People-focused knowledge management

Management Philosophy
The company’s management pursues the hologram philosophy
whereby each employee is a replica of the whole and under-
stands management’s visions and the company’s daily business
situation and long-term strategy. That allows employees to make
independent decisions to implement corporate strategy, while
taking into account short-term tradeoffs, broad business impli-
cations, and other consequences.
The management recognizes that people are “incredibly smart
and innovative” and perform to succeed when (a) given the
opportunity to perform; (b) having sufficient job-related and
general knowledge; (c) being provided with detailed up-to-date
information on the plant’s and company’s performance and con-
straints; and (d) being accountable for their actions.
The management believes that their employees must be better
educated and have a better understanding of the operational,
technical, and business aspects of operations than competitors.
This is their basis for distributing decision making and enabling
employees to act on their own.
Collaboration is essential and reinforced. Employees are not
judged on their individual performance; instead, they are judged
on the performance of the whole team and the company as 
a whole.
Management Choices
Decisions are delegated to the point-of-use to permit each 
operator to act immediately.
The company’s employees are salaried and divided into teams.
Team leaders are rotated.
There are no individual department bonuses. Twice-yearly profit
sharing is distributed to all based on the total company’s 
performance.
There are no production quotas — only a stated desire to
produce as much as possible at the highest quality required by
the present market.
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
Operations are closely integrated to break down barriers
between departments.
Adjacent operations report to the same general manager to
strengthen integration.
“Everyone participates in research.” The company has no 
separate R&D function but is still performing extensive R&D.
Senior operators and engineers collaborate on the research and
development of new operations methods, new designs, etc.
Teams are allowed to experiment with different operating con-
ditions to test improvements.
The company does not have a maintenance department per se.
Operators are educated and expected to diagnose, troubleshoot,
and repair the equipment. Maintenance people with special
knowledge in electronics, computers, and so on, are part of
operations.
The company’s plants are controlled by sophisticated process
computers to reduce dependence on personnel for routine work
and to achieve uniformity of operations.