I’ve spent much of my career working in the manufacturing arena that gave me the opportunity to learn operations from the ground up. My titles have been varied, and have helped build my knowledgebase: estimator, expeditor, planner, buyer, and technical writer. The one thing that these jobs had in common was the ability to work with and learn from all organizations within the company. It has given me a well-rounded view of the manufacturing world that I continue to use in our technical consultancy business. I have taken the lessons learned, from the production floor up to management, in order to provide consulting services that help to focus manufacturing methodologies. I don’t pretend to know everything about current industry strategies and philosophies. There are just too many of them to cover adequately. What I do use is a common sense approach that refocuses the resources available to an organization in order to reach some of their overall production goals. My primary interest is to impart my experiences to those managers who may not have the time or the ability to monitor actual floor processes, thereby allowing them to refocus their own production strategies.
Consultants have the rare opportunity to sharpen the tools available in today’s manufacturing by offering their expertise while not impacting the company’s long-term cost structure. The company doesn’t have much to lose in listening to the suggestions that they are offered. But I continually have come up against brick wall after brick wall during the management decision processes.
Why are middle managers so tentative in making decisions that in many cases are already being implemented without their direct input? The consultant is offering their opinion without the jaded view of corporate politics. It is pure data that incorporates past training, industry expertise, and balanced comparisons taking into account resource capabilities. Yet when these opinions are offered, there is invariably the introduction of mistrust towards this consultant. It isn’t until the consultant is put through an exhausting obstacle course of questions, accusations, and tests that they start to see the data in its purest form. Sometimes, the consultant is even cornered into employment so that the company can put themselves into a superior position while negating future abilities to mine the data without prejudice.
Consultants can expand management’s capabilities by thinking outside of the company box. Experts who have detailed knowledge of operation processes will usually be able to trump the current strategy being touted by the industry. Lessons learned in class will only work when they are implemented with careful considerations for actual capabilities. The global market has started to level out the playing field, and companies both large and small must learn to listen and trust the recommendations of their consultants. Hoarding knowledge no longer guarantees market position if thought is not paid to your human resources. Because humans are not a commodity, but assets that must be protected from the mechanizations of business.
