Supplier Fragmentation as Secrecy Architecture

“As often as possible, the company prefers to integrate rather than jeopardize its independence. It has its own plantations, cable factories, and machine manufacturing workshops. When it cannot produce its equipment itself, it disperses its suppliers and subcontractors to the four corners of France by assigning each of them a fragmentary task and obliging them, in writing, to maintain secrecy. But in return, it pays them cash on the first day of the month following delivery, grants them low-interest or even interest-free loans.”

“Each collaborator is specialized, compartmentalized. They know very little about a mixture, a process, or a knack. Those who have seen the manufacturing process from A to Z can be counted on one hand. When engineers or managers become friends, they are transferred to distant and opposing locations to separate them. The internal promotion path never allows one to know an entire manufacturing cycle. Michelin hires sons, brothers, or cousins of workers. Rarely the children or close relatives of its managers and engineers. Almost never the cousins or great-nephews of the founders. Whether close or distant, descendants forbid themselves from talking about what they know about the history of the House and the great ancestors. Spouses agree before marriage to have their mail read by the heirs of the direct line.”