ABSTRACT
Cummins Engine Company has taken a broader approach to avoiding risk. It separated the components of its product, diesel engines, into several categories of novelty, ranging from standard parts to those few unique portions of the engine where its creativity and expertise truly makes a better engine. Like many of the approaches, this is really a mindset that must be assimilated by everyone on the team—indeed, by whole organization—in order to be effective. Everyone should be aware of the high-risk items and push them to the top of their priority lists. In most companies, purposely designing experiments that might fail goes against the success-driven culture of “doing it right the first time.” Consequently, in order to keep the job while “designing for failure,” the strategy of early, small failures must be communicated to and accepted by everyone up to the CEO level.
