The Cord at Fremont

Abstract

On an assembly line run the Toyota way, a cord hangs within reach of every worker. It is called the andon cord. A worker who sees a problem pulls it, and help comes to that station while the line keeps moving. If the problem cannot be solved in the time the line allows, the worker pulls it again, and the whole line stops. Read as an object, the cord is a length of rope and a switch. Read as an institution, it is the most concentrated voice channel in modern industry. It gives the person standing closest to a fault the power to halt production for everyone, on their own judgement, at once. The economists Susan Helper and Rebecca Henderson, whose study of General Motors anchors the case in Chapter 5, report an estimate that shutting down the line for a popular model could cost ten thousand dollars in lost profit per minute. A firm that hangs that cord above every station is saying something about whom it trusts to speak.