Countermeasures: The pole on the front of a WW II US Army Jeep

You may have seen photos - or even movies - where a US Army Jeep has a pole sticking up from the front of it.

This pole was not in any way “standard” for the jeep. Instead, it was crudely assembled and welded onto the Jeep by maintenance crews in the war zone.

Have you ever wondered what purpose this pole served? It was a countermeasure.

Countermeasure
An action taken to counteract, negate, neutralize, or offset the effects of an undesirable event.

Watch the video below to learn what this pole was designed to “counter”.

In this context, each inspection point in a manufacturing process is actually a “countermeasure”; to identify nonconforming products and remove them from the value stream to “negate” them from being sent to customers.