Luise Ermisch

Who is Luise Ermisch?

Luise Ermisch, who balanced her political career with an ongoing involvement in the clothing industry.

She became known for the "Luise Ermisch Method" ("Luise-Ermisch-Methode"), an approach to industrial production involving detailed planning that subdivided the manufacturing process into individual work station segments and allowed for quantity and quality of output to be precisely measured, evaluated, bench-marked and attributed. The resulting statistical output could be used to feed a system of incentives and rewards. Because East Germany operated with a centrally directed economy, it was possible to disseminate the "Luise Ermisch Method" relatively easily.