Shipulski On Design

Archive for June, 2024

It’s fine if you’re asked to do too much occasionally.  Things come up and must be addressed.  Sometimes it’s your turn and sometimes it’s others’ turn.  No one can argue with that.  And sometimes the work demands your special skills and you go the extra because the work is important and urgent.  You know how to do it and there’s no time to bring someone else up to speed.  That makes sense to everyone.  We all know sometimes is our turn to take on too much.  That’s just how it is.  But it’s not sustainable (or fair) when doing too much once in a while becomes insufficient and you’re expected to do too much all the time.  But this creates a problem.

You want to grow in your career and you want to get ahead.  That’s good.  But when “too much every day” becomes the norm, your desire to climb the ladder makes it difficult to say no to “too much every day.”  Say yes to too much and you’ll earn your stripes.  Say no and your career plateaus. What to do?

I think the only way to beat this double bind is to be happy with your current role, be satisfied with your strong efforts to make meaningful (and reasonable) contributions, and continually grow and develop. I think this recipe will lead to great work and I think doing great work is the best way to battle the double bind.

And when it comes to great work, you are responsible for doing great work and your company is responsible for how they respond.  If you hold onto that, your next steps will be clear.

When you do great work and your company doesn’t notice, their response sends a strong message.  And your next step – do more great work.  Their response will change or you will change companies.

When you do great work, your work gets noticed, and all your company gives you is more work, their response sends a strong message.  And your next step – do more great work but constrain your output to a reasonable level.  Their response will change or you will change companies.

If you do great work, your work gets noticed, and you get a raise, a promotion, a bigger team, responsibility for the most important projects, and the authority to get it all done, your company’s response makes it easy for you to do more great work for them.  And that’s just what you should do.

Keep it simple – when in doubt, do great work.

Image credit — _Veit_

Startups are good at making something work in the lab for the first time. However, startups are not good at moving their one-in-a-row prototypes to the manufacturing floor.  But if startups are to scale, that’s exactly what they must do.  For startups to be successful, they must continually change the design to enable the next level of production volume.

To do that, I propose a 10, 100, 1000 approach.

After the one-in-a-row prototypes, how will you make 10?  Can the crude assembly process produce 10 prototypes?  If so, use the same crude assembly process.  The cost of the prototypes is not a problem at this stage, so there’s no need to change the manufacturing processes to reduce the cost of the components.  And at these low volumes, it’s unlikely the existing assembly process is too labor intensive (you’re only making 10) so there’s likely no need to change the process from a “time to build” perspective. But if the variation generated by the assembly process leads to prototypes that don’t function properly, the variation of the assembly process must be controlled with poke-yoke measures.  Add only the controls you need because that work takes money and time which you don’t have as a startup.  Otherwise, build the next 10 like you built the first one.

After the first 10, how will you make the next 100?  Building 100 units doesn’t sound like a big deal, but 100 is a lot more than 10.  Do you have suppliers who will sell you 100 of each part?  Do you have the factory space to store the raw materials?  Do you have the capability and capacity to inspect the incoming material? Do you have the money to buy all the parts?  If the answer to all these questions is yes, it’s time to ask the difficult questions.

The cost of the units is likely still not a problem because the volumes are still small.  There’s likely no need to change the manufacturing process (e.g., moving from machining to casting) to reduce the cost of the units.  And it’s unlikely the time to build the units is becoming a problem because a super long build time isn’t all that problematic when building 100 units.  So it’s not time to reduce the number of parts in the product (product simplification through part count reduction – aka, Design for Assembly).  But it’s likely time to reduce the variation of the assembly process and eliminate the rework-inspect-test loop that comes when each unit that emerges from the production process is different.  It’s time for assembly instructions, assembly fixtures, dedicated tools at each workstation, measurement tools to inspect the final product, and a group of quality professionals to verify the product is built correctly.

After the first 100, how will you make the next 1000? If you can, avoid changing the design, the manufacturing processes, or the assembly process.  Keep everything the same and build 1000 units just as you built the first 100.  But that’s unlikely because the cost will be too high and the assembly time will be too long. For the most expensive parts, consider changing the manufacturing process to one that can support higher volumes at a lower cost.  You likely will have to buy the parts from another supplier who specializes in the new process and for that, you’ll need a purchasing professional with a quality background.  To reduce build time, do Design for Assembly (DFA) to eliminate parts (fasteners and connectors).  And for the processes that generate the highest rework times and scrap, add the necessary process controls to reduce variation and eliminate defects.  Do the minimum (lowest investment dollars and design time) to achieve the appropriate cost and quality levels and declare success.

After 1000 units, it’s time to automate and move to new manufacturing processes.  For the longest assembly processes, change the design (the parts themselves) to enable automated assembly processes. For the highest cost parts, change the parts (the design itself) to enable the move to manufacturing processes with lower cost signatures.  The important idea is that the design and its parts must change to automate and enable lower-cost manufacturing processes.  You’ll need new suppliers and purchasing professionals to bring them on board.  You’ll need quality professionals to verify the quality of the incoming parts and the output of the assembly process.  You’ll need manufacturing and automation engineers to simplify and automate the manufacturing processes.

The 10, 100, 1000 process is rather straightforward but it’s difficult because it requires judgement.  At what production volume do you move to higher volume manufacturing processes to reduce costs?  At what production volumes do you change the design to automate the assembly process to reduce assembly time?  At what point do you add assembly fixtures to reduce variation?  Which assembly processes do you improve and which do you leave as-is?  When do you spend money on improvements and when do you buckle down and grind it out without making improvements?

The answer to all these questions is the same – hire a pro who has done it before.  Hire a pro who knows when (and how) to do Design for Manufacturing and when to keep the design as it is.  Hire a pro who knows when (and how) to add poke-yoke solutions and when to keep the assembly process as it is and rework the defects because that’s the lowest cost and fastest way to go. Hire a pro who knows when to change the design to reduce assembly time (Design for Assembly) and when to change the design and invest in automated assembly.  Hire a pro who knows how (and when) to implement a full-blown quality system.

When it’s time to move from the lab to the factory floor, it’s time to hire a pro.

Image credit — Jim Roberts Gallery

Be successful, but be yourself.

Accept people for who they are and everything else gets better.

Tell the truth, even if it causes stress.  In the short term, it is emotionally challenging but in the long term, it builds trust.

Disagree, yes.  Disappoint, yes.  Disavow, no.

Be effective, but be yourself.

If your actions cause pain, apologize. It’s that simple.

It’s easier to accept others as they are when you can do the same for yourself.

Judging yourself is the opposite of accepting yourself as you are.

When someone needs help, help them.

Be skillful, but be yourself.

If there’s an upside to judging yourself, I don’t know it.

When you’re true to yourself, people can disagree with your position but not your truthfulness.

When you help someone, it’s like helping yourself twice.

There are plenty of people who will judge you.  There’s no need to join that club.

When you stand firmly on emotional bedrock, your perspective is unassailable.

When you’re true to yourself, it’s easier for others to do the same.

Be yourself especially when it’s difficult.  Your courage will empower others.

If there’s no upside to judging yourself, why do it?

Some questions for you:

How would things be different if you stopped judging yourself? Why not give it a try tomorrow?

Wouldn’t you like to be unassailable? Why not stand on your emotional bedrock tomorrow?

Over the next week, how many people will you help?

Over the next week, how many times will you demonstrate courage?

Over the next week, how many times will you be true to yourself, even when it’s difficult?

Image credit – _Veit_

If you don’t believe in the project, the team will sense it; energy will drain from the project; and no one will want to work the project.

If you don’t believe in the project, you can’t make yourself believe in the project.

If you don’t believe in the project, you can’t fool people and make them believe you believe in the project.  Your disbelief will flow from your pores like a bad smell.

If you don’t believe in the project, your disbelief will weaken an already weak project.

If you don’t believe in the project, your disbelief can twist a good project into a bad one.

If you don’t believe in the project, it may not be the right project, but you are not the right person to run it.

If you don’t believe in the project, but the company still wants you to run it, the worst thing for the project is for you to run it; the worst thing for the company is for you to run it; and the worst thing for your career is to refuse to run it.

If from the start you think the project will fail, tell the right people why you think it will fail. If after telling them why you think the project will fail, they then ask you to run the project, you have a problem and a choice.  Your problem is you’re the wrong person to run the project.  Your choice is to run the project into the ground or take the lumps for not running it into the ground.

My choice is to give someone else an opportunity to run the project.  I think life is too short to run a project you don’t believe in.

Image credit — Bennilover