Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/942744
26 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2018 Gorajia: Usually, it's not that much resistance when you explain the problem in the terms of the financials or what's in it for them. I'll give you an exam ple. Everyone has a feel for how much inventory they have, right? Kind of a rough number of X amount of millions of dollars of inventory. When you say that 30% of that can go away, then they start doing the calculations in their head: "Wait a second, that's 30% to the bottom line," Not all of it, probably a good 15%, is instant margins. As soon as you say that, it at least perks up the interest of, "Okay, how?" Then you can start the conversation. Although we may start the conversation that way to rattle their paradigm, it isn't far from the truth of what we can achieve in many cases. Matties: What you were talking about though, is some of the process blocks and the bottle- necks, if you will. That's what they really have to attack to make this work, right? It's really coming back down to the mentality of lot size of one. We build one panel at a time. Gorajia: That's the theory. I mean, a lot size of one is high customization. The concept of lot size of one, is, "I want to be able to manufacture in a very highly configurable way, but also be profitable." That's where it started. Matties: Manufacturing is process-neutral. Does it care what you're putting in it? Gorajia: It does. You can never solve a problem with just a technology (or tools/software), you can never solve a problem with just a process, and you can never solve a problem with just people con- siderations. You can have the bright- est minds, but if you don't have the tools and the process in place, you're not going to make it. It always takes those three. They have to work together in a specific instance. That's a key aspect of change that needs to be conveyed, because it's very easy for senior management to say, "This guy did this amaz- ing work at this other factory. I'm going to bring him over here and miracles will hap- pen." Also, the guys on the factory floor have been doing good work, for a long time. They are not interested in changing the way they do business. There needs to be something in it for them. Usually that's the point in which we move forward by saying, "Guys, here are 15 margin points you can take off right off the bat." "Well, how long will it take us to get there?" "Well, that depends on you, but here's your playbook." Sometimes we will lever - age our digital enterprise maturity model and assessment to create this playbook for them, depending on the end-goal. That end-goal may not be margin points. It may be optimiza - tion of data flows to ensure synchronization with ERP, or meeting customer delivery dates more often, or even improving quality, while improving velocity. There are technology pieces that have to be at play, because if today an organization is manually queuing inventory in order to get parts to the line, that's a prob- lem. That could be automated. There's technology to be able to know this work order should be scheduled for this shift, on this line, due to availability of specific feeder inventory based on parts and parts size and parts availability. Matties: How successful have you been in this endeavor? Gorajia: I think 80-90% of the time we're successful. The degree of success has a huge variance based on two things, and the first is how fully committed the organization is. A lot of people say we need the top-down approach on changes because we need commitment from the senior manage - ment. This is true. It needs to have some top-down buy-ins to get pro-