Orrin Woodward is an entrepreneur that has succeeded in a number of arenas throughout his life. Prior to co-authoring his bestselling book Launching a Leadership Revolution and becoming one of the most sought after leadership development speakers across the globe, Orrin Woodward started his career as an engineer for GM and climbed up the ranks rapidly.
At the age of 25, Orrin became the youngest winner of a prestigious engineering award “The National Benchmarking Award.” The International Benchmarking Clearinghouse presented Orrin with this award in recognition of his astounding benchmarking research on automotive fuel pumps. The two-year study that Orrin conducted gave the industry a better understanding of the technology, trends, and correlations of various competitors’ fuel pumps, which allowed vast improvements for the future production of AC Delco Systems’ fuel pump. This research resulted in massive enhancements that saved the company a great deal of money during the production stage, significantly improved durability and efficiency, and reduced the vibration level to limit unwanted noise for the driver.
This award recognizes excellence and is not handed out lightly. Orrin is adept at taking something that is good and making it great. This is one reason why Orrin Woodward has four patents (three in production at one time) to his name. This feat is mind boggling, as many engineers will go their entire career without developing even one patent, but Orrin put his mind to work at the young age of 25 and cranked out four patents in a relatively short amount of time.
The success that Orrin achieved grabbed the attention of a number of people across the nation, sending them on a race to recruit him for the knowledge that he could lend to their firms. He accepted an offer and became a successful consultant, developing further benchmarking studies. Orrin retired after a few years of consulting, developed a large number of successful businesses across the country, and is now excited about the impact that his leadership books are having with readers all over the world. View a PDF file of the 1994 Engineering Update article about Orrin’s award here or read the text of the article below.
COVER STORY
AC Delco Systems
Benchmarking’s
Benchmarking has been defined as the search for, and implementation of, best practices. Benchmarking supports the evolution of an organization that continuously improves. Benchmarking is also a Quality Network Action Strategy and a key AC Delco Systems initiative.
AC Delco Systems won a national award for its work on benchmarking automotive fuel pumps (detailed in June 1992 issue of Engineering Update). A paper describing AC Delco Systems’ benchmarking success story was recognized as an outstanding example of both the process and potential of benchmarking. The authors, Orrin Woodward and John Predmore, presented their work on Technical Competitive Analysis (TCA) at a benchmarking conference in June 1994.
AC Delco Systems’ two year study of competitors’ fuel pumps pinpointed major differences among the motors of the various pumps, and revealed some interesting trends and correlations. “Best-in-class” test results were summarized as targets for all future pump designs. Engineers were able to implement this new-found knowledge and incorporate several major improvements in both current and future generation fuel pumps. These improvements resulted from a better understanding of motor technology, not direct copying. The new generation AC Delco Systems fuel pump will leapfrog the best of the current competition in several key product attributes.
Some of the improvements that resulted from this project were: durability of motor brushes was doubled, motor efficiency was doubled, and vibration (which contributes to noise) was reduced by a factor of five.
The non-profit agency sponsoring the Benchmarking Awards, the American Productivity & Quality Center, works with business, labor, government, health care and academia to improve productivity, quality, and quality of work life. The Center’s International Benchmarking Clearinghouse, which began operation in 1992, provides a number of products and services to assist organizations with their benchmarking efforts.
The purpose of the Benchmarking Awards is to provide criteria for self-assessment, recognize teams and organizations that provide models of excellence, and extend the state-of-the-art by encouraging and communicating new techniques and the results of on-going research.
Criteria for the Benchmarking Awards include overall benchmarking approach, implementation of findings and documented savings. In 1993, the inaugural year of the Benchmarking Awards, there were seven finalists but no awards were given (a reflection of the high standards set by the judging committee). This year, AC Delco Systems was one of the seven organizations nationwide receiving an award. Other functions benchmarked include: maintenance, customer satisfaction measurement, coolant recovery, and education planning.
For more information about competitive product benchmarking or the Technical Competitive Analysis Quality Council, contact John Predmore at 8-387-8553. Training and support materials for product teams and TCA champions include a videotaped summary of the fuel pump analysis.
Engineering Update October/November/December 1994
More...