Zero-Defects Mentality

[BayonetBrant]

in every QTB I attended in the late 90s had a slide on Dental Cat IV's (Cat IV meant you were non-deployable until the issue was cleared up - usually just behind on annual screenings). If there was a Cat IV, the O-6 would grill you on why guys were Cat IV and what you were doing to fix them. He wouldn't worry about why your METL was assessed at the level it was, or what exercises were coming up to improve the METL, he wanted to know why your soldiers weren't - in his words - "ready to go to war."

Did I mention we were a non-deployable TDA unit?

It quickly became clear that the priorities were Dental Cat IVs, no one on the police blotter, high PT scores, and civilian education. MOS-related training be damned - our guys needed to be "ready to go to war" and "challenged as leaders".

[Schmedlap]

JKM,

That was the best example that I've ever read. You nailed it.

[Ken White]

Pete: Now that I think a bit, you're probably correct on Starry -- I believe it was one of the TRADOC deputies who pushed it and I know it was in the 74-75 (± a couple of years) period that it held sway. I can distinctly recall the ZD stickers Eighth Army put out last time I was in Korea, 75-76. Starry didn't get to TRADOC until after I retired in 77. Also agree that it was being derided by the early 80s. Shy Meyer hated the idea...

The term was used off and on for years in Army (and other) management circles but it didn't really get applied to operations in troop units until the mid-70s as I recall. That's the usage to which I thought you were referring and to which I referred though I didn't make that clear.

Slap: One of my wife's Uncles worked at MM Orlando for about 25 years including in that time frame. Agree that ZD in this respect started at Martin and that it preceded Crosby but it didn't hit Army units until the mid-70s -- and that was before Crosby is alleged to have introduced the phrase.

All those management Gurus essentially steal and package ideas...

jkm 101 fso and you have it right. It was and is to be applied to technical processes, not to things people do -- that vignette he cited displays exactly the mentality that was fostered by the 'concept' in the mid 70s. The Army picked up a lot of bad habits in Viet Nam and immediately thereafter. Too many of them are still with us.

[wm]

Other ways of understanding the "zero defects" concept are the phrases "practiced infantryman's eye" and "attention to detail."

The focus on these "details" happens to come about, I think, because resources may not be available to assess whether a unit is able to accomplish its mission. As a result, indicators are used instead. This line of reasoning is based on the fallacious presumption that your attention to detail, like keeping that "autobahn" in the barracks at the 7th Army NCO Academy spit shined, indicates that you will be able to get the big things right too.
Even if the extrapolation from detail to big picture achievement is correct, the big picture may vary as well. The meaning of mission accomplishment changes depending on time and place. What indicators one uses will probably change as a result.

Leaders accustomed to peacetime will use different indicators than leaders used to combat.
--It's pretty unlikely that a soldier will get blown up by an IED on Fort Bragg's Sicily Drop Zone, but that soldier may well have a parachute malfunction during a practice drop.
--A units' billets on Fort Benning will probably not be overrun by the irate citizens of Columbus, but add a little alcohol and some of those citizens may get in a fight with a group of troops at a Redsticks game.
--A Fobbit SGM may look at whether/how you wear your reflective belt; a PSG in a COP perimeter is more likely to look at whether/how you put out your aiming stakes for the machine gun. But at some level they both are trying to "conserve the fighting force" AKA keep troops safe (I hope).

Good leadership entails being able to distinguish what kinds of things "count" when assessing what really matters and applying that based on when and where one is.

[slapout9]

1964 US Army Missile Command
Title: Zero Defects


http://www.monmouth.army.mil/histori...e=Audio_Visual

Cain't watch on computer.....have to order it

[Pete]

The following is from a chronology of major events for the year 1964 on the Redstone Arsenal website. Gosh, mention of 1964 is enough to make a guy nostalgic for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution :

23 June 64 MICOM spearheaded DOD's massive drive, known as Zero Defects, to re-emphasize pride in workmanship and to bolster quality achievements throughout American industry. The command hosted a special seminar on its Zero Defects program to provide a pattern for implementing a DOD-wide prevention program which could be used by all military and industrial organizations. This conference was the first such event ever held by a DOD agency.

25 June 64 The REDSTONE missile, replaced by the PERSHING I, was classified obsolete.

25 June 64 The last CORPORAL artillery unit was inactivated.

[Ken White]

dod's massive drive, known as zero defects, to re-emphasize pride in workmanship and to bolster quality achievements throughout american industry

McNamara'a whiz Kids promulgated it but it was aimed at DoD industrial efforts, it did not permeate the Army as the mid 70s re-issue did... :d :d

[slapout9]

McNamara'a whiz Kids promulgated it but it was aimed at DoD industrial efforts, it did not permeate the Army as the mid 70s re-issue did... :d :d

Nah that ain't it...... in 64 you hadn't been out of the Marines long enough to understand advanced Army thinking yet.

Go to the link below and scroll down until you come to Zero Defects and you will find that on 25 April 1966 it Exploded onto Ft. Jackson and had an annual celebration 21 April 1967.


http://www.jackson.army.mil/Museum/H...PTER%20IV.html


A lot of folks have a problem with the fact that the Army won the Cold War and The Race To The Moon all by themselves!!!!been going downhill since then by listening to the wrong folks.