By the late 1980s it had met the goal, using the same factory and without ever stopping production. Nobody was fired. TI didn't just put new technology into old structures. The jobs themselves changed. For example, it suddenly became too expensive to have hordes of supervisors roaming the floor, so regular employees now have IBM PCs right next to them to relay information supervisors once collected.
Workers can navigate through graphic representations of every stage of the assembly process.
TI also devoted a lot of effort to measurement and goal setting. The team used banners and posters to announce targets and gains, and threw a party every time it achieved a new level of production. Everyone from the shop floor up to the VP level was constantly monitoring our progress against that mountain. The No. 1 lesson we learned was the value of having a strong business case that people can rally around. By including the workers at every stage, the company found putting technology into their hands to be almost a nonissue.