The Engine That Could: Seventy-Five Years of Values-Driven Change at Cummins Engine Company

I'm still reading this book, but so far it is very interesting. The book covers the history of Cummins, some history of diesel engines, some american history, and some great personal stories. The personal stories of Clessie Cummins and W.G. Irwin are fascinating. I bought this book to learn more about the development of diesel engines in America, but enjoy reading the book because of the personal stories and Cummins business story.

Bought as a special gift for Christmas for a dedicated Diesel Diehard. He LOVES IT!

Amazon delivered this book without a dust jacket in spite of the dust jacket shown on Amazon's web site for this book.

An undertaking of this sort may have limited results from the start. One must first identify the best observers and then find them to register their thoughts. For example, at one time...in the early 1970s...Vaughn Beals, an engineer was seen as the best manager that ever darkened Cummins' doors. He left in frustration when his plan for main engine plant improvements was vetoed. The 'troika', Schacht, Henderson and Hackett persuaded J. Irwin Miller that the 'three legged strategy' was the way to go! The strategy was Base Business, Allied Businesses and Emerging Business. K-2 Skis wet t shirts 'contests' and Jan Sport did not entirely fit.Mr. Beals initiated the first Cummins top down management development for all employees in the Research and Engineering Center. Dr. Bob House and Dr. John Rizzo thus began organization development at Cummins relying on the survey research method. Their survey work (all of R & E) and a portion of corporate indicated high levels of role ambiguity and role conflict across the organization. The separate employee survey after the 1972 DWU strike designed by professors from the Indiana University School of Business and the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan after years of delays was published by a senior HR manager in a very abbreviated form in a Cummins official employee magazine.During this same time frame Dr. Jay Forrester of MIT met from time to time with the most senior management of Cummins to discuss his ideas of "Industrial Dynamics." It was said that Dr. Forrester was very frustrated with this process. At the same time Mr. Miller employed a Dr. Griest, a psychiatrist to meet with and counsel staff at the Irwin Management Company. His confidential assessments of matters in Columbus for Mr. Miller will remain so in perpetuity. There was no assessment of senior managers other than those surveys mentioned here. Another brilliant business school grad described two of the three managers sponsored by Mr. Miller as "afraid of their employees."In 1968 Dr. Fred Herzberg was invited by Jim Henderson and Ted Marston to lecture small groups of specially designated managers in job design/job enrichment for their new college hires. Bob Wroblewski headed this effort. This was modeled on a similar approach at AT &T. At about this same time, James Liebig, a graduate of the Yale Divinity School, joined Cummins as the first Director of Cummins Corporate Responsibility. Dr. Fred Herzberg returned many times to Columbus at $5.000.00 per day and advised in the new outlying manufacturing units startups. After Vaughn Beals efforts in R & E, Job Enrichment/Job Design became the organizational change strategy. This very first effort in Cummins Columbus manufacturing in Plant II under Don Drummond was followed by a large plant supervision seminar across all of Columbus, "the Advanced Management Seminar" sponsored by Leo Everitt (Hal Smitson, Brook Tuttle also participated) and conducted off-site by consultants from Educational Systems & Design. A Malcom Shaw was the principal of this firm. An early job design effort led by E. J. Bryan with the Cummins engine test area was also undertaken.Most of these manufacturing supervisors had never been in any kind of supervisory training or development. As the reader has noticed Cummins was spending considerable funds on consultant and employee development programs. Little or none of these funds impacted the Diesel Worker's Union directly. Much made for employment possibilities for people in other states.All of this is to say...including later formalized leader and management seminars...the late 1960s early 1970s was a genuine period to begin the improvement and to sharpen focus on development of Cummins employees. A number of the HR managers including the first Organization DevelopmentManafer, R. J. Wroblewski, involved at this time were deployed by the early 1970s into Columbus operating plants. Many of these same managers and Columbus plant managers were involved in innovative employee planning, development and operation with new outlying manufacturing plants. Columbus manfacturing began to hire female and more minority applicants for shop employment. The shop employment process was modernized and completely re-designed.Later in this Cummins stream of employee-focused-development, Hank Schacht and Jim Henderson charged two professors Bill Hall and Joe White from the University of Michigan to develop first, the Cummins Management Seminar and secondly the Cummins Leadership Seminar. Senior American managers attended these seminars beginning after the mid 1970s. The first Cummins Leadership Seminar in Europe was held at Cambridge in England with Sir William Hawthorne as host at Churchill College. Hank Shacht debriefed. Bill Hall and Joe White, of course conducted the week long seminar.Unknown to many even those engaged in Cummins corporate orgranization development were the innovative work/people designs for Cummins first hands-on continental operation in Mechelen, Belgium led by Jan Buschman. One impediment to the success of innovations in this start-up European parts distribution center was the dis-interest of the London management. They got mixed signals from senior management at the beginning of their interest in Lord Bullock’s commision (1977-1979) on “Industrial Democracy” or what, in Germany, was called “mit bestimmung” – “with the same voice”. The Germans were successful, England not as well. Democracy in a royal kingdom is one thing, quite another in a ‘social-democratic’ state.None of these innovative efforts could have been possible without Plant managers such as Leo Everitt, Ron Gratz, Dick Allison, Don Drummond and Jan Buschman. The key consultant, of course, was Dr. Fred Herzberg to whom this brief statement is dedicated.

This is why i own a Dodge Diesel Truck

Fast delivery my Dad loved it Thanks...would recommend seller to other buyers

It can be quite difficult to know how a company got where it is. That is certainly the case with Cummins, Inc. Cummins is a successful manufacturer of diesel engines, supplying customers in trucking, power generation, marine, and many other industries. If large, heavy-duty diesels are required, Cummins is a premier supplier. However, a company such as Cummins does not become a premier supplier overnight; it had to have a beginning, growth, successes and failures. This book chronicles the founding of Cummins, its growth, and the company's high points and low points to the mid-1990's.There are several ways to look at this book. It is a history book. It is a case study. It is literature. Let us examine how this book behaves in each of its aspects.As literature, this book succeeds. The writing is clear and coherent. The authors organized the chapters well, though I had to get used to the overlapping of years in the later chapters. I also found the story captivating. Though I knew that Cummins was successful, the early decades of the company were uncertain. How would W.G. Irwin and Clessie Cummins turn an invention into a successful business? Though I knew the end of the story, in a manner of speaking, the story pulled me onward.The authors researched this book well. More than forty pages provide acknowledgements, interviews and references cited in the chapters. This book is an excellent reference book that describes in detail a small portion of our industrial history. There are many features to this history. It provides a lot of detail regarding several of the key figures involved in the creation in development of Cummins, thus to some extent it is biographical. This book also describes aspects of Columbus and conditions throughout the United States during the formation of Cummins, so it also contains cultural information. This book also provides an overview of some of the key technologies that helped Cummins succeed.The value of patents to Cummins also fascinated me. Indeed, had patents not existed, it is likely that Cummins would never have existed in the first place. If Cummins had been created, it would have failed without patents. How could this be? Clessie Cummins thought he could build a better diesel engine, and was doing his best to avoid or get out from under the patents of others. His solution: develop a completely new design. Clessie had a vision of a mechanism that took him years to develop, while Cummins, Inc. continued to lose money. Once Clessie developed a workable solution, patents enabled Cummins to start earning money after two decades of losses. Here is a lesson regarding the value of intellectual property. Intellectual property gave Cummins time to experiment and create and then permitted the company to become competitive. Those looking for the benefit of intellectual property need look no further than Cummins.Yet another aspect of this book is its value as a case study. Cummins did all the wrong things. It lost money for two decades. It relied on technology that conventional wisdom said would not work. It made corporate responsibility an integral part of the company from the beginning, long before corporate responsibility became fashionable. Yet, Cummins learned from its mistakes, as well as its successes. In fact, the management team at Cummins supported the authors of this book by providing them with almost unlimited access to company documents and personnel. Cummins has always valued integrity and honesty, and laying out the company's path merely acknowledges the facts of the road Cummins travelled to success, even when that road took wrong turns and hit dead ends.Business managers have a lot to learn from this book. The lessons are not easy ones because the lessons sometimes require managers to do things that seem counterintuitive. Sometimes the lessons are obscure. Following the lessons of this book will hardly guarantee success for a business, but it may give hope to a patient and clever entrepreneur that there is light at the end of the tunnel.Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and David B. Sicilia have written a book that should appeal to many. Fans of history, particularly industrial history will find this book fascinating. Researchers into American culture may find some things of interest as well. This book also provides interesting insights into the history of Indiana and Columbus. Business managers will find this book to be an intriguing case study. On the other hand, if you are just looking for a well-written non-fiction book, this one is enjoyable.Enjoy!

This is a really good book.In particular, I enjoyed the mix of the technical history of the Cummins engine innovations coupled with the battle the business had to fight to stay alive at different points in the history of the company.If you want to know more about Cummins the company or just want to read about a business that persevered, this is a good choice.