Saturday, November 17, 2001
All perfect isn't equal.
How can that be, you ask? Perfect is perfect.
Let's let writer and humorist Dorothy Parker take a crack at it (even though she's been dead for 34 years):
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.
So, you see, there's perfect and there's perfect.
Speaking of limousines and things that are perfect reminds us of Delphi Packard Electric Systems, purveyor of fine automotive products, and the subject, believe it or not, of this editorial.
Perfect numbers: In July and August, three Delphi Packard plants in Trumbull County shipped 5.5 million parts to their customers, and not one was defective. That's quite a record of perfection.
Five and a half million perfect roses, for instance, would stretch from here to Phoenix. The same number of stretch limousines would circle the earth at the Equator, bumper to bumper.
The three plants responded to a challenge to be perfect issued by Delphi Automotive Systems, Packard's Michigan-based parent company. The company picked July and August because that's when Delphi is shipping parts that will be used in their customers' new models. It's the time automakers least want to be bothered by bad parts.
For the record, the three plants are:
Plant 8: Dana Street complex in Warren; ignition products; 4.5 million pieces.
Plant 15: North River Road complex in Warren; battery cable; 795,000 pieces.
Plant 48: North River Road complex; after-market products such as harnesses and connectors; 192,000 pieces.
Then there's almost-perfect: But those aren't the only great numbers being turned out by employees in the Delphi Packard plants in the Mahoning Valley. Last year local plants had a defect rate of 28 parts per million, which is pretty good. Through October of this year, the rate has been only six parts per million. The goal: zero.
And the plants that were honored didn't just get a certificate. Each received $5,000 from Delphi that was forwarded to local charities. The recipients here were Make-a-Wish Foundation, Ronald McDonald House and Tod Children's Hospital.
That sounds like the perfect ending to a perfect day.