Purchasing

Richard G. Weissman

Eaton gets the Medal
October 15, 2007

I was happy to see that Eaton Corporation won the Purchasing Magazine Medal of Professional Excellence. I worked for an East Coast division of Eaton from 1980-1986 and it was an excellent experience both professionally and personally. The company was spun-off almost a decade ago and is no longer owned by Eaton.

For a while, Eaton dabbled in the semiconductor equipment business. This was the farthest thing from truck axels and industrial components but for a while at least the ROI was pretty good. But there were problems. The business I was working for generated a lot of cash, but needed a lot of capital. Eaton was quite supportive and helped us purchasing folks out with financial support, a centralized contract management group, and a penchant for communication across a multi-billion and multi-divisional enterprise.

But the techies ruled the roost. They had start up money from a company that was bought by Eaton and at that point Eaton entered the semiconductor business. While the techies liked the money and the stability that a large parent can provide, they acted often like recalcitrant teenaged children; resisting the conformity but needing the allowance.

Personally, I liked the status and stature that the Eaton name brought to purchasing. We were immediately able to open decent sized lines of credit and had the backing of large corporate contracts group and a solid legal staff. Things came to a head when it came to stationary, a seemingly minor issue but one that caused considerable turmoil.

The Eaton memo template had what was called a 'typing dot'. This is where one began to type the memo. Yes, using a typewriter. Well, the management at that time thought that was ludicrous and they actually wrote a scathing memo to the president stating that they would not comply with the typing dot, or any stationary directive. Needless to say, it was met with resistance by corporate. And once they saw that behavior they really began looking at other corporate violations.

It got bad and many of the original members of the company left to begin other companies that didn't need memos with typing dots. But I hear recently that some founders of this formal local Eaton division have returned to solve some technical issues.  I'm sure that they don't even remember the typing dot crisis. But for a guy just beginning his career in purchasing, the typing dot was a big deal. I was sure to use it properly.

Posted by Richard G. Weissman on October 15, 2007 | Comments (0)