{"id":1220,"date":"2018-11-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericaleeconsulting.com\/getting-out-of-fire-fighting-mode-an-idea-for-manufacturing-managers-and-leaders\/"},"modified":"2018-11-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T05:00:00","slug":"getting-out-of-fire-fighting-mode-an-idea-for-manufacturing-managers-and-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/getting-out-of-fire-fighting-mode-an-idea-for-manufacturing-managers-and-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting out of fire-fighting mode: an idea for manufacturing managers and leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi everyone, Please check out my new video, or scroll on if you prefer to read!<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y_40ZNSyZis\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>A lot of manufacturing leaders \u2013 Plant Managers, General Managers &#8211; get very nervous when they have an audit coming up, or they have a customer coming, managing a big transition, or they\u2019re otherwise under scrutiny or extra pressure.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s face it, sometimes the pressure can come from just the day-in-day out pressure of making their numbers.<\/p>\n<p>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.\u00a0 You need to meet your KPIs, you have a lot coming at you and it can be very chaotic \u2013 certainly as a manufacturing engineer myself I have seen it and understand that \u2013 I empathize with the stress and the difficulties those leaders face.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t do everything, you\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019re 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.\u00a0 When I say frontline leaders I mean Team Leaders, QA techs, maintenance supervisors, lead hands.<\/p>\n<p>These folks might not have a lot of formal education but they are capable of transforming the business.\u00a0 When I say that I mean affecting very powerful, permanent change.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen it.\u00a0 They can help the business shift from a place of chaos and stress to something that\u2019s much more predictable, stable and profitable. If you\u2019re like most companies out there you are wasting their potential to help you get there\u2026<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2013 but how are they doing it? Some are betting on a key to taming this chaos \u2013 empowering their frontline leaders to find and solve operational issues.<\/p>\n<p>So for all automotive folks or other types of manufacturing \u2013 management and frontline leaders out there &#8212; I am curious to hear your thoughts. No doubt you\u2019re thinking about having the right technologies, the business strategy, and the things that the CEO and the folks at corporate are up to \u2013 what about the people are right there on the front lines?\u00a0 How do you think about the ability of your frontline leaders to transform your business?\u00a0 What have you tried, and has it worked, and why? I\u2019d love to know!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Erica reflects on a way to shift your business that you might not have thought about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[234,154,10,224,214,185,137,28],"tags":[235,141,114,236,209,237,238,239,240],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automotive","category-consulting","category-insight-and-inspiration","category-kaizen","category-leadership","category-lean","category-manufacturing","category-problem-solving","tag-chaos","tag-continuous-improvement","tag-culture","tag-fire-fighting-mode","tag-leadership","tag-manufacturing","tag-skills","tag-stress","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}