Forget about being able to fix any problem that presents itself. These are solved by highly suboptimal and provisional means which are then extended indefinitely. Even the simplest common-sense ideas for solving the daily problems on the floor are rejected by the management, as these are not visible in their spreadsheets and therefore everything is 'working' as intended. Expect to see broken/worn out tools, test fixtures improvised out of plastic crates, foam pads and bungee cords and a general air of defeatism and resignment to these by those on the floor. Knackered test equipment falling to pieces, constantly being wheeled/clattered through corridors, empty kanban boards; cleared out to rush production to meet pointless targets that only make life harder for everyone on the floor and ultimately result in lower productivity the next month.
The administration has an obsession with outsourcing what it can do in-house, rather than improve efficiency and staff competency, resulting in almost unbelievable quality defects considering the application that are seldom detected until the final stages of production, at which point chaos reigns supreme!
The entire production and engineering process is governed by an ever-growing bureaucracy of Team Leaders, Production Leads, Quality Coordinators, Compliance Officers, Project Owners, Quality Production and Manufacturing Engineers, Liaison Officers, and Botanic Infusion Specialists (OK - I made the last one up!), who do nothing but send each other e-mails, are never on the floor and only hamper work with pointless procedures that do nothing but waste time and exasperate the few people who actually want to see something done by the end of their work-day. All of these individuals, not hired for their competence, form cliques/WhatsApp groups that allow them to manipulate Human Resources to do their bidding to anyone who threatens their sinecures and leverage their personal characteristics highly effectively against anyone they deem not to share their objectives - those objectives being to maintain the status-quo of constantly running on broken legs!
The products themselves appear more to be prototypes that meet a specification, but still have issues. Many sub-graduate level mistakes and suboptimal defects in the designs themselves that needlessly increase component count and create problems further down the line to be fixed through additional short-term procedures rather than tackling the root cause in the design itself. Provisional measures become permanent, ensuring an endless supply of Sisyphean tasks. Woe betide he who objects to such an ignominious state of affairs and tries to fix these problems! Such a sorry misguided individual will quickly be sent on a wild goose chase to different desks before being told that it's not a problem as the spreadsheet says everything's OK, or that it would be unapproved and therefore impossible.
