I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
John Adams, Second President of the United States (1735 – 1826)
When launching new industrial and materials science products based on new technologies there is always something you don’t know. An unknown customer spec is always around the corner, a testing delay based on scarce resources looms in the future and countless other delays may arise.
Adams’s quote feels very appropriate.
What we do today for our customers to succeed is very different than what we will do tomorrow. But the reasons we make today’s choices is so that tomorrow’s decisions will stand on our hard earned facts. Our customers and our company will learn new things in the future, and they will do so based off of the education we go through in the present.
Short cuts do not pay off.
