The Future of Processes

Sarah Mauragis on women in Continuous Improvement in manufacturing

Sarah Mauragis runs Continuous Improvement at Flow Rite Controls, which manufacturers, and markets fluid control devices for lead acid batteries, recreational fishing boats, laboratories, and medical uses.During high school, Sarah Mauraugis read an article in Seventeen Magazine about women in STEM, which set her on a course towards engineering. Today, she heads Continuous Improvement at Flow-Rite Controls, a manufacturer of fluid control devices based in Byron Michigan. Ben Merton talks to her about the advantages of being a woman in a male-dominated world, how she builds and manages Flow-Rite's Kaizen funnel and some fascinating insights into methods she uses to build a culture of continuous improvement. He also talks to her about:Why being a woman can give you an advantage over men to come up with creative ways to solve problems that men often overlook.How Flow-Rite's has boosted innovation by adopting a rule that every employee must submit at least one continuous improvement idea each year.How Sarah builds and maintains Flow-Rite's Kaizen funnel using Excel sheets and whiteboards to address the 8 wastes, reducing wastage of scrap, energy and other resourcesA deeper insight into the result of a Kaizen into how the company was using its inventory management system, and the problems that result from band-aid software customizations that often add unnecessary steps to repetitive computer-related work.Why the current and future shortage of labour in manufacturing will hopefully drive efficiencies in communication and team management.Automation needs a human touch: it's not good enough just to invest in the latest and greatest machine. You need to understand how your employees will interact with new equipment to avoid waste.How measuring the success of a Continuous Improvement project does not just come down to savings and improved material flow. It's when new ways of doing things come from within and happen without coercion.Continous improvment is about shepherding from the rear. There's no such thing as a Continuous Improvement manager; you're really just a facilitator and cheerleader.Women should strive to overcome stereotypes and break the mould because manufacturing desperately needs the diversity to solve real problems.

How Stephanie Stuckey turned around her family’s candy business without any business or manufacturing experience

In this episode we speak to Stephanie Stuckey, a former state representative in the Georgia assembly and now CEO of Stuckey’s, a pecan log roll and candy manufacturer that was started by her grandfather in 1937 and sold to a conglomerate in the 1970’s. Stephanie re-acquired the company in 2019, turned the business around and is now determined to put Stuckey’s back at the forefront of roadside Americana. We also talk about:The history behind the Stuckey’s brand and why it was 6 figures in debt when she bought the companyHow she runs a successful comeback brand despite having no background in manufacturing, business or candy makingThe pivotal change to the business she made that has helped her turn the company around to 7 figure profits in a year Her biggest failure at Stuckey’s that taught her to handle quality issues effectively and how to minimise time and resources spent in dealing with a problem to enhance customer satisfactionThe important advice she has for women in food and manufacturing that helps you see being female in this industry as your superpowerPractical advice for when you’re struggling to stay focussed on the big picture goals and how to implement a culture of continuous improvement 

Why Gerald Heitmann believes Lean Six Sigma is the wrong approach to Continuous Improvement

Gerald Heitmann, formerly General Manager of Quality Operations at Panasonic Energies North America joins Ben Merton to talk about how people like Edward Deming, Kaouru Ishikawa & Dr. Wheeler shaped his understanding of Quality and Continuous Improvement and why they are still relevant today. Gerald further explains where Lean Six Sigma falls short of helping people understand their own 'system of profound knowledge', and why AI is not going to bring about disruptive change in manufacturing, in spite of the apparently endless noise to the contrary from technologists. We also talk about:Why certain elements of Lean Six Sigma are diametrically opposed to the principles of Edward Deming: Lean Six Sigma is focused on cost and not buiding a system of profound knowledgeHow Lean Six Sigma specifically fails to adhere to Deming's 8th Point: "Remove fear from the system". By dividing everyone into black belts, green belts and everyone else, it creates organisational boundaries that propagate fearWhy sub-systems like purchasing and finance are so important to your understanding of your organization's system of profound knowledge...areas that are often outside the scope of a Six Sigma projectHow to implement SPC without spending millions of dollars on complicated software Why AI is just another tool ("A high-tech knob turner"). It is not a replacement for conventional quality improvement, which should remain in the control of humansHow 85% of all quality improvement problems are caused either by decisions or indecisions by managementThe future of processes is ultimately about humans enabled by a combination of software and Deming's principles

How Gregory Ayers gets executives on board the CI journey by focusing on a single KPI

In this episode, I speak to Gregory Ayers, the Director of Operational Excellence at Innovative Hearth Products, a manufacturer of indoor and outdoor fireplaces headquartered in Nashville. We speak about the importance of senior management in getting continuous improvement to stick and really impact the company in a meaningful way.  We also talk about how CI has been turned into a farce and how it’s being undermined when leadership only provides lip service instead of an all out cultural transformation that includes quality and CI. In addition to this, we cover the following topics:How Greg was inundated with data at his job and regretted not finishing college to be able to work with and interpret the dataThe criticality of getting senior management involved and specific goals being crucial to the implementation of continuous improvementWhy Greg having worked in operations, quality management and maintenance across a variety of sectors gave him a distinct advantage when he stepped into a continuous improvement roleHow to know if your CI processes are truly helpingHow management can turn CI into a fadHow to start wrapping your head around environmental and green objectivesHow important it is to examine the real driving force behind the way we do something/ our processes

How Chris Sidney uses personality testing to create the right environment for change

Chris Sidney manages quality, continuous improvement and metrology at the Winbro Group, a manufacturer of high-precision machining technologies in the UK, US and Taiwan. Starting his career in engineering as a Whitworth Scholar, Chris has spent more than 10 years managing quality and continuous improvement initiatives for the Winbro Group and Siemens Industrial Turbomachinery.I talk to him about the cultural differences between how people handle change and leadership in the US & UK, how personality testing can be a useful part of creating the right environment for change, and how the Future of Processes will be driven by the need for more ethical and environmentally friendly processes and products. We also discuss the following topics:The decline of UK manufacturing from 25% of GDP in the 1970s to 10% today and hopes for a resurgence as the government tries to bridge the skills gap by advancing STEM subjects and offering BTech qualifications instead of GCSEs.The differences in effecting change at a plant in South Carolina vs the UK: Americans are less suspicious of change than the British, and less likely to question leadership decisions.An overview of how Chris and his team used data to solve a challenging problem involving machined parts that were jumping in and out of tolerance.How analysis-paralysis is often the result of not defining the scope of an improvement initiative correctly in the first place.Why it’s important to have people with different personalities in the room to create the right environment for solving problems. Using online personality tests to understand your own personality and those of your colleagues can prevent building an echo chamber.How the previous experience of a given company’s leadership with Lean and Six Sigma is the primary determining factor of whether it will be successfully adopted in any new initiative.The differences between Lean and Six Sigma: solving the same efficiency problem from different angles (waste and variation reduction).Advice for Lean Six Sigma enthusiasts: most people don’t care about your deep statistical and technical knowledge. Break it down for them into something they understand.How the Future of Processes is likely to be shaped by the need to solve ethical and environmental dilemmas. The removal of waste won’t be driven by greed and cost but by external regulations and changing consumer demands for greener products.