This past weekend Team New Zealand lost the America Cup. Not a big deal to most sports fans (other than armchair sailors) but there were some interesting lessons for real life. Maybe Switzerland would have won anyhow but New Zealand did almost everything wrong.
· DON’T TINKER WITH SUCCESS! Team NZ, winner of the last two cup series decided not to refine the design of their winning boats but designed instead a clever rule beater. While their opponents were out practice racing every day they were in the boat shed modifying the design and arguing with the rules committee. The end result was a boat that wasn’t any faster and had stability flaws which led to gear failure in three out of five races. In business, as in sailing, your primary response to a new competitor is to focus on improving your existing products.
· THANKS, WE DON’T NEED ADVICE! As early as the second race the TV commentators were making remarks about crew discipline. The entire NZ crew (not just the helmsman and the bowman) were watching how they were doing relative to the Swiss boat rather than focus on their own tasks. Before that race both teams received last minute advice that there was a wind direction change. The Swiss listened and moved to the other end of the starting line but New Zealand stayed their (wrong) course.
· LOYALTY! The Swiss team was mostly super star Kiwis wearing cowbells. Retaining good help isn’t as tough in manufacturing but you need to build an organization that won’t fall apart if key players leave. Over one third of Team New Zealand’s sailors jumped ship after the 2000 race. Was it money, or was it management?
· ARROGANCE! Prior to the start of the series Team New Zealand thought they would sweep it rather than be swept away. Emotionally it was a disaster similar to that of the builders and sailors of the Titanic. In both cases they could have learned from a humble amateur woodworker named Noah who had the ultimate consultant.
Investments in machinery enable a company to increase
volume; investments in material handling allow it to reduce
labor content. You probably need both, but historically most companies
justify capital projects by increased volume. Machinery is purchased first to
gain output and then attention is paid to material handling.
Return on investment is only one reason to add material handling accessories. You need to get away from "mean machines". Those which, when “run naked”, require gorillas to operate and make you fear for safety and quality. When you unpack any new machine, you see the effect of lawyers at work. It's plastered with warning signs that may make you afraid to even turn it on. I'd like to add one more sign from an engineer's viewpoint. It would say:
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DANGER! Placing this machine on your factory floor without careful attention to layout and material handing can be dangerous to your employees' health and the company's wealth. |
Click this link to read more about MEAN
MACHINES.
NAKED MACHINES ARE DIFFERENT. Just as clothes make the man, accessories make the machine! They save labor, reduce waste, and increase the throughput of your factory; but, like anything else, they can be overdone. Wearing both a belt and suspenders to hold up your pants is analogous to having too much material handling equipment. It’s like wearing a watch on both arms; you'll waste a lot of time checking the time rather than being aware of the time being wasted.
Consultants often suppress a laugh when they see blatant examples of overindulgence, but more often they are driven to tears by a factory's reluctance to put any accessories at all on machines. Going naked defeats the purpose of your equipment investment. The gains in throughput from new machinery are negated by bottlenecks in material handling, layout and systems. Read more about NAKED MACHINES .
The complete articles on our website illustrate how to avoid “spear catchers” and other ways your employees can work with their brains rather than with their backs. It is also my soapbox from which I preach:
“PICK UP A PART ONLY ONCE!”
Although the concepts in both of the above articles are
current they reflect an industrial engineer’s manufacturing bias. They stress
the HOW TO aspect of
“efficient” manufacturing. That’s fine for a company that just wants to
run manufacturing as a “shop”. To get to the next level
- “effective
manufacturing” you need to address the classical reporter’s
questions of WHO, WHAT, WHEN
and WHERE.
WHO refers to work assignment, wage rates and production reporting.
WHAT are the material management issues. Purchasing, inventory and cost control
WHEN is production planning and scheduling as well as order status information.
WHERE is a key element today with outsourcing becoming more common.
Like Team New Zealand, existing business is yours to lose! To keep on winning , learn to use viable manufacturing methods and systems. Start by reading articles in our archive.