🚀 go-pugleaf

Frank, colleagues:

Yes Frank, you can assign numeric values to just about anything, then crunch
those numbers to death.  That is rather precisely what was done in the U.S.
Department of Defense during the Southeast Asian conflict.  The North
Vietnamese didn't answer their surveys.  So "estimates" were substituted.
Their preferences were rather clear but not readily quantified.  The
not-quantified was ignored.  The simplest quantification was likewise
ignored:  The historical success rate for that approach was zero.  Failures
were numerous.

An autopilot works on essentially three very reliable, precisely
quantifiable inputs: altitude, vertical velocity and heading.  People, on
the other hand, are unpredictable in most things in the short run (whatever
that is) and can change dramatically in the long run (whatever that is).
That makes the tools you cite useful but unreliable.  Those tools gave Ford
the Edsel before they gave the U.S. its first military defeat.

I am ". . . mindful that not all that can be measured should be."  That's
what I said.

Ray Martin
RMartin@texas.net

-----Original Message-----
From: FIsackson@aol.com <FIsackson@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list QUALITY <QUALITY@PUCC.BITNET>
Date: Monday, August 17, 1998 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: Supplier metrics


>Mr. Martin posted (in part):
>>Metrics, a.k.a., everything can be quantified.  Wrong!  How many times
must
>>this be relearned?
>
>The late Frank Sinatra, a paragon of musical quality, once recorded
>"Everybody has the right to be wrong." The first amendment to the
>Constitution of The United States further grants to its citizens the
>right to express, among other things, a wrongful opinion. Mr. Martin thus
>is well-defended but no less incorrect.
>
>Everything that can be measured or described in words can be quantified.
>In psychology we find scales for parental love and community ability, in
>medicine, for pain, in politics, preferences from among multiple
>candidates when even Key's voter's paradox applies and even in the realm
>of marketing we can measure consumer preferences for color, taste,
>packaging, desirability, sensory perception, cleanliness and other
>seemingly unquantifiable attributes. The mathematical techniques are
>well-known ranging from multidimensional scaling to newer methods using
>the fuzzy logic of Zadeh, Kosko et. al.
>
>One should be mindful that not all that can be measured should be.
>Vannevar Bush, who headed the agency that initially acted as overseer for
>the Manhattan Project, wrote, "It is not enough to discover something
>new. It must mean something when we find it." In the Talmud one can read
>"Tofasto merubo lo tofasto." He who seeks too much finds nothing.
>
>Kwenda mzuri,
>
>Frank Isackson
>re:SOLUTIONS
>205 West Walnut Avenue
>Unit A
>Monrovia, CA 91016
>626 358 1340
>626 358 1322 Fax
>fisackson@aol.com
>