Never Mind The Buzzwords.
Roll Up Your Sleeves

The Feigenbaum brothers' advice is pragmatic, and it saves companies big bucks



Although less well-known than the late W. Edward Deming or Joseph M. Juran, Armand (Val) Feigenbaum, too, is one of the founding fathers of quality. While Deming emerged as the movement's visionary and Juran became its teacher and trainer, Feigenbaum, who wrote Total Quality Control 45 years ago, is the hands-on implementer.

Val and his brother, Don consider themselves engineers who focus on the nitty-gritty details of what makes business work. "Management isn't an art to them. It's a science," says James L. Bailey, an executive vice-president at Citicorp, which hired the brothers to improve credit-card operations. "They break business down into discrete pieces and examine it."

The goal is to drive out of operations "failure costs" the aggregate cost of failing to do things right. Eliminating one inefficiency — a defect, say, or an excessively complex process — reduces total product costs, Val notes. "Less money is spent on inspection, complaints, and product service, for instance," he says. Moreover, as you reduce failure costs, "by definition you improve customer satisfaction." The Feigenbaums estimate that failure costs average 25% of gross sales in most major American companies. At world-class companies, however, they are no greater than 10%.

Both brothers fit the stereotype of New Englanders as reserved, hardworking, pragmatic, and conservative. The duo shuns buzzwords and acronyms, and they disdain slash-and burn cost reduction, management fads, and quick fixes. Their approach calls for a roll-up-your-sleeves analysis of each step in a business process. "We've always been skeptics about selling labels," says Val. "We're about creating results and relationships with customers." For two men who have the ear of some of the most powerful executives in the U. S. and Europe, Val and Don share a remarkably untouched quality. Their modest center-hall Colonial house in Pittsfield is just a half-mile from where they grew up.

Never married, the two live, work, socialize, and relax together. A treasured possession is the still evolving Lionel train layout in their basement. Both play the piano: Don favors Beethoven and Brahms, while Val enjoys Chopin. Val's hip replacements let the brothers continue a good-natured sports rivalry: On the links, Val usually bests Don, who often gets his revenge at tennis. "Other than the normal kinds of fights that any two people have, we've always gotten along very well," says Don. "We have a complementary relationship."

Another thing the brothers share is devotion to their late mother, Hilda Vallin, a concert pianist who instilled in them a fascination with education and the arts. Their house seems a near-shrine to her. The eulogy that Val delivered at her funeral in 1963 sits with her framed photo atop the grand piano. It is bound in black leather and bears the title "A Beautiful Person." Her dishes are displayed in the dining room cabinet. In her honor, the brothers have endowed a room in the Berkshire Athenaeum and sponsor an annual lecture at a local temple.

However, it was their father, Samuel Frederick Feigenbaum, a CPA who ran his own accounting firm, who advised Val to skip college and go straight from Pittsfield High School to work for GE as an apprentice toolmaker in 1937. "His point was that if I wanted to be an engineer, I should learn how to make things with my hands," recalls Val. "It always gave me an edge."

While on GE's payroll, Val earned a trio of degrees, including a doctorate in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He climbed the corporate ladder quickly, becoming director of quality at GE's expansive Schenectady (N.Y) operations at 23.

In 1946, after a stint in the Navy, Don also joined GE as an engineer. Eventually he became a manager in the company's jet engine business. In 1961, he left GE to become general manager of consultants International Systems Co. He was already something of a pioneer in "value engineering"–a method of exploring whether parts or products can be made in a cheaper and more cost-effective way. In 1968, Val–by then GE's worldwide director of manufacturing and quality control–gave up his 34th-floor office on New York's Park Avenue to join Don in launching General Systems from their hometown in the Berkshires.

Between them, the brothers had 42 years of GE operating experience and a Rolodex full of contacts. Their very first morning in business, they received a call from Volvo of Sweden that led to their first assignment, a two-year job applying systems-engineering techniques. Success there led to work for Fiat, Pirelli, Renault, Alfa Romeo, and Volkswagen. In the U.S., two companies run by former GE executives, Memorex and compressor maker Copeland Corp., were their first clients.

In every assignment, the pair works closely with client teams, guiding them through an engineering methodology– their "technology"–that scrutinizes each part of a business process. "The first step is to define what the costs of failure are and to measure them very clearly," says Val. "What you are doing is putting in the hands of people a way to manage the improvement in value and costs." At Newport News’ shipyard operations, he says, failure costs were regularly posted on boards to keep employees abreast of their progress in getting rid of them.

To gain the support and enthusiasm of employees, the Feigenbaums aim for quick results. "Results become self-generating," says Don. "When people see it's going to help, it jacks them up to go to the next level." Part of what clients are paying for, of course, is experience. The Feigenbaums have seen the same inefficiencies at companies around the world. "Val's A Wise Old Fox," says Richard K. Davidson, chairman of client Union Pacific Railroad, who credits the Feigenbaums with cutting derailment costs by more than 50%, from $84 million to $38 million. "He has climbed the mountain to look at the bear many times."

Small wonder the brothers see no reason even to think of retirement. "My grandmother had an expression that people rust out a lot faster than they wear out," says Don. "We wouldn't be happy unless we were active. We're doing what interests us. It's fun, and it's rewarding to see results."

By John A. Byrne in Pittsfield, Mass.