<story><title>Getting Ahead by Being Inefficient</title><url>https://fs.blog/2019/01/getting-ahead-inefficient/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>wenc</author><text>Most of the commenters here get it.&lt;p&gt;Efficiency is an outcome of optimization, and optimization is a form of specialization with respect to the environment&amp;#x2F;assumptions. With any kind of specialization there&amp;#x27;s a trade off. If the environment or set of assumption changes, one can be worse off than if one did not optimize at all.&lt;p&gt;Also, optimization at the wrong level of detail&amp;#x2F;abstraction can be costly. One example is in auto manufacturing.&lt;p&gt;U.S. car manufacturers have traditionally tended to spec tight tolerances at the component level, with the assumption that everything will fit when assembled. This can be very expensive to get right, and the assumption of perfect final fit is not always borne out.&lt;p&gt;Japanese auto manufacturers however, despite their reputation for perfectionism, have tended to be looser with component level tolerances, but paid more attention to assembly tolerances (functional build [1]). They understood what tolerances needed to be tight and those that mattered less in the final build. They embraced natural imperfections, and made sure the rest of the system accepted the lower part tolerances. It turns out this led to higher overall quality at lower cost. (Detroit has now embraced functional build)&lt;p&gt;(The Japanese approach is analogous to focusing on integration testing as opposed to exhaustive unit testing)&lt;p&gt;[1] Functional Build &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.adandp.media&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;building-better-vehicles-via-functional-build&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.adandp.media&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;building-better-vehicles-v...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Getting Ahead by Being Inefficient</title><url>https://fs.blog/2019/01/getting-ahead-inefficient/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bluGill</author><text>Efficiency is a sub-goal of getting things done. IF you cannot get the job done you are out of the running no matter how efficient you are at your failure.&lt;p&gt;Henry Ford got more and more efficient at making the model T. At first his customers appreciated the lower prices he was able to deliver for them. However as time went on his competitors who were not as efficient at building any one car were able to build a new car with features like electric start that were worth paying extra for. The model T could never get that as the assembly line was too efficient to allow the extra steps to add new parts, the jigs had been optimized to the point where they couldn&amp;#x27;t be changed without a large set of other changes that his line&amp;#x27;s couldn&amp;#x27;t handle.</text></comment>