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Jack: Straight from the Gut

Jack Welch with John A. Byrne

(Warner Books, New York, 2001)

xvi + 479 pages, $29.95

ISBN 0-446-52838-2

Jack Welch, then a newly minted PhD

graduate in chemical engineering from

the University of Illinois, joined General

Electric Co. in October of 1960. Twenty

years later, he was named CEO, and in

the ensuing 20 years he built the compa-

ny from a $25 billion per year business

with $1.5 billion in annual earnings to a

$130 billion business with $12.7 billion in

annual earnings in 2000. The book, co-

written with John A. Byrne of Business

Week magazine, is part autobiographical,

part an exposition of Welch’s views on

management, and part a history of the

successes and failures during his tenure.

The book encompasses 26 chapters

arranged in five sections; a brief epilogue;

four appendices; 16 pages of candid pho-

tographs of Welch, his family, business

associates, and notable personages he

encountered during his career; and a

detailed index to people and events.

Only 88 pages of a total of 463 pages

deal with Welch’s life and activities before

becoming CEO. Welch entered GE as a

development engineer at its Pittsfield,

Mass., plant, engaged in bringing a new

plastic, polypropylene oxide (PPO, later

named Noryl), from a laboratory curiosity

to a commercial product. Despite an

explosion of his equipment that blew off

the roof of part of the Pittsfield plant, and

the discovery of a serious flaw in PPO that

although ultimately solved might have

prevented its success in its largest intend-

ed market, Welch persevered and was

soon named general manager of GE’s $26

million plastics business—at age 32, the

youngest GM in the company. Three years

later, he was named vice president and

GM of the Chemical and Metallurgical

Division, a $400 million component

involved in such diverse products as car-

bides, industrial diamonds, insulating

materials, and electromaterials, as well as

plastics. In later years, his responsibilities

broadened still further as group executive

to include medical systems, appliance

components, and electronic components

(e.g., semiconductors, TV tubes, and

capacitors). Curiously, Welch was never

enthusiastic about the semiconductor

business, believing that despite high

growth, it was too cyclical and capital-

intensive to be a rewarding, steady earner.

As CEO, Welch introduced some new

concepts in management to GE. He insist-

ed that every component be No. 1 or 2 in

its market; otherwise the component

should be fixed, sold, or eliminated.

Money realized from the sale of a business

should not go to the bottom line but

should be used to improve competitive-

ness elsewhere in the company. Just

because a business had been a traditional

one for GE and was profitable were not

sufficient reasons to retain it. It must fall

within the scope of three main areas: ser-

vices (financial, information, nuclear, and

construction engineering), high technology

(medical, materials, industrial electronics,

aerospace, and aircraft engines), and core

(major appliances, lighting, turbines, trans-

portation, motors, and contractor equip-

ment); show strong growth potential; and

not be threatened by low-cost non-U.S.

competition. Another principle Welch

strongly endorsed was that of differen-

tiation, applicable to both people and busi-

nesses: reward the best and cut the worst.

He also favored minimizing GE’s bureau-

cracy, in particular, reducing the number

of managerial layers in the organization.

Implementation of these ideas brought

about a series of multi-billion-dollar

divestitures and acquisitions. Some, like

the sale of Utah International and the

acquisition of RCA, were great successes.

Others, such as the acquisition of Kidder-

Peabody, an investment banking firm,

were notable failures, as was Welch’s last

action before retirement, an attempt to get

a proposed merger with Honeywell past

the European Commission. Taken togeth-

er, however, these actions both strength-

ened and grew the company enormously.

Keywords that characterize Welch’s man-

agerial philosophy are “boundary-less,”

passion, and people. In his last 10 years as

CEO, Welch introduced in the 1990s four

major initiatives, to be implemented

across the company, that he called “game

changers.” These were globalization, ser-

vices, 6 Sigma (a statistical approach to

quality control of both products and func-

tions), and e-business (use of the Internet

to interact with both customers and sup-

pliers). Their substantial impact has emi-

nently validated his vision. A final section

of the book of particular interest is

Welch’s account of his process for the

selection of his successor.

Overall, the book is a fascinating read

and difficult to put down. The text is a

seamless collaboration by Welch and

Byrne. It is not so much a biography of

Welch, or a history of GE, or a description

of the many cutting-edge technologies that

GE pioneered, but rather an extended

essay on Welch’s management philosophy,

one that by any measure achieved enor-

mous success for GE employees, investors,

customers, and the world at large.

Reviewer: Jack H. Westbrook is currently

president and principal consultant for

Brookline Technologies in Ballston Spa, N.Y.,

providing consulting services in the areas of

materials and information systems. He was

employed by General Electric from 1949 to

1985, first as a metallurgist in the R&D

Center, then as manager of Materials lnforma-

tion Services, and finally as a consultant for

Corporate Engineering and Manufacturing.

In materials, he is particularly active in high-

temperature materials, especially intermetallic

compounds; he also has strong interests in the

history of science and technology.

Damage Tolerance and Durability

of Material Systems

Kenneth L. Reifsnider and Scott W. Case

(John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2002)

435 pages, $99.95

ISBN 0-471-15299-4

The title of this volume curiously omits

the word “composite.” In fact, the content

is exclusively devoted to the behavior of

fiber composite materials, mainly contin-

uous fiber polymer-matrix systems, with

some discussion directed toward ceramic-

matrix materials. The basic thesis, stated

in the introduction, is that mechanistic

models of damage tolerance and durabili-

ty may be developed to predict the resid-

ual strength and service life of composite

materials under a wide variety of loading

and environmental conditions. The meth-

odology, outlined in the introduction, is

based on data gathered from the experi-

mental determination of failure modes.

Critical structural elements are identified,

and the rates of all relevant degradation

processes determined, so that a failure

function may be defined and used to cal-

culate remaining strength or life. The

chapters follow a logical sequence, from

“Physical Behavior” to “Engineering Con-

cepts of Strength” and “Strength Evo-

lution,” followed by a discussion of

micromechanics, stiffness and strength

evolution, and the effects of damage accu-

mulation. Then follows a chapter on

“Nonuniform Stress States,” which deals

with edge stresses, notches, local effects of

damage, and fracture mechanics. The

final chapter consists of five case studies

in which the methodology is demonstrat-

ed and predictions are compared with

experimental data.

The authors have taken on the task of

attempting to describe all of the observed

failure processes, including fiber fracture,

matrix cracking, delamination, and kink-

band formation under compression, and

the associated growth processes under

quasi-static, fatigue, creep, and thermal

loading, in quantitative mathematical

terms so that a failure function may be

defined. This is a mammoth undertaking,

as many of the fundamental parameters,

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such as interface strength, are difficult to

measure or quantify. Inevitably, this

leads to some computational complexity,

which is the “meat” of several of the

chapters. The derived failure functions

inevitably contain disposable constants to

achieve the necessary curve-fitting. In

some cases, this calls into question the

physical significance of the approach.

There are instances of arguments being

supported by doubtful comparisons, for

instance, the strain at failure for fatigue

loading where a glass/epoxy composite

is compared with “CrMoV” (presumably

a steel!). The materials chosen for the

tables of properties in the appendices are

somewhat dated. The fiber properties in

Table 1-1, which have been taken from

another source, are compared with a

“Steel (1% hot rolled).” There are many

other cases of carelessness in proofread-

ing, in graphs with no units stated on the

axes, in the lack of definition of mathe-

matical parameters, and with figures

where legends have been omitted or do

not correspond with the text or captions.

The writing style is terse, and some of the

terminology is unique to these authors.

This does not make for ease of reading

for those not already acquainted with the

authors’ research publications. The work

is well supported by references, but the

authors have chosen to ignore much of

the work conducted outside of the United

States. Notwithstanding its defects, this

book offers very thorough coverage of

the measurement and prediction of the

residual strength and life of composite

materials and will appeal to the ad-

vanced researcher and academic.

Reviewer: Michael G. Bader, Professor

Emeritus of Composite Materials in the

School of Engineering at the University of

Surrey, Guildford, United Kingdom, has

researched composite materials, mainly

strength and failure, for more than 30 years

and has published ~100 papers.

Polymer Analysis

Barbara Stuart

(John Wiley & Sons, Chichester,

England, 2002)

xxi + 279 pages

ISBN 0-471-89926-7 (hard cover, $135.00)

ISBN 0-471-81363-X (soft cover, $50.00)

The purpose of this book is to provide

introductory treatments of the analytical

techniques used to characterize polymers,

with a particular emphasis on practical

aspects. It is part of a series of such books

addressing the most important areas of

the physical, life, and materials sciences,

and is designed both for use in a class-

room setting and for self-study. Learning

aids provided include clear statements of

objectives, summaries, suggestions for dis-

cussions, and self-assessment questions

and numerical problems (with responses

and worked solutions). There are also bib-

liographies; a list of acronyms, abbrevia-

tions and symbols; tables of SI units and

physical constants; a glossary of terms; lit-

erature references; and a subject index.

The number of topics covered pre-

cludes the book from treating any of the

methods in much depth. For example,

the treatment of light-scattering for solu-

tion characterization is given fewer than

three pages and includes a schematic of a

Zimm plot, but essentially no discussion.

This inherent problem in such a survey,

however, is more than offset by the utility

of the book in giving a very broad, brief

overview of a remarkably wide range of

well-chosen topics. It is amazing that

anyone would attempt to do this, and the

author is to be commended for carrying it

off as successfully as she has.

Thus, this book will serve the purpose of

giving the reader a quick glimpse of what a

certain method involves with regard to

measurements and interpretations of data,

with enough illustrative problems to pro-

vide a feeling for the results and their utili-

ty. Those wanting more than a passing

acquaintance with a method will have to

dig more deeply into the relevant detailed

literature using, for example, some of the

references provided in each of the chapters.

Reviewer: James Mark is a professor in the

Chemistry Department of the University of

Cincinnati. His research focuses on the physi-

cal chemistry of polymers, particularly the

mechanical properties of elastomers.

Fundamental Aspects of

Electrometallurgy

Konstantin I. Popov, Stojan S. Djokic,

and Branimir N. Grgur

(Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers,

New York, 2002)

305 pages, $135.00

ISBN 0-306-47269-4

This is a very interesting book that cov-

ers most of the areas of electrometallurgy.

However, the coverage is not entirely

uniform, and the degree of detail varies

throughout the book. For example, the

first five chapters go into considerable

depth on the theoretical side of elec-

trometallurgy and expound on the classi-

cal fundamental studies, performed at

the University of Belgrade, on the basic

equations relating to electrometallurgy;

surface morphology of metallic electrode-

posits, which are of fundamental impor-

tance in all aspects of electrometallurgy

except where the product is a liquid; cur-

rent distribution in electrochemical cells;

and electrodeposition when alternating

and pulsating currents are applied. This

is a very useful contribution, as it brings

the whole of this excellent work into one

easily accessible volume. It also gives a

very useful explanation of the science

behind many electrometallurgical pro-

cesses rather than the simple recipes for

electroplating that appear in many texts.

A few of the equations are not adequately

explained in the text, but reference is

given to original publications so that the

reader can pursue any questions.

The remaining seven chapters, elec-

trowinning, electrorefining, electroplat-

ing, electroless plating, electrodeposition

of metals from molten salts, and environ-

mental issues, are far less detailed and

unfortunately make little use of the fun-

damental science presented earlier in the

book. In fact, the coverage of certain areas

such as the extraction of metals from

molten salts is somewhat cursory, and

much better sources of this information

are available elsewhere. One disappoint-

ment is that the latter half of the book

does not make much reference to the

detailed and thorough analysis presented

in the earlier chapters.

The book would have benefited from

being proofread and edited by someone

with a scientific background, as there are

innumerable spelling mistakes (the table

on page 1 has four spelling errors), and

there are odd statements such as “if the

metal ions in the solution are the same as

in the electrode metal.”

Despite these minor criticisms, the first

part of this book is a very important con-

tribution to the understanding of elec-

trometallurgical processes, which up to

now was only available by trawling

through the literature. For anyone inter-

ested in electrometallurgy, especially

researchers, this is an essential book for

any personal library.

Reviewer: Derek Fray is a professor of

materials chemistry in the Department of

Materials Science and Metallurgy, Univer-

sity of Cambridge, and has worked extensive-

ly in electrometallurgy.

Materials Research Society online catalog for Proceedings is available at