Summary : Gary Heerssen: Manufacturing hero with a focus on people and capital
Gary Heerssen
died on
December 20, 2004
Gary Heerssen (2012): Manufacturing hero with a focus on people and capital
- Gary was driven by the principle of knowing how to spend money to make money – often leaving cost in the back seat, but never profits
- As diffusion section manager at Texas Instruments MOS 11 in Houston, he insisted on engineering content for all shifts
- Resulted in soaring yields at MOS 11, more than paying for the added expense
- In 1991, Gary implemented a long-term vision at AMD called “Journey to Excellence.” The four cornerstones of Journey to Excellence are:
- Systems for better control
- People educated and empowered
- Detect problems before they are a problem
- Organizational structure that is modular rather than hierarchical
- This was at core of how AMD competed globally against far larger competitors with far greater resources
- Gary Heerssen’s legacy leaves many lessons to be learned at a time when America is again experiencing major challenges to its leadership
