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36-585: Baťa's half-brother Jan Antonín Baťa took over his company, expanding it during the Great Depression. World War II resulted in much destruction of the business. After Communist governments were established in Czechoslovakia and other nations of Eastern Europe, they nationalized the Baťa enterprises, taking over the company group. Tomáš's son Thomas J. Bata rebuilt and expanded shoe manufacturing in

72-632: A business trip under bad weather conditions of dense local fog. After his death, his half-brother Jan Antonín Baťa took over ownership of the Bata companies. He greatly expanded the business into new fields, even during the Great Depression . He founded the famous Zlin aircraft works two years after Baťa's death, starting with simple gliders. From the 1930s to the eve of the World War II, he developed for sale several sophisticated types (e.g.

108-424: A scholarly study of Tomáš Baťa as a leader and business innovator, Myron Tribus states: "When I first began this paper, I intended to demonstrate that what Baťa did is a superb illustration of what is now called " quality management ". The record shows that Tomáš Baťa did indeed precede modern "quality management" practices by at least half a century. If we look only at that side of the man, we must conclude that he

144-526: Is natural because these people concentrate on cheating one another instead of trying to create value. We are granting you the profit share not because we feel a need to give money to the people just out of the goodness of the heart. No, we are aiming at other goals by this step. By this measure we want to reach a further decrease of production costs. We want to reach the situation that the shoes are cheaper and workers earn even more. We think that our products are still too expensive and worker's salary too low." In

180-627: The Bayesian methods , and for coining the term " thermoeconomics ". Myron Tribus was born in San Francisco, California , on October 30, 1921 to Marie Kramer and Edward Lefkowitz. Myron's father died shortly thereafter, and his mother, a short-hand typist, remarried to Julius Tribus. He graduated in 1942 from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, and received his Ph.D in engineering in 1949 from

216-695: The Richard M. Nixon administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Science and Technology. On November 23, 1970, he left the Department of Commerce after 18 months to become Senior Vice President for Research & Engineering in Xerox Corp. From 1974 to 1986, Tribus directed the Center for Advanced Engineering Study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology . During his tenure, the Center published W. Edwards Deming 's groundbreaking book, Out of

252-464: The University of California, Los Angeles . Tribus was a captain in the U.S. Air Force during World War II , and worked as a design-development officer at Wright Field . While in the Air Force, he developed thermal ice protection equipment for aircraft. He joined General Electric in 1949 and became a gas turbine design engineer, but was unhappy in industry. He returned to academia, joining

288-601: The Walter Mikron avgas-powered Zlín Z-XII , which was widely exported, and the Z-XIII , as well as some successful sailplanes) and aero engines. The Moravan-Zlin factory is the direct descendant of Jan Bata's Czech aviation legacy. In addition, Jan Antonín Baťa started new manufacturing and set up markets in numerous new countries. In 1939 after the Nazi invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia, he tried to negotiate to keep

324-603: The interwar period , Baťa again visited the United States, to observe progress at the River Rouge Plant of Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan . Upon his return, he directed his company to look towards decentralizing operations. Baťa recognized the needs of his customers, whose purchasing power had been significantly reduced in the aftermath of the war, and enlarged his offerings to produce low-cost shoes for

360-503: The Baťa system of management can teach today's entrepreneurs." Wages scheme Tomáš Baťa used 4 basic types of wages: Also typical is so called " Baťa price ", establishing a price usually ending in the number nine. He found that psychologically, a price of 99 or 19.99 was apparently more appealing to customers than a rounded number, such as 100 or 20, even though the difference is just 1 currency unit. Aviation Baťa considered aviation another branch of commercial activity. His company

396-782: The Crisis . He helped expand the Center's Video Course Program, a precursor of MIT Professional Education. He also helped to increase enrollment in the Center's Advanced Study Program. Tribus was a co-founder of Exergy Inc., a company specializing in the design of advanced, high-efficiency power production systems. In his later years, he focused on the theory of structural cognitive modifiability of Reuven Feuerstein , an Israeli psychologist. Tribus research interests ranged from academic subjects such as heat transfer , fluid mechanics , probability theory , statistical inference , and thermodynamics , to applied topics such as sea water demineralization, aircraft heating, aircraft ice prevention , and

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432-728: The Far East that had been developed by Jan Baťa were destroyed. After the War, the core business enterprise in Czechoslovakia and other major enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe were nationalized by the Communist governments. Thomas J. Bata devoted himself to the rebuilding and development of the Bata Shoe Organization, together with his wife and partner Sonja Bata. He successfully expanded into new markets throughout Asia,

468-593: The German authorities to prevent the control of his company from being taken over. He subsequently took his family into exile to the United States. In 1941, he was blacklisted for having entered into negotiations with the Nazis and was exiled again, settling finally in Brazil. There, he founded several industrial towns, including Bataiporã , Bataguassu , Batatuba , Anaurilândia , and Mariápolis , all of which still exist to

504-682: The King of Shoes ) was a Czech-Brazilian shoe manufacturer from Uherské Hradiště (southeastern Moravia ), half-brother of Tomáš Baťa . Together with American experts, he participated in the First Prague International Management Congress (PIMCO) in July 1924, organized by the Masaryk Academy of Labour. After the 1932 death of his half-brother Tomáš, who had founded the company, Jan Antonin became

540-534: The Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Under his leadership, the Bata Shoe Organization had unprecedented growth. It became the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of footwear selling over 300 million pairs of shoes each year and employing over 80,000 people. Jan Anton%C3%ADn Ba%C5%A5a Jan Antonín Baťa (7 March 1898 – 23 August 1965) (also known as Jan Antonin Bata or Jan Bata , called

576-554: The businesses at the height of the Great Depression . His efforts included expansion into new industries, including shoe production machinery, tires, textiles, chemicals, mines, canals, a railway, film studios, manufacture of airplanes and bicycles, development of retail department stores, and import/export. During his period, the Czech part of the business more than doubled in size. In 1939, when Bohemia and Moravia were annexed by Nazi Germany , Baťa unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with

612-456: The company name after moving to Canada in 1939, at the time of the Nazi invasion and annexation of Czechoslovakia. Tomáš Baťa established the organization in Zlín on 24 August 1894 with 800 Austrian gulden (equivalent to $ 320 at the time), inherited from his mother. His brother Antonín Baťa and sister Anna were partners in the startup firm T. & A. Bata Shoe Company . Though this organization

648-523: The company, before emigrating to the United States. In 1941 he resettled in Brazil, where he continued to act as an entrepreneur, creating several company towns. World War II resulted in much destruction of Bata businesses in Europe and Asia. After Communist governments were established in Central and Eastern Europe, they took over and nationalized the companies. In 1934 his son Tomáš Baťa established an industrial manufacturing unit south of Kolkata , India. It

684-407: The design of engineering curricula. He also had a strong influence concerning the domains of industrial quality , ergonomics , and education . Tribus was a leading supporter and interpreter of W. Edwards Deming. He is also known in the 1970s for an insightful book entitled Rational Descriptions, Decisions and Designs , which popularized Bayesian methods with examples. In the 1960s, Tribus coined

720-459: The early 1930s, Bata had led the Baťa enterprise and Czechoslovakia to be the world's leading footwear exporters. Baťa was regarded as an advocate of Taylorism , functionalism and a proponent of many aspects of the Garden city movement . Bata is credited with efforts to modernize his hometown, both through employment and construction of housing facilities, making him a very popular citizen. He

756-441: The faculty of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and heat transfer. He was a visiting assistant professor of chemical engineering and director of icing research at the University of Michigan between 1952 and 1954. While at UCLA, he hosted Threshold , an hour long television program dealing with science and its impact on society. It aired on CBS in 1958. In 1961, he

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792-601: The general public. He also established factories and companies in other countries, including Poland , Yugoslavia , France , the Netherlands , Denmark , the United Kingdom and, away from Europe: the United States and India . These factories were allowed to be self-sufficient and autonomous in their design, production and distribution strategies, in order to be able to cater to their local population. By

828-505: The head of Bata Corporation which had been converted to a joint stock company, Baťa a.s., a year prior, and was based in Zlín . At the time, the organization employed 16,560 workers that maintained 1,645 shops and 25 enterprises. Most of it was located in Czech lands (15,770 employees, 1,500 shops, 25 enterprises) and Slovak lands (2 enterprises, 250 employees). International divisions consisted of 790 employees, 132 shops, and 20 enterprises. Jan Antonín Baťa implemented new growth plans for

864-412: The laws of thermodynamics on information theory rather than on the classical arguments, and Rational Descriptions, Decisions, and Designs , introducing Bayesian Decision methods into the engineering design process. He published over 100 papers including: He also published Goals and Gaols , a short work in which he illustrated with many historic examples how premature specialization may push students to

900-425: The level of abstraction at which Dr. Deming describes this system makes it capable of encompassing many different activities and while it provides great generality, it does not provide a focus on what was unique about Baťa. I have chosen a less abstract approach, concentrating on the Baťa contributions I thought would be of greatest value in contemporary management. My objective is to find the most important lessons that

936-415: The people are busy with mutual cheating, have no time for creating values and wealth. It is remarkable that we can find the greatest number of wealthy tradesmen and a population on a high standard of living in countries with a high level of business morality. On the other hand, we can find poor tradesmen and entrepreneurs and an impoverished population in countries with a low standard of business morality. This

972-430: The present day. Baťa expanded the shoe company more than sixfold from the date of acquisition until his death in 1965. Myron Tribus Myron Tribus (October 30, 1921 – August 31, 2016) was an American organizational theorist , who was the director of the Center for Advanced Engineering Study at MIT from 1974 to 1986. He was known as leading supporter and interpreter of W. Edwards Deming , for popularizing

1008-404: The shoemaking industry. From its start, the company developed rapidly in production and its profits rose. Tomáš Baťa obtained sole control over the company in 1908 after his brother Antonín Baťa died from tuberculosis . Tomáš brought two of his younger brothers, Jan and Bohuš, into the business. World War I created a booming demand for military shoes, which the company started to produce. During

1044-416: The term " thermoeconomics ". If you try to improve the performance of a system of people, machines, and procedures by setting numerical goals for the improvement of individual parts of the system, the system will defeat your efforts and you will pay a price where you least expect it. This idea was close to a quotation by Paul Valéry about the spontaneous creation of counter-measures defeating measures. It

1080-622: Was a complete industrial settlement and was named Batanagar . A Metro station in Delhi, Bata Chowk , is also named after him. Anticipating the Second World War, Baťa's son Thomas J. Bata , along with over 100 families from Czechoslovakia, moved to Canada in 1939. There he developed the Bata Shoe Company of Canada, founding the factory town of Batawa , Ontario. During the Second World War, many Baťa businesses in Europe and

1116-543: Was apparently the world's first to use air transportation for travel of not only high-echelon staff, but also to send skilled workers quickly to places where their skills were critically needed. The emphasis was on timely deployment of manpower, not on the creation of prestige travel for a few chosen. Baťa died in a plane crash (Junkers J13 D1608) in 1932 near the Zlín airport while trying to fly to Möhlin in Switzerland on

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1152-452: Was elected as mayor of Zlín. Baťa is widely regarded as a businessman with an acute sense of social consciousness. He is quoted by many as one of the first pioneers of employee welfare and social advancement programs. Tomáš Baťa stated: "Let's bear in mind that the chances to multiply wealth are unlimited. All people can become rich. There is an error in our understandings - that all people cannot become equally rich. Wealth can not exist where

1188-415: Was named dean of Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College , where he led the faculty in developing a new curriculum based on engineering design and entrepreneurship. He believed that hands-on engineering design was essential at all levels of the curriculum, saying, "Knowledge without know-how is sterile." He remained in the role until 1969. In 1969, Tribus accepted a political appointee post in

1224-636: Was newly established, the family had a long history of shoemaking , spanning eight generations and over three hundred years. This heritage helped boost the popularity of his new firm very quickly. In 1904, Baťa travelled to Lynn , a city outside Boston , Massachusetts , in the United States that was then the center of world footwear production . He worked on an assembly line and learned about its machinery, such as Matzeliger 's automated laster . He began mechanizing his production upon his return and introduced an assembly line at Zlín in 1927. With modern production and long-distance retailing, Baťa modernized

1260-407: Was reformulated by Stephen Covey as "Whoever tries to manage his business only looking at figures will soon not have anymore the figures nor the business." Tribus married Cora "Sue" Davis, whom he met during the war. Together, they had two daughters: Kamala and Lou Andreas. Tribus died on August 31, 2016. Tribus published two books; Thermostatics and Thermodynamics , the first textbook basing

1296-408: Was the first to use quality as a way to lower cost at the same time as he created customer delight." "However, as I delved more deeply into Baťa's management methods, it became clear that looking at his work through such a lens gives much too narrow a focus. It is possible, of course, to analyze Baťa's work as an example of what W. Edwards Deming has called his "System of Profound Knowledge". However,

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