Years ago, lean consultant Bill Waddell learned that when management is committed to the idea that they are different, and that the principles that apply in other manufacturing sectors don’t apply to their unique situation, it is best to pack up and move on:
“Do you have experience with a dairy products manufacturer that is 50% employee owned selling to both retailers and restaurant supply distributors with factories in both Alabama and Nebraska?” is code for “We ain’t gonna change.”
Some of the worst offenders are in pharmaceutical manufacturing, where they blame regulations, labeling requirements, and their “unique” no stock-out philosophy for their problems:
This particular issue stuck in my craw after I read that the Johnson & Johnson’s plant making children’s products has been closed down after four recalls in seven months. The FDA met with Johnson & Johnson’s senior management in February and they still can’t figure out how to make children’s Tylenol and other products without “foreign materials and black or dark specks” in them. This is no primitive outsourced operation — the solution of choice for many of the big pharmas to address their unique challenges. This plant is in a suburb of Philadelphia.
The FDA inspectors found “thick dust and grime covering certain equipment, a hole in the ceiling and duct tape-covered pipes.” I guess the challenges of dealing with all those labels are moot. The FDA is urging J&J’s customers to use private labeled alternatives — generics — anything but Johnson & Johnson. How’s the ‘No Stock-Out Philosophy” working for you now, J&J? Seems as though the government has concluded that a stock-out of Johnson & Johnson products is about the best thing that can happen to their customers.
The rationalization that you are different — your problems are so difficult and unique that no one else can understand them — is a formula for disaster. It makes management sound like so many teenagers — or alcoholics — whining ‘no one understands me’. In fact, just about everyone understands you quite well. The only one who doesn’t get it is you.