
Nobody forced them to borrow money to buy back stock. That was stupid. They also used money from the tax cuts to buy back stock where other companies rewarded their employees.
I think it has more to do with the loss of coal income and we have ran away all the small loads. Lance had to do something, what he is doing won’t work long term but it’s working now. We are in a death spiral. 1.9 billion in profits last quarter and borrowed 8.2 billion to buy back stock to keep the price high. We had 170,000 car loads last week. Bnsf had 240,000. Bnsf is growing for the future and we are not
Very good input about the Toyota Way and all aspects. UP bought into this program and then renamed the UP Way. The reason? Because they would not buy into the prospect of taking care of employees. They had to rename it, and change direction because they abhorred giving the low man any incentives.
Yes, the Lean Initiative means reducing operational expensies. Along with that, 5s, Just in Time, and other techniques to reduce operational expenses. All sounds good. However in practice, this has to have employees empowered and motivated to make it work.
I predicted this was an effort to move into the next phase of operations. And that is layoffs. I warned co-workers of this. And I was met with rebuffs.
My manager was talking to me about the Toyota Way (I was a union rep). I told him that most people were not comfortable with it. He snapped and shouted, "They'll accept it, or face disciple!" And then stormed out of the office.
I want to hear other's stories in this matter. Because I feel.and know the UP Way was a set up which leaded to wherenwe are now. And that is families suffering.
Let’s not try and legitimize what the executives at UP are doing by comparing it to lean techniques and six sigma etc. None of those jokers have taken a basic statistics class much less understand a supply chain at that level.
Lean.... as In pr-scrip-ion cough medicine and soda???
As someone who went into the company with a lean manufacturing background, I can honestly say that I didn't encounter a single individual at the director level or above who understood lean principles or how to apply them.
Lean principles is just a method of process improvement. In the Toyota Production System (TPS) this means the reduction of waste in every step of the process. The idea is that small, targeted improvements (kaizen) to unit operations when aggregated will lead to measurable improvements in overall plant and production efficiency.
Somebody apparently forgot to tell Lance & Co that the single most important part of TPS (and the main reason that it works) is the high-value placed on employee input at all levels. Lance & Co also don't seem to understand that principles of lean manufacturing can't just be pulled off the shelf and slapped onto something as large and operationally diverse as a railroad without some tweaking to make them work in practice.
After making several failed attempts to explain this to UP leaders, I gave up and left. Since then I've referred to them as ostriches, because they bury their heads in the dirt whenever the truth appears to them.
It wan never about Lean or the Toyota way. This was just another one of Lyin’ Lance’s smoke and mirrors show. He is not an innovator, he has no original thoughts. Send him back to the scissor factory.