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A lot of manufacturing leaders – Plant Managers, General Managers – get very nervous when they have an audit coming up, or they have a customer coming, managing a big transition, or they’re otherwise under scrutiny or extra pressure. Let’s face it, sometimes the pressure can come from just the day-in-day out pressure of making their numbers.
You have to get production out the door, meet targets for OEE or FTQ or customer rejects, and keep up with mandatory customer cost-downs. You need to meet your KPIs, you have a lot coming at you and it can be very chaotic – certainly as a manufacturing engineer myself I have seen it and understand that – I empathize with the stress and the difficulties those leaders face.
You may have people coming to you asking you to solve problems for them, mediating conflict amongst depts, jumping in to help problem-solve, and so since you can’t do everything, you’re only one person, but they are dependent on you, everyone stays in a reactive, catch-up mode. Seems hard to imagine you can ever find a better way to do things.
As a Six Sigma Black Belt who is also Lean certified, I have worked with clients for 7 years now, and seen this in clients over and over again: they’re looking for a way to get out of fire-fighting mode. Lately what I have been noticing in some clients in the automotive industries I have been working with is that they are interested in unleashing the potential of their frontline leaders. When I say frontline leaders I mean Team Leaders, QA techs, maintenance supervisors, lead hands.
These folks might not have a lot of formal education but they are capable of transforming the business. When I say that I mean affecting very powerful, permanent change. I’ve seen it. They can help the business shift from a place of chaos and stress to something that’s much more predictable, stable and profitable. If you’re like most companies out there you are wasting their potential to help you get there…
Managers want to feel calm when the auditor shows up, or when the customer visits, and feel confident in making their numbers tomorrow, next week and next month – but how are they doing it? Some are betting on a key to taming this chaos – empowering their frontline leaders to find and solve operational issues.
So for all automotive folks or other types of manufacturing – management and frontline leaders out there — I am curious to hear your thoughts. No doubt you’re thinking about having the right technologies, the business strategy, and the things that the CEO and the folks at corporate are up to – what about the people are right there on the front lines? How do you think about the ability of your frontline leaders to transform your business? What have you tried, and has it worked, and why? I’d love to know!
