I just attended the IWF show in Atlanta, it was great to see trade shows back in full force.  3 massive buildings full of vendors and thousands of people walking the isles in search of that next exciting product or machine. 

 

Lynn and I did a full day lean symposium and although the room felt full, as all the seats were taken, compared to how many people registered for the show, it was 0.2% of registrants.  22,000 people are looking for a machine to help them, costing who knows how much, and only 56 that realize a better process will solve way more problems than a new machine.  Or at the very least, confirm the new purchase is the right one.  

 

I did have time to walk the show floor and check out some of the latest and greatest machines, speak to some sales representatives and see some pretty cool new technology.  I think most shocking was the amount of robots at the show, 5 years ago, there were none.  Now, you can’t turn down a single aisle at the show without seeing one doing something.  About time! Us woodworkers are 100 years behind in technology so it was great to see robots put in place to elevate workers. 

 

One thing I noticed when I started talking to all the sales reps, I would say 99% had no idea how their piece of equipment would tie into the overall value stream and the effects it would have on their customer.  It seems the bigger and faster the single piece of equipment is, generally, the better.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  So the old saying “Let the buyer beware” has never been more true.  And here is the other problem, the consumers are not much more educated on flow than the vendors selling them things.  So a lot of people end up with a lot of the wrong machines, which evoke a lot of the wrong manufacturing behavior on the factory floor.  

 

My 3 most shocking discoveries were as follows: 

 

1. Nobody selling any feed-thru equipment understood what I meant by subordinating activity to the bottleneck, and or the detriment of having one really fast machine in a process with dramatically slower machines feeding or following it.  They just kept going back to how fast that particular machine was.  The net result of the mutual misunderstanding, customer and seller, will be an absolute zero impact on the bottom line, and a large lease payment left in its wake.   Don’t get me wrong, a big fast machine can be great, if it’s the right machine.  I know personally a dealer who sold a client a $500k finishing line, and the customer's demand was 40 panels per day.  Absolutely unnecessary and how that dealer sleeps at night is beyond me.  I suspect this happens all the time. 
    

2. I spoke at length with some of the owners of new and exciting inventions, and to my astonishment, even the inventors of some seemingly impressive machines literally had no clue how their creation would tie into the overall value stream of their customers.  When I asked about the feeding operations, they just said “oh ya, we’re not considering that part”.  These are highly intelligent inventors and business owners that created a product in a silo and had they considered feeding and following operations could have radically improved their offerings.
    

3. Lying to compensate for ROI.  This one was probably the most disappointing one of the bunch.  Not knowing something is one thing.  But making up information when you know you're lying, that's just wrong.  As a fellow woodworker, I understand that we’re not a rich bunch, and every dollar we invest must have an impact on the bottom line.  To spend hundreds of thousands of dollars only to discover someone wasn’t being honest.  I believe this should be a punishable crime.  I think my 2 favorite uncovered lies were a machine that only required ½ an operator, I have been in business for 30 years and have never been able to hire ½ a person, and if that company calculated in the feeding operations to keep that machine running it would have been 3 operators.  The next one was claiming their process was better than single piece flow.  As a lean guy, I wondered about that.  So I asked “when Toyota hears about your process will they rewrite all their books?”  

 

So how do customers avoid some of the pitfalls of buying machines?

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I would start with these probing questions to evaluate the direction your going is the right one. 

 

1. Will this machine force me into batch production? 

2. How big do the batches have to be to utilize the machine to full potential? 

   1. What will be the effect of that batch size on the rest of the plant?

3. What is your current takt time (rate of customer demand) compared to the machine process time?

4. Will the machine cause a “trapped labour” situation. (This means will the operator just be standing there watching the machine with no option to contribute and increase throughput) 

5. Is this your bottleneck operation?  (not wandering bottleneck, the calculated bottleneck) 

6. How much faster is said machine compared to the feeding operations?  If its faster, is it possible to throttle back the new machine? 

7. How much faster is said machine compared to the following operations? If it's faster, you become susceptible to over production. 

 

Remember the goal isn’t a rocket machine, its steady, stable & level flow.  A factory is very analogous to a rowboat.  And putting one ace rower in the boat doesn’t help, and actually just causes it to go in circles.  I know, it's very counterintuitive, thank goodness it is, or everyone would do it.  Gives us lean maniacs an easy leg up on the competition. 

 

The other reason to purchase equipment that is not in a bottleneck operation would be based on a risk assessment.  For example, your air compressor is not a bottleneck operation, but when it goes down… so does the whole factory.  So some machines just need to be replaced before they break.

 

In closing, it's probably not a bad idea to get a lean consultant involved in significant new machine purchases.  When buying equipment it's clear and abundant,  there is a need for more knowledge when it comes to creating overall flow.  

 

Brad Cairns

Quantum Lean

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Read this article and more from Brad Cairns on the industry standard for all things industrial woodworking at Woodworking Network's online magazine here: Author Works | Woodworking Network