All Aboard for the Ride of Our Lives!

In 1825 the world changed when the Age of Rail was born with the opening of the Darlington-to-Stockton line and the demonstration that a self-powered mobile steam engine could pull more trucks of coal than a team of horses.

This launched the industrial revolution into a new phase by improving the capability to transport heavy loads over long distances more conveniently, reliably, quickly, and cheaply than could canals or roads.

Within 25 years the country was criss-crossed by thousands of miles of railway track and thousands more miles were rapidly spreading across the world. We take it for granted now but this almost overnight success was the result of over 100 years of painful innovation and improvement. Iron rail tracks had been in use for a long time – particularly in quarries and ports. Newcomen’s atmospheric steam engine had been pumping water out of mines since 1712; James Watt and Matthew Boulton had patented their improved separate condenser static steam engine in 1775; and Richard Trevethick had built a self-propelled high pressure steam engine called “Puffing Devil” in 1801. So why did it take so long for the idea to take off? The answer was quite simple – it needed the lure of big profits to attract the entrepreneurs who had the necessary influence and cash to make it happen at scale and pace.  The replacement of windmills and watermills by static steam engines had already allowed factories to be built anywhere – rather than limiting them to the tops of windy hills and the sides of fast flowing rivers. But it was not until the industrial revolution had achieved sufficient momentum that road and canal transport became a serious constraint to further growth of industry, wealth and the British Empire.

But not everyone was happy with the impact that mechanisation brought – the Luddites were the skilled craftsmen who opposed the use of mechanised looms that could be operated by lower-skilled and therefore cheaper labour.  They were crushed in 1812 by political forces more powerful than they were – and the term “luddite” is now used for anyone who blindly opposes change from a position self-protection.

Only 140 years later it was all over for the birthplace of the Rail Age – the steam locomotive was relegated to the museums when Dr Richard Beeching , the efficiency-focussed Technical Director of ICI, published his reports that led to the cost-improvement-programme (CIP) that reorganised the railways and led to the loss of 70,000 jobs, hundreds of small “unprofitable” stations and 1000’s of miles of track.  And the reason for the collapse of the railways was that roads had leap-frogged both canals and railways because the “internal combustion engine” proved a smaller, lighter, more powerful, cheaper and more flexible alternative to steam or horses.

It is of historical interest that Henry Ford developed the production line to mass produce automobiles at a price that a factory worker could afford – and Toyoda invented a self-stopping mechanised loom that improved productivity dramatically by preventing damaged cloth being produced if a thread broke by accident. The historical links come together because Toyoda sold the patents to his self-stopping loom to fund the creation of the Toyota Motor Company which used Henry Ford’s production-line design and integrated the Toyoda self-monitoring, stopping and continuous improvement philosophy.

It was not until twenty years after British Rail was created that Japan emerged as an industrial superpower by demonstrating that it had learned how to improve both quality and reduce cost much more effectively than the “complacent” Europe and America. The tables were turned and this time it was the West that had to learn – and quickly.  Unfortunately not quickly enough. Other developing countries seized the opportunity that mass mechanisation, customisation and a large, low-expectation, low-cost workforce offered. They now produce manufactured goods at prices that European and American companies cannot compete with. Made in Britain has become Made in China.

The lesson of history has been repeated many times – innovations are like seeds that germinate but do not disseminate until the context is just right – then they grow, flower, seed and spread – and are themselves eventually relegated to museums by the innovations that they spawned.

Improvement Science has been in existence for a long time in various forms, and it is now finding more favourable soil to grow as traditional reactive and incremental improvement methods run out of steam when confronted with complex system problems. Wicked problems such as a world population that is growing larger and older at the same time as our reserves of non-renewable natural resources are dwindling.

The promise that Improvement Science offers is the ability to avoid the boom-to-bust economic roller-coaster that devastates communities twice – on the rise and again on the fall. Improvement Science offers an approach that allows sensible and sustainable changes to be planned, implemented and then progressively improved.

So what do we want to do? Watch from the sidelines and hope, or leap aboard and help?

And remember what happened to the Luddites!

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