The state of manufacturing in 2023 is mixed. We’ve come through worse, but the atmosphere is far from easy. While we have no influence over natural disasters and geopolitical unrest, there’s another factor that has captured America’s attention in healthcare, food service, entertainment, distribution and, yes, manufacturing: labor disputes. There’s no dancing around the strikes that are happening across the United States. There’s also no pretending that manufacturing has recovered the workers who left in the last three and a half years. Can we, individuals and leaders in manufacturing, really make a difference? To answer that question, I’d like to take a small detour.
Inspiration: Playtime Perfection from Perseverance
One of my kids’ favorite books is about Lonnie Johnson. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, he was a NASA engineer, was awarded two medals by the US Air Force, holds more than 250 patents, and (most importantly to my kids) created the Super Soaker and Nerf Gun. Lonnie also faced a significant number of challenges. With NASA JPN on his resume and a “squirt gun” patent awarded in 1986, Lonnie suffered through multiple rejections and false starts. But his perseverance paid off, propelling his invention to the top-selling toy in the world by 1992. If you or your kids have ever had an epic summer water fight, you have Lonnie Johnson’s ingenuity and resolution to thank.
Manufacturing Take-Away
On Manufacturing Day 2023, let’s take a note from Lonnie Johnson’s life: if, at first, you don’t succeed, try another way. No independently wealthy person is showing up to the factory floor so, on an important level, it’s about the paycheck. But that doesn’t have to be it. In fact, Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report found that engagement matters more than location, and “quiet quitters” know what they would change (culture was higher than pay).
It doesn’t have to be ‘management versus frontline workforce”. Start the new way by finding common ground to improve engagement and culture. Who wouldn’t want to make the job more fulfilling? Everybody can agree on combating needless waste and disconnected teams. It’s not that people don’t want to work, it’s that people don’t want thankless monotony that they can’t seem to change. So let’s change the thankless monotony.
Changing Course
We’ve spent the last several decades focused on the advances that the internet and technology have brought to business. Year over year it may be hard to spot the changes, but consider the spec difference between the phone in your pocket now vs a Dell Inspiron in 2003. With all the investment in technology and its resulting efficiencies, people still seem to be disconnected. Can you hear Lonnie saying “try another way?”.
In a recent article titled “CFW Solutions: A Blueprint for Selecting Your Killer Manufacturing App”, Allison Kuhn of LNS Research writes that this type of application “enables the workforce in a way far greater than traditional mobile applications and is a strategic imperative for the Future of Industrial Work”. Allison goes on to say that these solutions change the practice of doing things “to the worker”, and instead orients around technology “for the worker”.
The concept is simple, but the results can turn business around from the top floor to the shop floor. QAD Redzone Connected Workforce is a front runner in the CFW space (according to us, and LNS Research). Need proof? The VP of Digital Manufacturing at Nestlé Purina claims “Every 7th plant we launch QAD Redzone in, we get a free plant’s worth of capacity!”. You can see and hear a Nestlé Purina production worker also sing QAD Redzone’s praises, saying it “gives me more of the feeling that I can take it in my hands to do my part”.
This Manufacturing Day, take a lesson from a NASA engineer who invented the most popular toy in the world – try again. Try QAD Redzone.
