Obsessive Cleanliness as Quality Standard

““What a surprise it is (he wrote), when just outside the typical Alsatian village of Molsheim you come across a ham- let of long, low buildings with brassbound doors of polished oak and with cement paths between them, all so clean and tidy, not a loose stone or spot of dust about anywhere . . . A car factory, that? Surely not! and yet .. . “It was my first visit to the Bugatti factory. He had asked me to go on a Saturday afternoon—‘We'll be able to talk quietly then.’ “There were no workmen about, the place was desérted. And this added to the feeling of being suddenly confronted with something unusual and beyond classification. “Visiting this domain of the Sleeping Beauty was one sur- prise after another. I stopped at the door of the first ‘work- shop’ to look at the lock, the catch and the hinges, for all were made of brass and were spotless; nor was there a trace of fingermarks on the copper door-plate. ‘Locks made by Bu- gatti, the proprietor pointed out. And those words ‘made by Bugatti’ were to keep echoing in my ears. The explana- tion of the shining cleanliness of all the doors into the various workshops—I almost wrote ‘the various sanctuaries of mechanics’—was quite simple. During working hours, an employee did nothing else but keep the paths and the work- shop floors clean—and the door-plates, from which all oily marks left by mechanics were wiped away immediately they were made. Such marks were infrequent, however, for it was a general rule to wipe one’s hands before leaving the work- shop.”

“companied by a letter written in terms which he considered to be discourteous. He said as much to the manager, adding: “Come and see me in a year’s time. I shall have something interesting to show you.” A year later, he had built his own generating plant near the workshops. It was housed in a building as clean and tidy as the rest, with an immaculate stone floor and tiled walls; and there was a wheeled platform for carrying out any re- pairs. “Everything must be kept spotlessly clean,” the”