[time-nuts] HP Stories: Cesium Standards on Subs and Sperry

[Rice, Hugh (IPH Writing Systems)]

While HP wasn't a direct defense contractor, we did sell a lot of test equipment to defense contractors.    The big American submarines had a Cesium Standard or two as part of their instrumentation systems.    I know little about the application, but heard it was part of the communication and/or navigation systems.    Maybe some of you have experience with this, and can add to the story.

None the less, Sperry corporation was a sub-contractor into the greater DOD eco-system, and integrated the 5061A into some larger system they sold to the submarine builders.    Sperry was a "real" defense contractor, and had to live by all the DOD rules.    There were a number of defense contractors in Silicon Valley, with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company being perhaps the largest employer in the area.   Both my father, and my wife's father were engineers at LSMC for their careers.   We used to joke at my High School that "everyone's dad worked for Lockheed."    Thus, DOD companies were not a foreign concept to me.   But they way the DOD procurement process worked was very unlike how HP worked and interfaced with our commercial customers.

Sperry wanted to turn HP into defense supplier when they purchased 5061A's from us.   First, they had their special "Sperry Blue" paint job.   Our sheet metal and paint shops had to custom build the cosmetic parts for Sperry in a lovely baby blue color.    Next, they wanted to make sure what was purchased was exactly what was specified.  EXACTLY.   The technique to enforce this was to document and inspect everything.    A special Sperry material list was created, with every resistor, screw and wire listed.   HP part numbers, approved suppliers, and supplier part numbers, for everything.   It turns out there are a lot of components in a 5061A.     Sperry would then insist that HP segregate all the components that were going into their sacred 5061As, and have our incoming quality department inspect every single tiny part, to ensure it was the correct component, coming from proper suppliers.   The attention to detail was both impressive and maddening.    This was way outside our normal manufacturing processes, and a huge hassle.

The representatives from Sperry were from a different planet than HP people.    This part of Sperry had it's headquarters in the NYC area, and the lead representative was like a movie character from a God Father movie.   Short, plump, arrogant, Italian, in charge.  He was THE MAN, and expected to be treated as such.  He was cordial on the surface, but was unmovable when trying to negotiate what we though would be a sensible compromise of some kind.     To him, change, any change, was bad.    Because if anything ever happened, for the rest of human history, that could be traced back to a change he allowed, he would be held accountable.    He wanted to be held accountable for buying 8  Cesium Standards, not for adding risk to that purchase.    He had a young assistant to grind through all the details.   This guy was about 30, and knew his role in the game.   There were procurement rules his company must follow, and his job was to make sure every detail got done.  EVERY DETAIL.    He brought exactly zero judgment or critical thinking to the process.

Mr. Mafia man told a story about why not changing things was so important.  As I recall, Sperry made some kind of targeting system for artillery, probably dating back to WWII, and a vendor had upgraded the insulation on some wiring from a fabric weave to more modern extruded plastic insulation.    For some reason this led to a failure.  (Likely heat related).   This was used as indisputable proof that even the most innocent looking changes can cause a problem, problems are the enemy, and change was it's root cause.

And then HP invented the 5061B, and changed a bunch of stuff from the 5061A.   Sperry had a contract that required another batch of HP Cesium Standards, and  wanted nothing to do with the 5061B.   They had made several previous purchases of 5061As, and their overall system had not changed, and they didn't want the Cesium Standard to Change either.    Since I was the 5061B guy, and young and expendable and ignorant (never had worked with Sperry before), I was assigned the task of getting Sperry happy with the 5061B.    I remember Jeanie Young, an energetic women from our marketing department being the lead contact with Sperry on business stuff (fuss with contracts, and be responsible for the wine-and-dine aspects), as I did the "engineering".

I think our basic position is that not only we don't make the 5061A any more, we COULD NOT make a 5061A.   Either take the 5061B, or nothing.   While the 5061B wasn't exactly the 5061A, nothing else available in the world was even close.   They were stuck with us and the hated 5061B and all its changes.    One of the even more annoying aspects of the 5061B is that we had gone thorough many of the systems, and upgraded older "Code 3 and 4" parts to "Code 1 and 2" parts.  (Recall the past story about HP preferred part process.)   So there were dozens of places where there were part number changes.   It was like the 5061B had small pox in full bloom.    I have faint memories of Sperry trying to turn the 5061B back into a 5061A, one reverted changed resistor at a time.   But it could not have been that bad, because we only had to deal with them for a month or so.

Sperry had no choice but to reset to the 5061B, and suck up the risk.  They were not happy about this.   Their solution was to document the snot out of the 5061B, and make extra sure that the abomination we were selling them in place of perfect 5061A was made exactly to spec.   Mr. Detail Man had point on this, and nothing escaped his attention.   For us free-wheeling HP guys, this was torture.    I remember working with Bob Ponzini, an experienced quality manager who had gotten sucked into the Sperry experience.   He was about 20 years my senior and a really great guy.    We were grinding through some inane detail that Sperry had insisted on, and collapsed into hysterical giggle fit.    We had been overwhelmed by the culture shock of working with Sperry.

But looking back, it wasn't that bad.  Just shut up, work through the details, and get it done.    We used to complain that HP never made any money on these contracts, because of all the overhead Sperry consumed.    Now possessing a better understanding of fixed vs. variable costs in real businesses, the Sperry contracts were good money.   Yeah, they were a hassle, but they were also incremental revenue, which HPs Santa Clara Division desperately needed.    As for the overhead, well, we didn't hire any more people, or pay anyone any overtime.   We just absorbed it.    So whatever extra we charged Sperry was in reality pure profit, because frankly, we didn't have anything else to do.   We had managed to sell Sperry some of our fixed cost overhead, of which we had an abundant supply.

And while HP Santa Clara had its issues, I also realized that I had an awesome job compared to what Mr. Detail had to do every day.    Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective to appreciate what you have.

Have a nice weekend,

Hugh Rice