Mar 28, 2013 | Governance, Innovation, Leadership, Operations, Small business
Manufacturing is not just an amalgam of industries, far more importantly, it is a capability, a way to capture imagination in a physical form.
In discussions about manufacturing, its slow demise in Australia, the level and type of support it should receive, its importance to long term prosperity, and the links between manufacturing and innovation, we leave one really important factor aside, one I suspect it is just not generally recognised. We define “industry” with the assumptions and words that came with the explosion of manufacturing in the last 100 years, the “food” industry, the “Auto” industry, the “Airline” industry, and so on. We do not seem to recognise that the capabilities are “cross industry” that the definitions we use no longer hold, if they ever did , beyond adding a bit of convenience to the language.
The lines are blurring further, rapidly and irrevocably.
Is Apple an electronics designer and manufacturer (Mac computers), a service provider (itunes) , or a product marketer (ipad)? My answer: They are all, and none of the above. Rather, Apple is a marketer that delivers its value proposition via a range of operational and sales channels that have nothing to do with the generally accepted definitions of industries. Certainly Apple has been able to leverage their collective imagination better than any other enterprise I can think of.
The next step is a truly scary one for many, the advent of 3-D printing.
Within a very short time, 3-D printers will be as available and cheap as desktop computers, all you need is a digital design file and a printer. We will be able to produce everything from simple household items to highly specified parts for our cars, produced in our kitchen.
The marvelous wind powered devices of designer Theo Jansen have been printed in miniature, and work just like the full sized ones, and dramatically make the point. If you can imagine it, you can now print it!
Manufacturing is about to go through a change as profound as that brought on by the steam engine.
20th century notions and boundaries to “manufacturing” are as outdated as a bow and arrow in a gunfight, so we must change the language and intellectual boundaries of the conversation if we are ever to make any sense of the dynamics at play.
Mar 12, 2013 | Lean, Management, Marketing, Operations
It is often said that for successful innovation to occur, you must be prepared to” fail often, fail cheap”.
Early testing and prototyping speeds up innovation cycle times, the longer a project proceeds with issues unnoticed or unfixed, the harder they become to fix, and the remediation is more costly and complicated.
Early failure enables hypothesis testing and idea generation, which can only increase the productivity of assets, human and otherwise that are applied to a development project.
The similarity to Lean Manufacturing methodology is extreme, where small batches matched to demand lead to smaller inventory of raw materials, finished goods and WIP.
Feb 13, 2013 | Governance, Management, Operations, Small business
Ever put off a difficult decision? asked for more information that you know will not change the outcome? shuffled the responsibility elsewhere?
Most of us have, at one time or another, but we generally tell ourselves that we delayed the decision, sought a greater level of certainty, or something else when deep down we know that we have decided not to decide, or at least, used an artifice to enable us to not to act on the decision.
If all you have done is to kick the “pain-point” down the road a bit, you also generally realise that the pain when it comes will be worse for the waiting. In putting off the pain point, you have actually made a decision, one that will often come back and bite you.
I was reminded of this reality recently when the owner of a small business I work with failed to take a hard decision in relation to one of his employees. The inevitable conclusion to that employees departure was repeatedly put off because it is a small business in a regional centre, and sacking someone is hard, it becomes everyone’s business. It has become clear that the employee concerned realised the position, and rather than behave honorably, has committed the company to expenditure that is unnecessary, wasteful, and possibly terminal.
The price for deciding not to decide can be very high indeed.
Jan 21, 2013 | Change, Governance, Lean, Operations
The maths are simple, do more with less, and you have more left over at the end.
Productivity is not just something you aim for in the factory, the opportunities to do more with less are everywhere, in every activity undertaken.
The catch in all this is, when you identify the opportunities, free up the capacity by doing more with less, and figure out how to make the necessary changes “stick”, you have a choice to make:
- You remove the now redundant resources, and pocket the difference, or,
- You sell the added capacity that is already “paid for”, so you get the added revenue at an enhanced margin.
Sounds seductively easy, but in fact it is a tough road, littered with challenges, and nasty potholes for the unprepared.
Jan 10, 2013 | Management, Operations
How often have I heard the phrase ” he needs to get his ducks in a row before he can progress”, or some variation thereof.
Often, and most recently yesterday, as a reason that less than expected progress had been made on a project. Unexpected distractions had prevented the foundation work being done, just as it had before Christmas, and in October.
I do not want to hear any more about the challenges of organising to get the ducks in a row, I want to hear what you are doing with the bloody ducks!
Are your ducks flapping, delivering value, in 2013?
Jan 9, 2013 | Collaboration, Operations, Small business
We all negotiate every day, from the small mundane things in our lives to once in a decade decisions.
Two simple considerations play a key role in the outcome:
1. Controlling the environment in which the negotiation takes place, and
2. Constructing the conversation such that the other party nominates their expected outcome first.
A successful negotiation is one that has all parties leave the table happy and prepared to execute on the agreement, but consider the impact at something like location can have on the behavior.
Imagine you are negotiating a major deal, and the other party nominates a 5 star location as the venue, compared to going to their plant and conducting the negotiation in the factory lunch-room. It is likely that the differing locations will impact on your expectations?.
Anchoring is the psychological process underlying the point from which a negotiation starts, and generally dictates the region in which it finishes.
Research by Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist with a Nobel laureate in economics, displays this anchoring behaviour in experiments using a roulette wheel. He asked subjects to guess the percentage of African nations in the UN after spinning the wheel. Was the number greater or less than the number on the wheel?. Subjects who saw a low number on the wheel consistently guessed the percentage of African membership lower than those who saw a high number.
Clearly the roulette wheel has no impact on the number of African UN members, but the number at which the wheel stopped played a significant role in anchoring responses to the question.
