Paradox!

[rhodie]

Maybe too loosely defined to be a question, but any input you share is appreciated:

Currently working as a consultant for very large (multi-tier levels of management) manufacturing customer.

In this manufacturing plant, a key processing system needs to be wholesale re-spec'd and relocated within the building.

The budget available deems a "lesser" replacement system be installed. "Lesser" in this case means: Less automation, more employee utilization, more manual work.

My team has proven without question that this "lesser" system will provide greater efficiencies and throughput. It's cheaper to operate and maintain all the way around. It is just the misnomer of "less automation" that gives the plant floor people a very bad taste. The perception is that things are taking a nasty step backward because they will be forced to be more involved in the manual aspects of the process. There is not money available for higher levels of automation, and it is hard to prove that a lack of automation will result in a performance gap.

As a consultant, I am trying to please two customers:
The people who will operate the system, and the people paying for the system.

Internally, there is a broad disconnect from management to plant floor, and I am concerned about keeping everyone happy - there is some future work up in the air waiting to be awarded based upon the outcome of this project.

Management does not really care how happy plant floor operations are with the redesign, just that it performs.
I know that if the plant floor people aren't happy with the redesign, it will NOT perform!

With that preamble finished, my question to you is:

Which customer is more important to please, and why?

 

[ewh]

In this situation, I think both are equally important. If you don't please management, you won't get any business; if you don't please the plant floor, your solution may not work. Right now I would try to find the important people on the floor, and help them to understand the gains your solution offers. Get their buy-in, and they can ease the transition with the rest of the floor workers.

 

[SomeYahoo]

The people on the floor are more important. No matter what your decision, they can make it work or not work based on their actions.

Yes, the higher-ups make the decisions and pay you, but repeat business and good references are based on long-term performance which relies on... drum roll please... the floor workers.

Take the time to explain to them the work involved and if you can't get the buy in from them, move the old machine.

...or bring in an organizational culture consultant.

 

[Ashereng]

If you are a consultant, you work for who hired you. Your job is not to make everyone happy - your job is to help who hired you.

Think of it this way. Would you want your lawyer to worry about the other party's interest, or just yours? In this case, you are the lawyer - so start looking out for the interest of your client, and do what they want you to do. That is your job as a consultant.

If I was the client, and you didn't do as I asked, and looked out only for my interest, you would not be working for me.



"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Absent worker buy-in, this will be your last contract for this customer. They may not be able to make any given device work properly, but they sure as hell can make any device _not_ work.





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[Ashereng]

Mike, just to play the "devil's advocate".

Management hires the consultants. Workers don't.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Right you are, Asher, management gates the money, so the freshly minted consultant implements exactly what they ask for, even if it's not what they need, and bulldozes aside every objection or suggestion raised, even those rooted in domain expertise and presented with logic and reason. I've seen it done, many many times.

The great consultant induces management to hear whatever they want to hear, then goes out on the shop floor and talks to the actual workers, then figures out what is actually needed, then convinces management that his proposal, though it may seem different, is exactly what they asked for, and convinces labor that his proposal is exactly what they need and is not simple theft of their brilliant ideas without recompense. I think I have seen most of that done, less often.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MedicineEng]

Is the old paradox:"Would you bite the hand that feeds you"?

Mike put it absolutely right:

The trick here is to convince people that it is their idea in order to get involved. Check which is critical for the workshop floor staff (choose the leader or the oppinion maker, the others will follow). Eventually part of the automation that you are forecasting they would gladly trade for another with no increase on the budget. Taking out the safety automation (that you shouldn't concede any loosening), you can play around as you please.
If in the end they want a full automatic, top gun extremely expensive thing, you just ask them who would be fired because if they want a full automation for sure the company doesn't need so many persons and you need to justify the increase in the budget.

 

[PSE]

While management will issue the check that pays you, it will be based upon the success as seen by response from the factory floor. As others have indicated, get the floor on your side first. If you can illustrate to them the potential increased reliability, throughput, decreased scrap/rework of this less automated method, you might bring them around. Overall, they would be potentially doing "less" work even though the system has lower levels of automation.

Regards,

 

[MikeHalloran]

Medicine mentioned what is probably the best lever toward labor buy-in; the "lesser" system leaves them employed.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[rhodie]

I'm thinking that the answers here indicate no clear solution.

The challenge that MikeHalloran throws down is to simply be a better consultant. I appreciate that answer. I'm game for that. I'll see how effective my politik'ing and diplomacy skills can be.

Disaster or victory, I'll update the thread when results become apparent.

 

[KENAT]

Ideally you try and win both over using the tricks and suggestions above, and I really meant that not just lip service but if you can't adequately please both parties then remember:

1. Who signs the check?
2. Any potential future work is just that, potential no matter how good a job you do on this one there are many reasons, some outside of your control, why you may not get the next one.
3. Depending how your contract is written there’s a chance that before the shop floor have the chance to prove your new system less efficient you’ll have already been paid.
4. Who makes the decision on the future potential work? If it’s management making the decision and they don’t listen to the shop floor, then it’s more important to impress them from a business standpoint.

The counter point to the above is that if the shop floor really go out of their way to make it not work it probably will eventually come to the managements attention. As such, it will jeopardize future work and depending how your contract is worded may affect payment for this one.

Hence I’d say they’re about even but at the end of the day, taking a slightly short sited view, “he who pays the piper picks the tune” and I doubt the shop floor guys are signing your check.

Hope it helps and good luck with what seems an awkward situation.

 

[kchayfie]

Is there any way you can emphasis in your design along the lines of "this will happen provided x, y and z have been done according to these instructions" in such a way that spells it out to management that the system isn't working because the plant operators aren't playing their part?

I would guess its a long shot as a way of keeping the management happy enough to offer up more work if they aren't interested in what goes on on the shop floor anyway.

For us it works the other way - management want an automatic control that does everything and then the plant operators take it over and run everything in hand. Now we try to give the operators as many variables and options as we can manage in the software in the hope that they'll play with the plant within the control system and not try to bypass interlocks and make it look like we've messed up.

 

[jmw]

The budget available deems a "lesser" replacement system be installed. "Lesser" in this case means: Less automation, more employee utilization, more manual work.

This seems like it should be a no-brainer.

Financially attractive to the management, that you require more manual input (labour) rather than less means it ought to be grabbed with both hands by the workforce. Most usually the problem is that jobs are going and it can be very fifficult to get such systems accepted without tenacious management determined to cut staff levels.

So, it seesm your only stumbling block are the supervisors?
Don't let management become an objector. They are twice winners in this because the lesser system is saving them investment and it is increasing throughput. There is plenty of money for some form of incentive scheme that is funded out of the project itself. It doesn't come out of their pockets... if this doen't work then they have to find more capital .... make this clear to them (subtly).

I suggest that because of efficiency and throughput gains, the management can afford to introduce a bonus structure for the objectors that is based on the efficiency with which they operate the plant and which is paid for out of the benefits this system will bring.
I'm quite sure you can dress this up to satisfy everyone and can pursuade management that half a cake is better than none (i.e. some financial benefits are better than none if the system can't be made to work.)

You may also need to make sure that the objectors understand that it is a viable solution, maybe becausee of their skills and maybe simply because this is an exception to the rule.

There is a paralel. Much of manufacturing design is about reducing the number of components in a product. However, if you look at just a few items in the shops you will find exceptions. Scissors, for example, used to be two forgings ground and assembled together with the pivot screw/rivet. Modern scissors may have the blades as forgings (or worse) but have seprate plastic handles... more components and thus against the trend but more cost effective.

So the trick is to make everyone a winner, make them understand the solution and if that doesn't work, try a sweetener... or both.

Incidentally, what people say may not be wat they mean. The objection they raise may not be the true objection. Be sure that you and they really understand why they object.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com