THE RED BEAD EXPERIMENT

The components of the red bead experiment include a box of 4,000 wooden beads (800 red and 3,200 white), a paddle with fifty bead size depressions, a second smaller box for mixing the beads, six willing workers, two inspectors who make independent counts, a chief inspector who verifies the counts, an accountant who records the counts and a customer who will not accept red beads. The job is to produce white beads and the standard for each worker is fifty white beads per day.

The daily production operation for each worker includes: 1) poring the beads from the first box into the second box and then back into the first box (to mix the beads), 2) dipping the paddle into the first box without shaking it, 3) carrying the loaded paddle to each inspector for separate counts and then verification, and 4) dumping the day's work back into the supply box. The six workers perform this operation four times to represent four days' work. The results of one of Deming's experiments appear in Table 1.

TABLE 1

RED BEADS RECORDED IN ONE OF DEMING'S RED BEAD EXPERIMENTS*

Worker                          Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4           Total   Mean

Dick                                14       10        9        10                43      10.75

Pat                                   17      5          8         5                 35       8.75

Bob                                  11      6          5         9                 31       7.75

Steve                                8       8          9         6                 31       7.75

Horst                                12     11        12        8                 43      10.75

Dave                                9        11         7       10                37       9.25

Total                                71      51        50       48               220

Mean                          11.83     8.50      8.33    8.00            9.17       9.17

Table 1 reveals that each of the six workers performed differently with daily defects (red beads) ranging from five to 17 and four day averages ranging from 7.75 to 10.75.

QUESTIONS

Please address what you believe the point of the exercise to be in relation to Management Theories in general and specifically.

In addition, please choose a specific management theory that you are familiar with from your reading and explain in detail how an organization might practically apply it to get the desired outcome from their employees.

Finally, choose another management theory that you have not yet used in any of your responses and address whether you think it is still applicable in today's work environment. Be sure to address why or why not.