Chapter 10 – Page 2 – The OM Blog by Heizer, Render, & Munson

Guest Post: Safety and Government Oversight

Prof. Howard Weiss presents his monthly Guest Post today. Howard recently retired from Temple U.

Recently, we have seen three articles about the lack of safety, in different industries – food processing, shipping, and manufacturing/product design.

Fooddive.com reported that line speeds at U.S. pork plants will be slowing down after a federal judge ruled the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s removal of processing speed limits did not adequately take worker safety into consideration. The USDA is rolling back the capacity to what it had formerly been – 1,106 hogs per hour. Your Heizer/Render/Munson Capacity Management chapter (Supplement 7) notes that organizations “have found that they can operate more efficiently when their resources are not stretched to the limit.” In this case, when the capacity was increased, additional workers were not hired and the existing workers had to work faster increasing the chance of injury or pain from repetitive motions.

An earlier blog this year identified Supply Chain Risks on the High Seas. Container ships are not the only means of transportation with risks. According to Vice.com, in 2019, railroads reported 341 derailments on main line track. Of those 341 derailments, 24 were freight trains carrying 159 cars of hazardous material. While cargo loss is a concern, in the case of trains, another frightening possibility is hazardous materials leaking. Similar to hog plants, “workers have to inspect many more rail cars in a fraction of the time” than previously. Rail regulation is set by the Federal Railroad Administration.

And then, The Wall Street Journal reported that “Peloton Interactive Inc. has agreed to recall its treadmills, and its chief executive apologized for the company’s initial refusal to comply with federal safety regulators who pushed for the action weeks ago.” The Consumer Products Safety Commission has to negotiate with companies in order to release warnings about potential hazards.

Classroom discussion questions:

How has COVID affected capacity at your university or school?
What is the major advantage of shipping by rail?

OM in the News: Inside the Amazon Warehouse

“In his drive to create the world’s most efficient company, Jeff Bezos discovered what he thought was another inefficiency worth eliminating: hourly employees who spent years working for the same company,” reports The New York Times (June 15, 2021) in a very critical analysis of Amazon operations. Longtime employees expected to receive raises. They also became less enthusiastic about the work. Bezos came to believe that an entrenched blue-collar work force represented “a march to mediocrity.”

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In response, Amazon encouraged employee turnover. After 3 years on the job, hourly workers no longer received automatic raises, and the company offered bonuses to people who quit. It also offered limited upward mobility for hourly workers, preferring to hire managers from the outside. It worked. Turnover at Amazon is much higher than at many other companies — with an annual rate of 150% for warehouse workers, which means that the number who leave the company over a full year is larger than the level of total warehouse employment. The churn is so high that it’s visible in the government’s statistics on turnover in the entire warehouse industry: When Amazon opens a new fulfillment center, local turnover surges.

At Amazon, workers sometimes find out about a new shift only the day before, scrambling their family routine. When workers want to get in touch with human resources by phone, they must navigate an automated process that can resemble an airline customer-service department during a storm. Employees are constantly tracked and evaluated based on their amount of T.O.T., or time off task. One employee who had earned consistent praise was fired for a single bad shift.

As Bezos prepares to step down as CEO, he says he wants to change Amazon’s workplace culture, stating “We are going to be Earth’s best employer.” Still, it is not at all clear that Amazon will change its basic approach to blue-collar work. The constant churning of workers has helped keep efficiency high and wages fairly low. Profits have soared, and the company is on pace to overtake Walmart as the nation’s largest private employer. Bezos has become one of the world’s richest people. People want to believe that being a generous employer is crucial to being a successful company. But that isn’t always true.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. Evaluate Amazon’s warehouse employee strategy.
2, In Chapter 2, we we provide 3 strategies for competitive advantage. Which does Amazon employ?

OM in the News: Amazon and Injuries

Amazon recorded 5.6 injuries per 100 workers in 2019, the last full year of data, compared with the 4.8 rate nationally for the warehousing sector. So the firm, after years of criticism over worker safety at its depots, is establishing a program focused on improving the health and wellness of its hourly warehouse staffers, reports The Wall Street Journal (May 18, 2021).

The new program, called WorkingWell, aims to better educate employees on how to avoid workplace injuries and improve mental health on the job. The firm began testing parts of the program 2 years ago and plans to expand it to 1,000 facilities by the end of the year. Amazon said it aims to cut recordable incidents in half by 2025.

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Amazon, which employs about 950,000 people in the U.S., says it is acting because of the frequency of workplace injuries in the warehousing industry and because the coronavirus pandemic has heightened the awareness of healthcare needs. It is particularly concerned about musculoskeletal disorders, known as MSDs, which account for 40% of its work-related injuries.

Under the WorkingWell program, warehouse employees gather on a rotating basis near their work stations to watch videos about injury prevention, including how to lift items properly. Employees also are given hourly prompts at their stations that guide them through 30-60 second stretching and breathing exercises.

The company also is installing kiosks where employees can watch videos that show guided meditations and calming scenes and sounds. New wellness zones provide dedicated spaces for workers to stretch or meditate. The company also is developing staffing schedules that rotate employees among jobs that use different muscle groups to reduce repetitive-stress injuries. Amazon’s program does not include a significant reduction in the rate at which employees are expected to work. That pace has been a source of worker complaints. Employees, for example, are expected to take about 300 items off shelves each hour.

Experts say introducing educational tools in workplaces is often not enough to substantially reduce injuries, and that measures that provide mechanical lifts or reconfigure how a workplace is organized have a bigger impact.

Classroom discussion questions:

Comment on Amazon’s new program.
What else can the firm do to improve worker safety?

OM in the News: The Amazon “Factory” and Unions

All of our students are knowledgeable about Amazon, its growth, its products, and its hyper-wealthy chairman, Jeff Bezos. Many may have followed the news about the recent attempt to unionize at Amazon, starting with the Bessemer, Alabama, fulfillment center. The New York Times (April 12, 2021) takes an interesting perspective on the story, tracing the Bessemer facility to its origins as steel plant in the mid-20th century that provided middle-class lives to its workers. Now defunct, the steel factory is still a “factory”, writes The Times, but of a different sort, with Amazon paying $15 per hour, double the federal minimum wage.

That is not the kind of pay that seems likely to help again build a thriving middle class. And Amazon jobs are looking more and more like the future of the U.S. economy, with the company growing from 750,000 to 1.3 million workers in the past 18 months.

amazon book

A new book about Amazon, called “Fulfillment,” points out that Amazon’s warehouse jobs have a lot in common with the industrial jobs of the past. They are among the main options for people who graduate from high school or community college without specific job skills. They are also physically demanding and dangerous.

Fulfillment reminds us about the injuries and deaths that came with old factory jobs, and documents the similar risks that warehouse jobs can bring. Jody Rhoads was a 52-year-old mother in Carlisle, Pa. Her neck was crushed by a steel rack while she was driving a forklift in an Amazon warehouse, killing her. (“We do not believe that the incident was work related,” an Amazon manager reported to the government, falsely suggesting her death was from natural causes.)

One former Amazon worker adds: “Amazon is reorganizing the very nature of retail work — something that traditionally is physically undemanding and has a large amount of downtime — into something more akin to a factory, which never lets up.” And rather than working in teams of people who are creating something, warehouse workers often work alone, interacting mostly with robots.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why did the Bessemer workers soundly turn down the union organizing effort?
How do fulfillment center jobs resemble factory jobs? How do they differ?

OM in the News: AI and Amazon’s Army of Workers

Amazon uses software to manage in a way that’s unlike almost any other company, reports The Wall Street Journal (Feb.6-7, 2021). Whether they’re driving a delivery van or picking items from shelves, Amazon’s employees are monitored, evaluated, rewarded and even flagged for reprimand or coaching by software.

Amazon is expanding automated capabilities, including fleets of robots in warehouses.

Executives at the company are emphatic about their desire to preserve the health of employees, and give them opportunities to grow and develop, but the way Amazon manages both employees and seller-partners with algorithms is often at odds with those values.

Throughout the supply chain of Amazon’s e-commerce operation, humans are onboarded rapidly into jobs that require almost no training. This is possible because of how directed and constrained by algorithms and automation these roles have become. In some fulfillment centers, employees who pick items for orders from robot shelves are surveilled by AI-enabled cameras. A cloud-connected scanning gun monitors the rate at which they pick items, the number and duration of their breaks and whether they’re grabbing the right items and putting them in the right places. Managers step in only if software reports a problem, such as a worker falling behind.

Amazon objected to the characterization that anyone in its facilities is “managed by algorithm,” because all associates have a human manager who is responsible for them and who coaches them. “Our front-line workers are the heart and soul of Amazon,” said an exec. “Only a small percentage of associates are fired or leave the company because of performance issues.”

Whether all this AI, software and automation will be used to ease the burden of its employees, or to force them to work harder to keep up, is a choice all companies face in the age of digitization, and none more so than Amazon.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being an Amazon warehouse worker?
How does Amazon’s approach differ from the four labor standards methods discussed in Chapter 10 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text? (See pages 420-429)

OM in the News: A Safe Return to Manufacturing Productivity

COVID-19 is changing everything in manufacturing. Companies face a long journey to the “next normal,” one that will likely have far-reaching financial and operational implications, writes Industry Week (July 14, 2020). Immediate priorities include creating a safe work environment for production employees. Missteps could invoke legal or regulatory actions, something all companies want to avoid. As many manufacturers enter the Recover phase of COVID-19, one that is marked by restarting production at plants in regions that have been impacted differently by virus outbreaks, workforce safety becomes a critical priority. The restart/ramp-up should generate considerations across the work itself, the workforce, and the workplace.

Work: How will new physical distancing constraints and supply/demand variability be incorporated into operations? Are there opportunities to remove humans from processes through automation and/or robotics?

Workforce: How will workers “feel” safe and come back to work willingly? What new policies and procedures are required to protect employees, reduce risk of spread (e.g. personal protective equipment (PPE), break room policies)?

Workplace: What physical/operational changes are necessary to meet health and safety requirements? What technologies and solutions could create a safer work environment in plants and facilities?

A holistic approach toward the recovery phase should include solutions that address all three of these areas. It will likely blend strategy and process changes with advanced technologies, which can hold the key to a robust recovery for manufacturers. Some of the smart factory technologies that many manufacturers have already been piloting, such as data analytics–71% in a recent study, sensors–54% and wearables–29%, could dramatically accelerate the pathway to recovery.

Classroom discussion questions:

What other complications will operations managers face when reopening factories or service facilities?
What role can sensors play?

OM in the News: Monitoring Employees Who Work From Home

As we note in Chapter 10, labor is a costly component of most OM activities. So as we have moved to computer-oriented tasks, rather than manual tasks, new tools for evaluating productivity have been developed. Now with millions of employees suddenly doing these tasks from home, more managers want to know how employees spend their time, writes The Wall Street Journal (April 20, 2020).

One new technology provides the ability to install a tool that takes computer screenshots of home-based employees every 10 minutes and records how much time they spend on certain activities. It gives managers productivity scores for remote workers or detailed reports on which tasks consume their days. Other tools are designed to catch employees who might be more tempted to download files from the company or violate security rules. At Teramind, whose technology can give employers a live look at employees’ computer screens or recordings of videos of their activities, inquiries have recently tripled, and 1/3 of the company’s 2,000 clients have requested additional licenses to track more users.

One S. Carolina manager states: “This is not a witch hunt to try and find the guy who spends 20 minutes a day on the news. The tool to track web browsing and time spent on work-related apps will pay longer-term dividends.We’re able to get a lot more granular insights into how much time they’re spending on individual tasks. Each staffer has access to their own data and can see how their own productivity levels fluctuate.”

Employers have wide legal latitude to use tracking tools, though the products can test employees’ threshold for privacy concerns “Frankly, employees already have an incentive to be productive, just by mere fact of wanting to keep their jobs,” says one Cornell prof.

Classroom discussion questions:

Are there ethical and privacy issues that need to be addressed here?
Why is such software now an important OM tool?

OM in the News: Wearable Technology is Changing Ergonomics

“The future of industrial ergonomics isn’t a person with a clipboard checking workers’ posture,” writes The Wall Street Journal (March 6, 2020). Warehouse operators and manufacturers are now testing wearable technology intended to stave off injuries from repetitive tasks like lifting boxes that can exact a significant toll on workers’ bodies over time. Overexertion in lifting or lowering was one of the most common events leading to occupational injuries.

Companies including Walmart and Toyota are experimenting with sensors that identify when workers engage in risky movements—say, bending their backs without squatting—and prompt them to change their form in real time. The devices also collect data that employers can use to assess how new equipment, tasks or changes in production volume affect worker safety. “It’s not about productivity or pick rates or any of that,” says an Australian exec. “It’s about reducing the chance of people getting hurt.”

Kinetic is a startup whose pager-like sensors clip on to workers’ belts to measure their body mechanics. Document-storage company Iron Mountain began using Kinetic’s devices 3 years ago to reduce at-risk postures that contribute to sprains and strains among warehouse staff and drivers who collect paper for shredding or storage. The technology takes the motion of the wearer’s hip and uses artificial intelligence and algorithms to reconstruct what that person’s body must have done to make it move that way, then determines whether the motion is high risk. Iron Mountain says it has experienced a 45% reduction in at-risk postures with the devise.

Direct observation, which we discuss in Chapter 10, isn’t as precise because it can cause people to alter their movements.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why is ergonomics so important in many jobs?
Some firms are also testing “exoskeletons,” which we have blogged on recently. How do these exosuits differ from the sensor approach?

OM in the News: Delta Air Lines and the Exoskeleton

Delta Air Lines is partnering with Sarcos Robotics to explore new employee technology fit for a superhero—a mobile and dexterous exoskeleton designed to boost employees’ physical capabilities and bolster their safety, reports New Equipment Digest (Jan. 15, 2020). Sarcos, the world’s leader in exoskeleton development, has developed a battery-powered, full-body exoskeleton designed to increase human performance and endurance while helping to prevent injury.

This robotic suit, designed for employees to wear, does the heavy lifting. By bearing the weight of the suit and the payload, the exoskeleton may enable an employee to lift up to 200 pounds repeatedly for 8 hours at a time without strain or fatigue. The Sancos model is designed for use in industries where lifting and manipulation of heavy materials or awkward objects are required and aren’t easily handled by standard lift equipment. (This is a topic we discuss in the Ergonomics section of Chapter 10 in our text).

Potential uses at Delta could include handling freight at Delta Cargo warehouses, moving maintenance components at Delta TechOps or lifting heavy machinery and parts for ground support equipment. Exploring how advanced tools and tech can better support employees is one way Delta aims to improve workplace safety.

In addition to enabling superhuman strength for extended periods, the robotic suit may also level the playing field in terms of physical capacity. Roles that have historically been limited to those who meet specific strength requirements could potentially be performed by a more diverse talent pool, thanks to wearable robotics.

Classroom discussion questions:

Discuss the OM implications of such an exoskeleton.
Identify other potential industries/applications.

OM in the News: Target’s New Online Staffing System

Target now sources 80% of its online orders from stores, not warehouses.

Retailers are trying to adapt to a world where shopper behavior is changing and competition for online spending is fierce, writes The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 2, 2019). Target, Walmart, and other retailers are staffing stores differently in an effort to meet new competitive challenges, as well as attract workers and control payroll costs amid the tightest labor market in decades. (Online sales reached $7.4 billion on Black Friday, up from $6.2 billion last year, while foot traffic to U.S. stores fell 6.2%). Big chains have posted strong sales in recent years by adapting to the shift to online shopping. They use their stores to handle deliveries or convince shoppers to pick up orders rather than wait for an Amazon package.

Target says it now sources 80% of its online orders from stores, not warehouses. At the Brooklyn store around 80 workers handle internet orders, collecting products from shelves or putting items into boxes in the backroom for delivery. Target retrained the bulk of its 300,000 U.S. workers over the past year, giving them new titles and responsibilities. It hopes to mold each into an expert for a specific area of the store such as the beauty department, toys or online fulfillment to offer better customer service and use labor spending more efficiently.

Under the new staffing system, more Target workers are responsible for the full chain of tasks needed to keep their department well stocked and shoppers happy, including finding products in the backroom and stocking shelves, tracking inventory and answering shoppers’ questions. Target added technology on hand-held devices to guide workers through the store more efficiently to gather or send out online orders. And more workers are putting products on shelves during the day, not at night, to be able to help customers at the same time.

Walmart uses stores to fulfill its online grocery orders, and is increasingly relying on stores for other types of e-commerce orders.

Classroom discussion questions:

Compare Target’s approach to that of Amazon.
What is Target doing to increase operational efficiency?

OM in the News: Are Ruthless Quotas at Amazon Maiming Employees?

Amazon’s famous speed and technological innovation have driven the company’s massive global expansion and a valuation over $800 billion, writes The Atlantic (Nov. 25, 2019). It’s also helped make Amazon the nation’s second-largest private employer. But now the Center for Investigative Reporting has found that the company’s obsession with speed has turned its warehouses into injury mills, finding the rate of serious injuries for Amazon facilities more than double the national industry average: 9.6 serious injuries per 100 full-time workers in 2018, compared with an industry average of 4. Some centers, such as the Eastvale, California warehouse, were especially dangerous, with 422 injuries–more than 4 times the industry average.

The former head of OSHA states: “According to Amazon’s own records, the risk of work injuries at fulfillment centers is alarmingly, unacceptably high. Amazon needs to take a hard look at the facilities where so many workers are being hurt and either redesign the work processes, replace the top managers, or both.”

Many workers spoke with outrage about having been cast aside as damaged goods or sent back to jobs that injured them further. The company does instruct workers on the safe way to move their bodies and handle equipment. But former workers said they had to break the safety rules to keep up. They would jump or stretch to reach a top rack instead of using a stepladder. They would twist and bend over to grab boxes instead of taking time to squat and lift with their legs. They had to, they said, or they would lose their jobs. So they took the risk.

The root of Amazon’s success appears to be the root of its injury problem: the blistering pace of delivering packages to its customers. And during Amazon’s busiest (“peak”) season, employees face the exhaustion of mandatory 12-hour shifts where expectations are precise. Workers have to pick 385 small items or 350 medium items each hour and are expected to meet 100% of this productivity performance standard. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, meanwhile, is focused on customers. “We are ramping up to make our 25th holiday season the best ever—with millions of products available for free 1-day delivery,” he said.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the ergonomic issues discussed in this article (which we encourage you to read in full)?
What is the solution?

OM in the News: Warehouses Are Tracking Workers’ Every Muscle Movement

Every morning when he goes to work in the freezer room of a warehouse in Pennsylvania, Jack Westley throws on a new piece of equipment to wear, which he attaches to a harness over his shoulders. It’s a black device about the size of a smartphone that tracks his every move. For Westley, work means a full day of carrying boxes as ice slowly forms in his beard. The freezer is a treacherous areas because workers get sloppy when they’re cold. So each time Westley bends too deeply to pick up a box or twists too far to set one down, the device on his chest vibrates to send a warning that his chance of getting hurt is elevated. The device, made by a startup called StrongArm Technologies also sends the information it gathers about Westley to his employer.

“Wearable safety trackers are changing how warehouses handle employee safety, but some are concerned about potential surveillance applications,” reports New Equipment Digest (Nov. 11, 2019). The trackers could supplement existing safety programs by identifying employees who need extra coaching, while also helping single out locations in its operations that should be redesigned to reduce the chances of injury.

Unions worry that employers who begin gathering data on workers for whatever reason will be unable to resist using it against them. Productivity tracking is already widespread throughout the industry—and workers can be fired or punished if their performance dips. The opacity of data-analysis tools can make it difficult for workers to fully understand how much employers can see.

StrongArm acknowledges that concerns about workplace surveillance surround its work, but the company says its products are designed solely to improve safety and found users wearing them suffered 20% to 50% fewer injuries.

Classroom discussion questions:

In this age of ever less privacy, where should the line be drawn? What do you consider a legitimate inquiry about your physical activity?
The warehouse management has an obligation for a safe working environment. What should they (and their insurance company) consider legitimate data?

OM in the News: The NBA’s “Dirty Little Secret”

“There’s not a factory on the planet,” says one scientist, “that would move shift workers the way we move NBA players.”

IT’S THE AFTERNOON of Feb. 26, during a 3-games-in-4-nights stretch, and Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside is on a roll. Tomorrow night, his Heat will host the Golden State Warriors, then fly to Houston to face the Rockets on Feb. 28. But now he’s rattling off what time the Warriors game will end (10 p.m.), when they’ll board their flight (after 11:30), when they’ll land in Houston (2 a.m.) and arrive at the hotel (3 a.m.) before playing the Rockets later that day.

Sleep matters, Whiteside says — it matters a lot. It “could be the difference between you having a career game or playing terrible.” Is it possible within the current NBA schedule to obtain consistent, quality sleep? “Nah,” Whiteside says. “It’s impossible. It’s impossible.”

Fatigue has long been a reality of life in the NBA, a league with teams that play 82 games in under 6 months and fly up to 50,000 miles per season — enough to circle the globe twice, reports ESPN.com (Oct. 14, 2019). Over the 2018-19 season, the average NBA team played every 2.07 days, had 13.3 back-to-back sets and flew the equivalent of 250 miles a day for 25 straight weeks.

Despite the league’s best efforts — lengthening its schedule in recent years, reducing back-to-backs for 5 straight seasons (down to an average of 12.4 per team in the coming season), eliminating 4-in-5 stretches, reducing the nationally televised games that tip off at 10:30 p.m., creating more rest days — sleep deprivation remains “our biggest issue without a solution. It’s the dirty little secret that everybody knows about,” says an NBA exec.

“I think in a couple years,” Tobias Harris says, “sleep deprivation will be an issue that’s talked about, like the NFL with concussions.” During the season, its estimated that players get 5 hours sleep per night. Chronic sleep loss has been associated with higher risk for cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, heart attacks, Alzheimer’s, dementia, depression, stroke, psychosis and suicide.

Classroom discussion questions:

How is this an OM issue?
What can be done to alleviate the problem, and what dangers are possible if it isn’t addressed?

OM in the News: The Rise of the Exoskeleton

In the weld shop of Toyota’s huge Ontario plant, workers inspect the steel frame of a RAV4. The men raise their arms overhead as they move ultrasonic wands over metal to test the integrity of dozens of welds. Until a few months ago, this task was performed by seated workers wielding hammers and chisels. But the latest RAV4 uses a lighter, stronger steel that requires ultrasonic testing. A new frame arrives every 60 seconds. The prolonged reaching is shoulder-breaking work, the kind that can lead to debilitating injuries and decreased productivity.

But these workers are assisted by exoskeletons, wearable devices made by Levitate Technologies. The upper-body frames use a system of springs, cables and pulleys to transfer weight from the arms to the outside of the hips, easing the strain of overhead work. When a worker raises his arms, the exoskeleton provides a counterweight that makes the arms feel buoyant, as if the upper body is suspended in water. The system gradually releases as the limbs are lowered, allowing the arms to hang unassisted.

Exoskeletons may one day become commonplace on factory floors, construction sites and film sets. Toyota is the first large manufacturer to require the use of exoskeletons, but Ford uses about 100 exoskeletons across 16 plants in 8 countries. BMW has 66 in use at its Spartanburg, S.C., plant, while Boeing will use a couple hundred by mid-year.

There are upper-body, lower-body and full-body models. Most range in price from $4,000-$6,000, weigh 5-10 pounds and require a one-time adjustment to a user’s frame. Factory workers who’ve tried exoskeletons report less back and shoulder pain, and go home at night more active and relaxed. “Ultimately,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 19-20, 2019), “the hope is that the devices will reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders, which cost employers about $50 billion annually.”

Classroom discussion questions:
1. What is ergonomics and how is this an ergonomic device?

2. What other issues in the work environment can impact performance, safety, and quality of life?

OM in the News: China, High-Tech, and the 996 Schedule

“Crazy Work Hours and Lots of Cameras: Silicon Valley Goes to China,” is the title of the New York Times article (Nov. 6, 2018), describing the visit by US high tech execs to China.

A Chinese voice-controlled A.I.-powered family robot

The Silicon Valley natives were introduced to the Chinese concept of 996: Work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week. One Chinese technology executive said he worked 14-15 hours a day at least 6 days a week. Another said he worked every waking hour. The reaction from a group of Silicon Valley executives: Wow! “We’re so lazy in the U.S.!” blurted a venture capital investor.

Chinese technology executives, they found, were even more driven and more willing to do whatever it takes to win. But punishing work schedules are only the beginning. They found Chinese tech executives to be less reflective about the social impact and potential misuse of their technologies, a worrisome quality in a country with loosely enforced privacy laws, strict government censorship and a powerful domestic surveillance.

The Americans got upfront lessons on how quickly China embraced mobile phones, electronic payments and video streaming, and how intensely it has pursued artificial intelligence. (For example, mobile payments are almost ubiquitous in the biggest Chinese cities, but setting up an account requires a local mobile number and a Chinese bank account). In addition, everything seemed to be moving at an extraordinary speed. While Silicon Valley start-ups raise funding every 18 to 24 months on average, the most successful Chinese companies do it every 6 months. They also found that everybody working in the firms visited is Chinese. Even in its early days, Google had employees from 39 nationalities speaking 40-plus languages.

Classroom discussion questions:

Compare the U.S. to Chinese high-tech work styles.
Would the 996 concept work in the U.S or Europe?