since u been gone

I went to see the Broadway show &Juliet this weekend. It’s what they call a “jukebox” musical. I’d never heard that term before. It refers to a show that uses existing music – things you’ve heard before – for the base of the show. There’s no new content there. Which was okay for me. Toe tapping to the songs I’ve heard on the radio, I went along with it. (And it was fabulous.)

One the songs they did (I’m not wrecking any secrets here for those of you who haven’t seen it) was “Since U Been Gone” – originally performed by Kelly Clarkson. It was a funny moment in the show and made everyone laugh.

On your shop floor? Not so much.

production operations

You have that one person? The one that sees over everything. Organizes jobs. Plays problem-solver. That person is the one that you might miss the most when “they be gone.” It happens when they are out of office, gone on holiday, and when they’re sick. You’ve come to depend on them for holding just about everything together.

If you are lucky enough to have organized your shop without such an individual – perhaps you’re using a set of tools or processes to do it – then you’ve already made huge strides forward.

The thing we see most often in shops that don’t have a digital tool to run the shop – and we’re not talking Microsoft Office here – is that the tools they use don’t help much when things go wrong. When your person is out. When a job is late. When materials are missing. This would typically be when your “Jack- or Jill-of-all-trades” comes to be. We’ll call him Jack. He jumps in, remembers how the issue was solved last time, and takes action. Or he problem-solves it with the team.  

So what happens when Jack is out?

paperless manufacturing

Using a system that runs the shop – truly helps when things go off the rails – is about giving Jack and the rest of the team the tools they need to make in-the-moment decisions. It should help guide decisions, give suggestions and feedback, and make the day-to-day work easier for the entire team. It should also help you to identify and solve common problems that you experience, eliminating “next times” and “oh, this again”.

When you worry about people being gone from your business – and which one of us does not – you are not really taking action to solve the problem. To move forward, you need to make a choice. In today’s economic reality, it might seem like that’s a hard thing to do. Investment is hard to do on the “downside.;” however, this is not what Alan and Brian Beulieu would tell you. And, from 1985, they have an accuracy rate of predicting what will happen 1 year out for the economy at 94.7%. I read a really great synopsis of their work here.

Below is a standard, 4-cycle graph. Phase A for the Beaulieu brothers begins at the bottom of the trough and takes you halfway to the peak. Phase B goes the rest of the way up. Phase C, over the top and the first half of contraction, and Phase D finishes you out back to the next trough. They would argue that unless you take action in the trough, your next peak cannot be higher than the last one you hit. So what actions should you take in a contraction phase, which some economists might argue is where the US is right now?

Phase A requires a few things, including:

• Using cash reserves
• Expansion
• Borrowing money – if you can do so at low rates
• Investing in your people, equipment, advertising / marketing as well as technology

They are very specific on that last one. You should be investing in technology that makes you more efficient. They put this into 3 categories – practice, client and employee management systems. Where you already have a system to report on your financials, this would expand that toolset to include something that helps you with your team and the processes that they use daily.

Where better to look than a production system to help with that? Just like the jukebox musical, your team is built to work together to a common end, whatever that looks like in your specific manufacturing facility. If one of the people were gone, similar to one of the songs being missed in the show, it would not flow right. You would know something was out of place, but you might not know what until you dug in further.

We’ll talk about the basics of the production system in the coming weeks. Until then, connect with us if you have questions or need help with your production team and the work they do. We’ve been here for 29 years, and we know a thing or two about how to help your team be more efficient, whether the economy is contracting or expanding.