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Why well-managed factories should have nothing to hide

Andrew Hill
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At the time, in 1988, such visits were almost exclusively offered to insiders, suppliers, customers, and the occasional journalist or dignitary. But these days anyone can visit a condom factory, in Taipei. The public can also get a glimpse of aircraft being built in Seattle and peer into the production lines for beer, baseball bats or (if you happen to own one) Bentleys.

Factory tours are the public end of an unstoppable and welcome trend towards more production line transparency. People want to know what goes into the products they consume, which is why restaurants started putting their chefs and kitchens on show and why food and drinks companies pioneered the concept.

BMW's Leipzig factory is open to visitors.  Bloomberg

The idea that every assembly line should be on public display is unworkable. But at the largest companies, the two main reasons for blocking access - secrets and safety - are fast losing their relevance. At the same time, the benefits of allowing visitors in - engagement, efficiency, accountability - are becoming more obvious.

For a start, it was never as easy for a lay visitor to steal process secrets as people feared. Prototypes can always be hidden. Now, what is confidential about a production line is often buried in computer code, proprietary data, or the brains of valued staff members. As for safety, advances towards defect-free automation are making most factories secure, even attractive, places to work and visit.

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A new report from Arup points out that plants such as BMW's in Leipzig now mix assembly lines and office work. As "the lines between blue and white-collar workers continue to blur", the consultancy predicts the way factories are arranged will change further. Additive manufacturing - 3D printing - will bring production back from bleak industrial estates into cities, and even homes.

More factory owners are seeking to show off their process. Some are installing the sort of glazed walls that architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw presciently designed for the FT's print plant at London's East India Dock in 1988, so passing commuters could see the newspaper rolling off the presses. Or they are taking inspiration from brilliant combinations of form and function, such as Fiat's old Lingotto factory, where cars moved along a rising assembly line to final testing on a track on the roof overlooking Turin.

As London's National Theatre says of its recently opened walkway, from which the public can watch props and scenery being prepared for the latest productions, "audiences were never meant to see backstage". But where it is feasible to let them do so, there is much to be gained.

Some will say this new openness is mere show. But wanting to strengthen the relationship with customers - "factory as showroom", as Arup puts it - is a perfectly good reason for drawing back the veil. If Nestlé has any sense, for instance, it will start hosting tours of its Maggi noodle factories for Indian consumers worried about allegations that the popular product is not as pure as it claims.

Another good reason for opening up is that it encourages producers to clean up and improve the way they work. John Dowdy of McKinsey, who has studied decades of manufacturing productivity data, says tidiness, busyness ("people moving with purpose"), and the sight of operations managers on the shop floor are proven signals of a well-managed plant.

Some will see the proliferation of sterile factories as another sign of creeping deindustrialisation. Durex condoms are no longer made in western Europe; the Grimshaw printworks is now an anonymous data centre. At model factories, visitors are on the outside gazing in at robots. Some "factory tours" are already just museums to past prosperity, while dirty, heavy-duty, or labour-intensive parts of the supply chain have been closed down, outsourced, or offshored to places off the industrial tourist trail.

But I prefer to think of access to assembly lines as the first step in submitting all parts of any business, wherever it is located, to greater scrutiny. The fact is if you would not want to open your factory to outsiders, then perhaps you should think about closing it altogether.

Financial Times

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