Forget the heroes; your shop needs systems

BTD Manufacturing relies on detailed work instructions and visual aids to help press brake operators get up to speed quickly.

In speaking with the leadership of BTD Manufacturing, the recipient of The FABRICATOR’s Industry Award for 2018, I heard a lot of the same phrases that come up when I’m talking with other successful shops. The metal fabricator wants to be a “one-stop shop” for its customers. It’s dedicated to bolstering “skill development” within its workforce. The company is actively engaged in “boosting the image of manufacturing” with local schools and the community. This common language is not part of some secret plan known only to a select few businesses; it’s part of the right way to run a successful fabricating operation: Put the customer first and value the contributions of employees.

One phrase really jumped out at me during our conversations, however. When I heard it, I immediately recognized the individuals being described. I’ve seen them in job shops all over North America.

“Other companies can’t expand like we have because they are run by a bunch of heroes,” BTD President Paul Gintner said, as he described smaller competitors that can’t match the capabilities or the geographic reach that his Minnesota-based company can. “BTD was like that at one time in Detroit Lakes. We had to build systems and processes to scale.”

I knew immediately what he was talking about because I’ve seen those folks at numerous shops. Those “heroes” keep these small- to medium-sized operations running. They are integral to the viability of those businesses.

How do you recognize them? They know the customers, the customers’ parts, the schedules for delivery of those parts, the software used to create those schedules, the technology used to fabricate those parts, and the in-house team that makes all of that possible. I’ve never really heard these heroes talking about actually delivering parts to the customer, but I’m pretty sure they know where the keys to the truck are if they were needed to make that delivery.

These heroes also make the best tour guides of their facilities. They can see a part delivery destined for the customer and provide you with the 10-minute backstory without even having to look at the paper traveler or the information on a nearby computer monitor. They are engaged in the business because they view it as their own.

These manufacturing superstars are wonderful additions to any team, but they aren’t plentiful. In many instances, they are groomed, and that can take years of employee development.

Companies that are interested in rapid growth don’t have the luxury of time. They need engaged employees in almost every hire.

“When you are talking about 1,000 employees, you have to have processes. There’s no way we can make them all heroes,” said Bob Bradford, BTD’s chief operating officer.

That’s probably at the heart of why metal fabricators routinely complain about the lack of skilled workers. (That has been the No. 1 concern metal fabricators cited for the past three “What Keeps You up at Night?” surveys, which span the last six years. Roughly 35 percent of those surveyed logged “availability of skilled workers” as their top concern in the 2017 survey.) The reality of running a lean manufacturing shop from a personnel standpoint is that these operations don’t have a lot of resources dedicated to training and skills development. If new hires are welcomed into the fold, they need to hit the ground running and be positive contributors from the first day.

BTD recognized this and has spent the last several years trying to formalize its practices and processes so that the company’s way of doing things can be applied to a new facility. Employees fit into the BTD system; the system doesn’t adapt to the way that individuals want to do things.

Take, for instance, press brakes. It doesn’t take long for a new press brake operator to make a bunch of bad parts. That scrap costs the company, and it eats up valuable production time.

To combat that scenario, BTD has rolled out the latest version of its homegrown manufacturing execution system, which includes standard work instructions and visual aids to ensure that press brake operators do the job right the first time they begin it. The idea is that the company can’t bank on hiring experienced press brake operators, so bending jobs need to be thoroughly explained and documents. In addition, because operators are used to interacting with the MES, they can be moved to another facility when production spikes occur. It’s always easier to flex manpower than it is to create new equipment capacity.

The other thing about heroes is that they can take their heroics to another metal fabricator. Company culture and systems tend to stay in place. They also tend to expedite the creation of other heroes who step forward to save the day.