Just the facts, ma'am

Just the facts, ma'am

Joe Friday made famous the line "My name is Friday—I'm a cop," in the introductory narration of every TV episode of Dragnet. Supposedly, he also made the line, "Just  the facts, ma'am" famous. In fact, what Friday actually said in an early episode is "All we want are the facts." Friday, as portrayed by Webb, never actually said the oft-repeated phrase. So says Wikipedia in their version of the facts.

Whether or not Joe Friday ever said "Just the facts, ma'am", the facts are necessary for your operation; to judge what is not right, and what to change. Objective, open eyed facts, undistorted by opinions and politics; nor by "it's always been done that way" and the dreaded Not Invented Here syndrome.

1. Good examples

U. S. Steel taught me, a long time ago, two tenets: "Do it the best way"; and "There's always a better way". These are not contradictory concepts. First, assure that all processes in use are correct, safe and effective; that they meet the specs and customer requirements; that they are documented and part of the accepted methodology. Next, and repeat this forever, there is always a better way so find it, prove it, justify it, formally accept it and build it into the new accepted methodology.

A very good boss one time instructed me to "open every door, climb on every roof. See the source document." He already knew I carried a stopwatch and a tape measure, and could spell assume.

2. What kind of facts?

Yesterday's results, last week's figures. If you have a reason to distrust them, you have a bigger problem than this article will solve.

What does your eye tell you? How long, with the watch, how far, with the tape? What's in the scrap bin, and how many?

Where is inventory? What processes are backed up? Where is the maintenance crew? What people are idle, busy, overloaded? Who is away from their workplace? How is housekeeping? Where do cigarette butts accumulate?

What you see is a momentary observation, of course, a sample, You will need many samples to have a statistical proof. But chances are, what you constantly see is pretty well what goes on.

Your documentation is quite useful. Source documents of any kind. Flow charts, and layouts, and operator instructions, and the printed material in the product, and bills of material, and specs, and what your customer asks about on the phone. Accident reports. Inventory trends. Shipments, backlogs. Modern techniques such as value stream mapping are useful as long as they are a tool and not an end in themselves.

3. Ask an independent source to come in

Recent consulting clients have asked me to measure, and flow chart, and to time how long tasks take; to establish workloads and quantify bottlenecks and cost out operations and record what really happens. And all that before I get to suggest improvements, because I have to collect that information in order to know where to start and what to improve upon.

A client asks JPR in because we are objective, and we don't know who suggested that particular idea so we don't mind saying that it is nuts. Sometimes my study agrees with the plant's earlier finding and the home office sees I am not asked back; sometimes my objective workload evaluation says that the wife of the union VP worked (effectively) the first six hours of her shift through break and lunch, to complete the written activity requirements. I didn't get a lot of positive feedback from that report even though I invented a neat spreadsheet to monitor shift-to-date workload.

First record what is done now, and it can be improved in most instances; in 150 of the 151 operations I have been in so far. And I could have probably found opportunity in Boone Boards but I was so impressed I lost interest. But I absolutely would have not believed how effective the operation was until I got the facts from my own eyes.   

4. Not Invented Here syndrome

I don't understand NIH anyway; I have certainly been in places where it was active, but they didn't invent it, so why was it alive and well? The pre-conceptions of NIH are the direct opposite of objective fact finding. 

Thanks for your attention; I'm happy to add to your perspective of industrial engineering and productivity.