Fake It Till You Make It

What the heck was I thinking?!?! 

I’ve never helped a manufacturing business before. But here I am in a big white room trying to solve a significant product defect issue that was impacting an extremely angry (and publicly traded) customer.

Just as I was calming down, the foreman came in and handed me a pile of very small circuit board screws and asked for my opinion. The president of the business told the foreman, “That is not helpful,” which eased my anxiety, only until he added, “You need to bring him a microscope too.” Oh geez. I wonder what they would say if they knew that the last time I used a microscope was in 7th grade to look at bread mold?

What happened next turned everything around…and by day’s end.

But how did we get here, and how was the issue resolved?

I had just started doing some freelance consulting work, and part of getting exposure was posting regular blog articles in areas of my expertise. I wrote one article about process improvement and reducing defects that caught the eye of an entrepreneur who had started a manufacturing business. This particular article used a manufacturing example to illustrate some process improvement tools and concepts, and the president of this business was impressed.

He reached out and explained that one of the products they produced was a small screw that fit into larger circuit boards. Their customer was complaining that many of these screws were defective, and his team could not figure it out. He asked if I could help, and I said yes. I drove down to his plant the next Monday.

Now, mind you – while I’ve led many successful process improvement initiatives and operational turnarounds across multiple functional areas and industries, I had never had any experience with manufacturing. Yes, it was partly the old “fake it till you make it” mindset, but just a little. I was always taught, and had read, that the operational tools I had mastered would work anywhere. I had experienced this firsthand time and time again, so I wasn’t concerned about solving this manufacturing company’s problem.

Now rewind back to that white room with a pile of defective screws and a microscope in front of me. I regrouped and remembered to go back to the methods that had served me well.

One of those fundamentals was to understand the voice of the customer. What are they seeing? How are they defining a “defect”? It’s easy to assume you know what the customer is thinking, but I asked the team, “Did the customer define the defect the same way as you?” They said, “Yes, it’s an extra ridge in the screw.” I said, “Okay, got it. So, they actually said that was the problem?” Silence. The president then broke in: “Did the customer say this was the defect?” The answer? Well, no… but this has to be the problem.

The president backed me up and got the customer on the phone. I told the customer that I was new, and for my benefit, could they describe the defect to me? They said the issue was multiple metal filings around each screw, which occasionally led to short-circuiting when inserted into the circuit boards. When I asked them about the extra ridge, they answered, “No, that’s never been an issue.” The room went silent again, but now the path was clear.

Long story short, we found some other small issues but solved the main problem by the end of the day. One of the solutions was installing a big blower at the end of the production line, blowing away any metal filings. Not very sexy, but a “MacGyver-ish” solution that worked perfectly in the short term.

While a one-day consulting project doesn’t pay well, it once again proved out the concept that good operational fundamentals work just about everywhere. It also gave me a lot of confidence.

Takeaways:

• Many of the key tenets of running a high-performing operational team apply across functions and industries. Don’t reinvent the wheel with your problem-solving techniques.

  • Using proven improvement methodologies in areas outside your experience isn’t “faking it till you make it.” Rather, it’s giving those areas a fresh perspective.

• Add some basic improvement/quality tools and methods to your toolkit. Leveraging these will remove bias, increase the speed of resolution, decrease defensiveness, and force a review of the fundamentals when things get off track (or to prevent them from going off track).

  • In the case with this manufacturing company, collecting the customer’s direct feedback regarding the product’s defect seemed so obvious, but it was still overlooked. It’s easy to fall asleep and overlook these “obvious” items, but you can’t. Tools force a higher level of rigor and discipline.

  • Only dig deeper and use more resources and time once you’ve looked into all the usual suspects. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. For example:

    • Simple: Collect the customer’s feedback on the issue.

    • Hard: Pull out a microscope and review ridge depth on circuit screws.

• Sometimes you can be too close to the problem, and it can become more emotional and less logical – be willing to step back and call-in clear minds, tools, or both.

  • Emotion and logic are never in the same room at the same time.

When things start to spiral out of control, it’s easy to forget your fundamentals. This is true in business, athletics, our personal lives, etc. But when you have a set of values and tools that help keep you calibrated to a “true north,” it becomes a lot easier.

Image by Anja from Pixabay