Episode 57 - The War on Waste Paradox - Chapter 10 - Part 1 - Audio Book

A Consortium of Problem Solvers Podcast of Len Bertain's Audio Books

No one owns the market on ideas. This last sequence with our hero getting interesting and valuable input from someone who doesn’t know anything about his work, namely his wife, is very real. It comes from one of my most exciting moments as a consultant. I was in a class and a couple of machinists were arguing about the best way to do something. They were sitting on a project team with the company receptionist. After a few minutes of their bantering back and forth, she blurted out, “Why don’t you turn up the feeds and speeds? You are after all machining aluminum and the part needs to be produced at a low cost. I didn’t hear you guys mention anything about the required surface finish.”

I happened to be at the table when this happened and the look on the faces of the two machinists was priceless. It turns out that the receptionist had grown up in a family of five boys. Their family had a machine shop and she learned how to operate machine shop equipment at an early age. But she wanted to raise a family and she had. She was now in her mid-forties and took the job in an environment that she knew. From that point forward, her life at the company changed. She moved into operations and became an instant success. My message is this: listen to anyone who has an idea. It just may surprise you. Best, Len