Comeback Time for Bob McNamara

As Slate’s Fred Kaplan pointed out Monday, the late Robert McNamara’s reputation is undergoing something of a rehabilitation. Particularly his time at Ford (F), when among other things he moved the automaker, in the 1950s, toward smaller, lighter cars. Not because he was some kind of proto-green—just because it made mathematical sense: Some customers, such as midcentiry housewives, had no use for a hulking piece of Detroit iron, as the New York Times' Phil Patton indicates:

Mr. McNamara wondered why Americans needed such big cars. A housewife running errands didn’t need a 4,000-pound car, he reasoned. With a smaller car, carmakers could save a thousand pounds of costs in materials. The smaller car would also burn less fuel, something no one much focused on in 1957.

McNamara brought systems analysis to Ford and is generally credited with helping revive the company’s fortunes in the face of an onslaught from General Motors (GMGMQ). You can get a taste of how system analysis—circa 1956 as it was articulated by the RAND Corp., where McNamara went for talent—functions by checking out this free PDF here. Basically, systems analysis of the sort McNamara used at Ford involved a lot of thinking before doing. This might sound as if it should be a natural part of any manufacturing process, but in the car business, it often wasn’t.

And still isn’t. Since McNamara left Ford, the auto industry has continually reverted to more emotional product development. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this—the result can be muscle cars or the Toyota Prius—but at the moment McNamara’s perspective seems to be staging a comeback. In an unexpected area.

Systems analysis came from the military and found supporters in the management layer of companies like Ford. These days, systems analysis has morphed into systems design and is practiced at a fuzzier, creative level. It’s less hard, more intuitive. But its premise is the same: Think everything through before committing time and resources to making a car or building a road or a railroad. (A good example is the "cradle to cradle" philosophy espoused by William McDonough.)

Systems analysis was dry and statistical. Systems design makes use of lovely renderings, complex PowerPoint presentations, and carries with it a benevolent, futuristic edge. It makes systems analysis look pretty uptight—art vs. charts. And it’s all the rage now among design professionals seeking long-term solutions to our transportation problems. Tables and graphs have been replaced by something much cooler and made topical for a youthful, contemporary audience with a healthy injection of concepts like “sustainability.” Systems design has attracted the attention of architects and urban planners. The Dr. Strangelove-type menace—not to mention the Vietnam War hangover—that was associated with systems analysis has been replaced an intellectual calling with a sunnier disposition.

But the fact remains: It’s still McNamara-ism, to a degree. It’s just that the whiz kids are now wearing clever T-shirts and toting Macs, rather than wearing neckties and wielding slide rules.