Manufacturing support engineers spend much time trying to reduce defects and other operational problems. We are always looking for a quick fix, at what is different since the last time we made good product, at what adjustment within the validated range we can make that will suit the new lot of raw material.
The process is probably not good enough. During the development process, the R&D engineers got the process just good enough and then worked on the next step or next project. They were under time pressure because the product launch was already later than the ambitious target their boss had given marketing. There certainly was no time to improve steps that already worked, sort of.
The process was set and was used for pilot builds, clinical studies, and was then validated. It has been passed over the fence from R&D to operations and it is now your problem. And you spend most of your time keeping the process running even though it is inefficient with a relatively poor yield. You make tweaks here and there that have stabilized the process. You understand all its little quirks.
But how much time do you or anyone else spend trying to improve the process and make its problems go away? We know a new solution will require time to develop. It will require spending on equipment and testing. It will take time to get regulatory approval once it is developed. However, the savings are well justified over the expected lifetime of product sales.
Consider the time management matrix popularized by Stephen Covey in ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. It is also known as the Eisenhower Decision Matrix after the US President who used it as the basis of his decision making. Eisenhower lived by the principle ‘What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important’.
The matrix has urgency on the x axis and importance on the y axis, dividing it into four quadrants. Quadrant I is urgent and important. There is no question that such activities take 100% priority. Real Quadrant I events are relatively unusual as suggested by Eisenhower. Typical Quadrant I activities are dealing with an urgent crisis or order mix-up, or a burning house.
Quadrant IV is the opposite – not urgent and not important. These are activities that no time should be spent on unless there is nothing more important to do. This could be dealing with junk mail, reordering your paperclips, or playing Candy Crush.
Most activities that you do each day fall into Quadrant II or III. Quadrant III activities, the urgent and unimportant, are often time thieves. Their urgency compels you to work on them, and the danger is you will spend so much time on them that you will not have time for more important, less urgent activities. Typical activities are attending meetings, answering phone calls, and communicating with your coworkers about the latest plans for office remodeling.
Quadrant II tasks are important but not urgent. Because they are not urgent they are often postponed, and postponed again if there is something urgent to do. In this quadrant are activities for working on improved longer-term solutions. It is very important that you allocate time for you and your team members to work on these important, less urgent tasks.
I have often seen in manufacturing that a solution is not worked on because it would take over a year to implement, i.e. it won’t help this year’s numbers. The immediate and inadequate short-term solution is applied. Two years later and the process is still suffering the same fall out from its original inadequate process. If time had been spent working on the new solution it would now be implemented and this source of pain would be no more.
Be sure to allocate time to work on longer-term fixes of the biggest problems in your process. it will take active management to keep your team on this track. Remember the principle ‘What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important’.