We ended last week’s blog talking about smart uses of your time. Specifically, we were talking about purchasing production control software and how much time and money you should spend implementing it. Only you can determine whether something is a good use of your resources. The biggest challenge we hear from you, however, makes that difficult for you to execute. You do not know, quite simply, how much money and time is enough, what’s too much and what’s well spent. That’s where we can help.
Let’s take a step back to move forward. (Sometimes, this is required.)
We always want you to make smart choices. We do NOT want you to always make SMART choices when it comes to your production. While that seems counter-intuitive, let me use a little history to explain.
In the 1980’s, George Doran first published the word S.M.A.R.T. when referring to a key management tool in a Management Review article entitled “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write Management’s Goals and Objectives”. In this iteration, the A stood for assignable and that became understandable when I noted that Doran capitalized Management. That A now means achievable for most people, and that seems better for our current work environment. The initial R for realistic also has transitioned to relevant, bringing even more people to the table. But none of this makes it easy.
My key beef with SMART choices (and we, like many, have dropped the punctuation between letters), work or planning is that there is nothing about it that aligns the investment with the return. Strategic, Measurable, Achievable (Attainable), Relevant and Time-bound do NOT talk about how much time it will take and whether it’s worth it. And if there’s one thing that AI is teaching us, it’s that the amount of time you invest in something may not be directly aligned with the time you spent; where AI can do it faster and get to 80%, do it.
I was reminded by a speaker last week that you need three things to make a change make sense – in business, life, teams, yourself, you name it. You need people to WANT IT. This is getting a team to know that there is a clear problem you need to overcome and the way to do that is to bring some kind of change to the table. It’s a realization that what you are currently doing is not working and you need to do something different to have a different outcome.
You need your team to be FREE to do it. This centers around giving them (or yourself) the time and money to make the change you seek. I suppose every team does this when they look at the proposal for services provided and assess whether it’s worthwhile, but I want to push you out of that emotional mentality. You need a specific strategy to define worthwhile. Free here means that you have categorized the time / cost savings and attributed a percentage that you’re willing to spend to implement the change now. It should also include a view of the future time / cost savings that are possible, so the ongoing costs align.
In the decision model, the change needs to be EASY. In the manufacturing software world, this is not asking for the impossible, but it is improbable with different solution options. To round the model out before moving on, note that this model formula is:
(WANT) x (FREE) / EASY
In this way, if your team wants it but is not free to do it, no change will happen as anything times zero is nil. By the same token, if you have a goal for your team to do something (FREE) and they don’t want to, you won’t get there. Zero change. Again. If you do have both freedom and desire, things that are more difficult will take more time and will degrade from the success a little, but it’s not a catastrophic element, being a divider. It just makes it less powerful.
And that’s where you lose the battle when implementing a SMART solution for your shop floor rather than a smart one.
production operations in the SMART factory
In the decision model, the change needs to be EASY. In the manufacturing software world, this is not asking for the impossible, but it is improbable with different solution options. Smart manufacturing software tools prepare you for work, signal you when there’s an issue and help you solve things “on the fly” so you can get back to production. They ease the burden of production operations for both you and your team. They don’t do the work for you, but they should operate in the capacity of a full-time scheduler, a production manager, a quality engineer, and a materials (inventory) manager all at the same time. That’s where the leverage of a smart system is your primary gain.
Look for tools that are preconfigured. If you’re spending your time setting up workflows and having to build the connections yourself in a DIY model (often referred to as low-code, no-code), you will spend far more time in the building and lose your savings this year. Future years could be impacted as well. (Side note here: I’ve always thought low-code was an ingenious marketing word. It sounds so positive. It means you are doing all the work.)
Get something that allows things to go wrong. In the 30 years that I’ve been doing this, I’ve never run into a shop where things weren’t going a bit wrong every day. Someone doesn’t show up for work and they’re a key resource for you. Inventory isn’t available when you need it. Measurements are out of tolerance. An operator makes a mistake. You name it, and it’s likely happening in your shop if you aren’t completed automated. So your manufacturing software ought to allow (even plan for) things to go wrong and have immediate solutions available for your team to get things back on track.
Ask your software vendor questions about how you will get your work into the system. Does it recognize work that’s been done before? How much information do you need to provide it? What work can your team do with the system the first day? Month? Quarter? You’re looking for specific information here about how quickly you can be using the tool you invested in to actually run portions or all of your shop. We refer to this as Day One Ready. Ask about it.
If you’re looking to make a smart decision for your shop, look for a tool that is built for the work you do. It should allow enough variability to accommodate the change that you have in your shop every day. It should provide tools that your team can use to get better at their work. It should do more than paint a pretty picture on a dashboard: to be smart and maybe even SMART, it should help you run the shop itself.
Have more detailed questions about what’s possible in production software? Reach out and ask to meet with a team member. We’re here to help.
You might also like: 9 Signs Spreadsheets No Longer Run on Your Shop