Over the decades I've been in manufacturing, I've come to notice that most businesses think their problems are unique, so to give you an early spoiler alert, the good news is, they're not.
In fact, in my previous manufacturing integration business, after a site visit to a potential new client, my business partner and I would often turn to each other on the way out and say, "Same shit, different address!"
Welcome to episode thirteen of a fourteen-part series by John Broadbent from Realise Potential.
So, on what grounds am I claiming that manufacturer's problems are not unique?
I've attended many best practice events, I've been at workshops both as a participant and a facilitator, and with 45 years of experience at the manufacturing coalface, I've been in hundreds of factories.
I've interviewed engineering and operations managers, met with CEOs and business owners and even ran my own manufacturing business back in the late 1980s.
What clinched it for me, though, was an event in December 2019 at a one-day industry 4.0 workshop I was running specifically for medical device manufacturers. At the start of the day, I asked participants to get into groups of three and share their biggest issues. They broke off into their groups, and when we came back for the group sharing, I wasn't that surprised with what was revealed.
Here's a summarised list of issues facing the majority of manufacturers when it comes to enabling smart factory ideas in their business or wanting to be more progressive with industry 4.0:
- No understanding of industry 4.0 at all, often showing up as ignorance
- No systems alignment coordination across the business
- Old kit or no IT infrastructure to collect the data
- Little imagination of what's actually possible
- Denial – it won't work for us or it's rocket science
- The dynamic nature of the business
- Not being agile enough
- No data
- Drowning in data
- Where is the value in the data?
- No visibility into what's actually happening on the factory floor in real-time
- Lack of alignment through levels of the business
- No plan or strategy
- No overall driver or direction
- Poor or non-existent innovation culture
- and finally, business leadership not setting the direction.
Do any of these sound familiar?
You can see some common themes, all of which ultimately come from a lack of strategy, underpinned by poor, ineffective or ignorant leadership. Solve that one problem, and you've toppled the domino that'll open the door for everything else to follow.
I also want to note that while the issues faced are common, I'm acutely aware that the perceived uniqueness comes from individual CONTEXT; that is, the problem itself might present differently across businesses and sectors due to the very nature of how different things are made.
However, and it is a big however, know that you're not Robinson Crusoe and that the problems you're facing are most likely being experienced by other manufacturers or have in fact already been solved.
A recent example was an inquiry on LinkedIn about how to prevent operator errors when manually setting values on the date coder for printed consumer Use By Dates, for example. Get that wrong, and you produce incorrectly coded product, which, if it escapes, becomes a recall issue. This problem has already been solved and implemented in several food businesses I know and has been around for about a decade.
Having been involved in helping manufacturers across a range of industries, one approach that I've seen deliver results time and time again is what's known as a Mastermind Process. I've been doing these for some years now and can attest that getting people into a properly facilitated Mastermind Process can unlock some exceptional outcomes and creative solutions which can then underpin the strategic approach required to address the issues I raised earlier.
You don't have to put up with inefficient systems and processes, however, you might have to step out of your four walls and explore what others are doing.
If you're interested in learning more about the Mastermind Process, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn or via the Realise Potential website, where you'll also find information on how I facilitate them.
To quote CS Lewis, "The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are."
Until next time, stay safe and well, and I'll see you in Episode 14.
John Broadbent
Watch John's original LinkedIn video here.
