LOL! It was absurd when I was still working and even more so it appears from this piece. Sadly, ten years ago when I was still working, there were folks who were buying the line.
We knew it was BS, we were told by our bosses it was BS then they told us to make it work because it looked good for corporate and customer relations.
I really felt bad because we had to flow down this crap to our major suppliers. They thought we were nuts.