Sun Hydraulics

  • Hydraulics components - Global - 900 employees - For profit
  • A global, engineering company run largely without hierarchy or central control

Sun Hydraulics is a global producer of hydraulic cartridge valves and manifolds with hundreds of engineering projects running in parallel. Despite this, there is no master plan. There are no project charters and no one bothers with staffing people on projects. Project teams form organically and disband again when work is done. Nobody knows if projects are on time or on budget, because for 90 percent of the projects, no one cares to put a timeline on paper or to establish a budget. A huge amount of time is freed by dropping all the formalities of project planning - writing the plan, getting approval, reporting on progress, explaining variations, rescheduling, and re-estimating, not to mention the politics that go into securing resources for one's project or to find someone to blame when projects are over time or over budget. According to one of Sun's leaders, "We don't waste time being busy". [10].