Kodak was founded in 1880 and now employs more than 96,000 people, the company's business is spread all over the world, the products involved in the field of imaging, medical treatment, data storage and so on.
In addition to producing the world-famous Kodak film, the company also produces photographic paper, professional photographic equipment, printing equipment, developing and tanning equipment, photocopiers, pre-press plate making products, document processing systems, aerospace high-tech products and imaging products and equipment.
Kodak: Employees Create Company Culture
(I) Worker Proposal
Back in 1989, Kodak's founder, George Eastman, received a proposal from an ordinary 1 person. The proposal called on the production department to clean the glass window, which is not even a small thing, Eastman but saw the significance of it, he believes that this is the performance of the staff's enthusiasm, and immediately publicly recognized, issued a bonus, and from then on to establish a "Kodak proposal system".
Perhaps Eastman didn't realize that the suggestion system introduced by the incident with the glass window would persist to this day and be continually improved. Eastman probably didn't realize that the "Kodak Suggestion System" he created would become a model for other major corporations to follow. In the corridors of Kodak, each employee can take the proposal form, throw any mailbox, can be sent to a full-time "Secretary" in the hands of a full-time secretary responsible for the timely delivery of the proposal to the relevant departments to consider, to make the assessment, the proposal can be directly called at any time to ask about the whereabouts of the proposal; the company has a special committee, responsible for the The company has a special committee responsible for reviewing, approving and awarding prizes.
The suggestion of not adopting, but also with oral or written reasons, if the proponent of the request for testing, can be assisted by the factory to test, in order to identify the proposal has no value. To date, the company's employees have made 1.8 million suggestions, of which more than 600,000 have been adopted by the company. At present, the company's employees for the suggestion of the bonus, more than 1.5 million dollars a year. 1983, 1984 two years, the company for the adoption of reasonable suggestions to save money 18.5 million dollars, the company took out 3.7 million dollars to reward the proponent. For the company, this kind of suggestion system has played a great role in reducing product costing, improving product quality, improving manufacturing methods and guaranteeing production safety, etc. Kodak believes that this kind of system has played a role in communicating the relationship between upper and lower levels, because when each employee puts forward a suggestion, even if his suggestion is not adopted, it will achieve two purposes:
1) Managers understand what this employee What is in his mind. ②The suggester gets a sense of satisfaction when he learns that his suggestion is valued.
Kodak paid attention to the following aspects in implementing the employee suggestion system:
1. All managers, especially the first-line foremen, must pay attention to this system. If the first-line foremen show indifference to the suggestions made by their subordinate workers, then this suggestion system cannot be supported by the workers.
2. Specialized agencies must be established to implement this system. Kodak's corporate office and a full-time secretary must deal with employee suggestions in a timely manner, settle the amount of bonuses fairly, patiently explain to the suggestor the reasons why the suggestion is not accepted, and regularly publicize the implementation of the system.
3. Simplify the procedure of the suggestion system. Whenever the employees of the company come up with a suggestion, they can get the suggestion form at hand and fill in their suggestions. Employees can drop the suggestion form into the factory's mailbox, or into the factory's special suggestion collection box, if the workers do not want to disclose their names, they can also take the anonymous way to put forward the suggestion, and then use the number on the suggestion form to contact the factory, can be used to check the phone number of the suggestion has been adopted. The Suggestion Office tabulates the accepted suggestions and periodically publishes them in the company's newspaper or posts them on the company's bulletin board.
4. Each suggestion is handled carefully. The secretary in charge of the proposal in a timely manner to submit the proposals to the relevant managers and sections, if necessary, the proposal can be put into effect. After the relevant managers and sections have made a resolution to adopt or not to adopt the recommendations, the materials after the resolution must be sent into the Office of Recommendations, and the secretary in charge of recommendations will submit them to the Recommendations Committee of the department for approval.
In the case of a recommendation which is not adopted, a detailed material must be sent to the suggester stating the reasons why the recommendation has not been adopted. If the recommender still believes that his recommendation has merit for adoption, he may provide additional justification to the Office of Recommendations. In such cases, some unadopted recommendations may eventually be adopted.
5. Emphasis is placed on publicizing the employee suggestion system and rewarding the suggestor. In Kodak, each new employee will receive a booklet on the staff suggestion system and its incentives, this booklet can quickly familiarize employees with the content of the suggestion system. The weekly employee newsletter includes a column on the adoption of suggestions.
The company, based on its long experience, has developed a standardized method for determining the value of an adopted suggestion and the amount of the bonus payable to the person who made the suggestion. The bonus is paid out by the secretary in charge of the proposal, who distributes the bonus check to each unit supervisor, who then awards it to the recipient.
(II) Summary of Kodak's experience
Kodak's suggestion system has now been widely adopted by the United States and a number of other countries in the enterprise, but also become the object of study of business management and organizational behavior. Enterprises in developed capitalist countries like Japan and the United States attach great importance to the scientific management of enterprises. They believe that the management of enterprises can be roughly divided into the management of people, property and things, of which the management of people is the most important. They summarized the experience of Kodak, and the scientific management of the enterprise is divided into the following seven elements:
1. Personnel (deleted): including the recruitment of workers, cultivation, assessment, rewards and punishments, promotion, appointment and dismissal.
2. Funding (H()mcY): the source of bonuses, budgeting, cost accounting, financial cream analysis.
3. Methods (delete ding U()D): production planning, quality management, process research.
4. Machine (MACHINE): machine configuration, plant layout, equipment maintenance, dismantling accounting.
5. Materials (MA9 place RIA workers): material acquisition, transportation, storage, acceptance.
6. Market (MARKlCr): market demand, production direction, product price, sales strategy.
7. Spirit (MORALE): workers' interests, hobbies, aspirations, emotions.
These seven elements of the English language are with the beginning of the M, so there is a "modern business management seven M" said. Entrepreneurs believe that these seven M are very important, one without the other. But it is not difficult to find that personnel is the first.
American management scientist, the founder of the theory of management by objectives, Drucker believes that to mobilize the enthusiasm of the workers is important to enable the workers to find the fun and value of the work they are engaged in, and can enjoy a sense of satisfaction from the completion of the work. In this way the worker's personal goals and desires are achieved, and the two aspects of operations and human nature are harmonized.
Kodak business in every step of development, there are employees and the company's decision-making, management and operational matters. In many enterprises at home and abroad, to strengthen the participation of employees, rationalization proposals are just a formality, not really carried out and implemented.
Enterprises should play every employee's strengths and potential to realize the democratization of management, and really make good suggestions into practice. In this way, not only can reduce the enterprise management mistakes, but also can enhance the sense of ownership, mobilize the enthusiasm of the workers.
(C) enterprising, continuous innovation
Enterprising, continuous innovation is the motto of Kodak, Kodak's founder Eastman himself is an enterprising, continuous innovation. He had an unfortunate childhood, after the death of his father at the age of 14 had to drop out of school to an insurance company as a handyman, and then to the Rochester Savings Bank as a clerk, in this period of time, his work experience and life efforts for the later creation of their own companies to lay the foundation for financial management. As a result of his hobby and fascination with photography, he quit his job at the bank and engaged in the development of film. After repeated experiments, he finally invented a new kind of film, and this success was a crucial step for his entrepreneurship. In January 1881, Kodak was founded and wasted no time in developing overseas business. Eastman revolutionized photography by developing the first dry-film negative; he created the first Kodak cartridge camera, realizing everyone's desire to "press the shutter"; and he produced the first roll of transparent film in the history of human photography. Eastman also invented Kodak's first pocket camera and 19mm motion picture film, thus fulfilling his prediction that "shooting color is as easy as shooting black and white". Eastman's successors continued the tradition of pioneering, enriching Kodak and the product line with innovations.
In 1942, color Kodak film came back to life, making the dream of capturing the world in color a reality. In the half-century since then, Kodak has introduced the affordable, convenient "continuous film camera series" for photographers. Today, Kodak breaks through more than 50 years of old photographic film technology, and proudly introduces the new Kodak 00, 200, 400 film with stronger flashes and more vivid colors than similar products on the market, along with the launch of the innovative, compact Kodak camera series - Kodak ameo. its upward-facing flash system can Its upward flash system, which avoids the appearance of "red-eye" when taking pictures of people, is very popular in the market. In addition, Kodak's advanced photo laser disc system, through advanced technology, can be the 35 cm film within the image, all transferred to a laser disc, and then through the Kodak photo laser disc player, in the TV screen instantly, so that people can enjoy the sound and pictures, unforgettable moments at any time before the eyes.
Continuously updating products is one of the secrets of Kodak's success. Because Kodak is by the development of new products started, but also by the continuous development of new crystal and development, so Kodak attaches great importance to the development of new varieties, Kodak now spends nearly 600 million U.S. dollars a year on scientific research, an average of every three days there is a new invention came out.
In today's photographic kingdom, Kodak's color films, such as "Kodachrome" and "Hundred Chromes" for slides and "Kodachrome" for immediate printing, are all of superior quality. Kodachrome No, in particular, is recognized worldwide for its quality.
Kodak scientists to thinner than a human hair on the upper layer of the soft film sensitizer, so that the film than in the past 1 / 3 thinner, more sensitive to light. This improvement had forced DuPont, then an ambitious world chemical kingdom, to suspend its production and marketing program and temporarily give up challenging Kodak.
Kodak accelerated the development of new products can be summarized in the following successful practices:
1. According to market demand, the function of the product is clear. To be from the invisible market information, attributed to the product can have the function, is a difficult job, but also to increase the competitiveness of the enterprise is the key, however, the collection method must be correct, otherwise ', not only will lead to the development of the product no one asked for, but also a waste of the company's valuable resources. In order to ensure that the market information is correct, Kodak has established a set of operating procedures, including the collection of market information, consumer information, used to develop products.
2, the product development process is clear. The task force developed a product development system that not only details the development steps, but also the inspection steps to ensure that the development work is carried out smoothly. This set of new product development operations system, applicable to each of Kodak's business lines, departments, and this system is named "manufacturing capacity to ensure that the system".
3. By way of project management, a project team was established to engage in the development of new products. Kodak believes that any product development, must first set up a task force, and members of the task force includes research and development, production, marketing and other departments of the relevant personnel. However, the members of the team and the team leader will change as the product development work proceeds.
4. Encourage the circulation of personnel among departments. Kodak has set up a special committee to encourage job changes within the company by means of salary increases and incentives in order to ensure the vitality of each department and the full utilization of human resources.
5. Make the best use of time. Kodak in the beginning of the establishment of the business line, authorize the business line to purchase their own equipment, the results of the duplication of equipment, Kodak now requires the business line **** with some of the equipment, and business line to ensure that their own time to use the equipment and other business lines do not conflict, you must plan in advance the entire workflow and wait for the equipment of the free time to train, or engage in new product testing.
6. Establish a production line for small quantities. When Kodak's development work is nearing completion, it will first produce a small number of copies to test the market response as a basis for improvement. Although the establishment of a small production line, must be a large investment, but it can avoid the suspension of the general production line of waste.