Achieving Operational Excellence - Put People First

Welcome to the industry— welcome to the Industry 4.0 Club's fireside chat. Our purpose is to engage the power of diverse worldwide talent to accelerate the global evolution to Industry 4.0. We accomplish this by hosting and supporting respectful, thoughtful, and interdisciplinary open conversations and creating quality content on wide-ranging Industry 4.0 topics to expand our reach to our community. We're glad you've decided to join us today for our fireside chat with Justin Brennan. Justin is going to be sharing his experience with Industry 4.0 and operational excellence with a focus on engaging people along his journey. My name is Mike Ungar, and I'm an Industry 4.0 Club co-founder. For the past 3 years, I've been a Focal Point business coach and executive coach, and prior to that, I spent 35 years at Michelin North America in a variety of continuous improvement, operations, finance, and HR roles. My co-host today is Mike Yost. Mike, would you mind introducing yourself briefly, please?

Sure. Thanks, Mike, and welcome, Justin. Thanks for joining us here, everybody. My name is Mike Yost, and I'm one of the co-founders of the Industry 4.0 Club. I run a startup called Bennett in which we work to match up manufacturers seeking solutions with domain experts that can help them. I've been in the industry for about 30 years, about half of that time in the industrial nonprofit space leading MESA International and the U.S. National Institute on Smart Manufacturing. So appreciate Justin being here and being willing to share his perspectives and experience and looking forward of the conversation.

Thanks, Mike. So let me introduce Justin Brennan. Justin describes himself as a people-first leader and coach in strategic planning, operational excellence, and lean transformations. He has over 10 years of work experience in operations, maintenance, project management, ranging from frontline— from the frontline to the C-suite executives. He has consistently delivered performance improvement with a focus on sustainability. Justin is experienced in coordinating multidisciplinary teams to drive successful improvement across many areas. He is currently the Vice President of Operations for Medical Products Laboratory, Inc. Prior to this role, Justin worked as the Director of Operational Excellence for Renaissance Lakewood and spent nearly 6 years with McKinsey. Justin is a chemical engineer by degree with a bachelor's from Drexel University. Justin, we're glad that you took— to take some time away from your busy schedule to join us today. and share your insights. As we get started, just a comment for those on LinkedIn, um, on LinkedIn Live. If you've got a question for Justin, please share it in the comments section, and we're going to try to get to it during our, our conversation with Justin. So Justin, if you could just, uh, start us off, tell us a bit more about yourself. When you're not busy with operations, what do you like to do? How do you spend your time?

So I think, uh, as with most people in the operations world, um, You know, the work side of things eats up a lot of time during the week. I do like to unwind with family and friends and, uh, really enjoy playing hockey as well. So I'm still, as I say, with my friends chasing the dream and, uh, playing hockey a few times a week on top of trying to make things better here at work. And, uh, thank you for the, the really polite introduction. I appreciate it.

Yeah, are you, are you in a, in a league of any sorts or, or just, uh, just get on, on the ice once in a while?

No, I'm in a couple different leagues, so, uh, it's 2 or 3 nights a week I'll be playing at least.

And where do you play on the ice? What position?

I'm a goalie. So it kind of explains a lot about me the more you get to know me.

As you like to get hit and get back up, huh?

You got to roll with the punches sometimes, right? As long as you got the right padding on, you're good to go.

I love it. That's fantastic. So how'd you get interested in Industry 4.0?

So, I mean, you know, if I think about it, I think it was— it's an odd way to put it, but I fell in love with it before Foresight. So I think I was chasing an Industry 4.0 solution earlier in my career, and I didn't even know what I was going after, but it felt like something I needed. So that's kind of where that came from, or the genesis of this never-ending pursuit, so to speak.

And so does— is that a personal thing or a corporate thing or both? Is it taking hold in the company?

Yeah, it was a corporate thing. So it started when I was at Dow Chemical where I was making paint. So we had 2 very large reactors and, you know, I was working— the first thing I did when I got there was supported an already in-flight automation conversion. So essentially what they were doing was taking a very old control system and updating it to a Delta-V control system. So I jumped in, started learning what loop checks we were doing, learning all the controls and programming and recipe writing and Spent a lot of time diving into that, and I got to witness firsthand the transformation that occurred. And, you know, I had a class in college that still sticks with me where a professor said that technology is very rarely revolutionary, it's often evolutionary. We just don't see the steps before it or appreciate them. And I think one of the things I found in that one was it felt borderline revolutionary. The operators were able to control things a lot easier. The recipes gave them much better insight to where the problems were because the system could talk back to the Delta-V controllers. And it's just across the board, it was a game changer for us in terms of first-pass quality and things like that. And that really sparked the love. And then from there, it just became an exercise in a lot of digitization and some digitalization. So I wouldn't say a full digital transformation in that sense, but at least understanding which processes and which tools could become digital or, you know, could be put onto an automation side of things and help us out there.

Justin, your camera looks like it's doing some funny things.

We just lost— I'm gonna play with the cable while I go offline really quickly. This is a bit of an old one.

All right, sounds great.

Hopefully that's a little bit better.

Yeah, that is better. Thank you. I can imagine, you know, you're going to hypnotize the entire audience with that flashing light.

So yeah, it kind of felt a bit like, uh, 2001: A Space Odyssey as we get to Jupiter, right?

So Yeah, holy cow, that's cool.

If I, if I could just stick with that for just a second. So you talk about Dow and that corporation and, and the stuff that you learned there, and obviously there's a huge corporate initiative where you are now. Maybe talk a little bit about where you are now, and, you know, is there a corporate initiative underway? I always like to know from people, like, who— if there is a thing, who owns the thing, right? Do you own it as the ops guy? Is it an IT thing? Is it a controls thing? So maybe talk a little bit about that with your experience.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's a really interesting segue into a different part of the conversation as well. But from where I'm at now, I'm at Medical Products Laboratories. I've been here for just over 6 months. What I'm focusing on here and what we're working on is the digitization and digitalization part of it. So I wouldn't call it a full digital transformation, but what we are going after is understanding which tools we have that are paper-based that we can improve the efficiency and efficacy of by going to a digital tool. And then the processes as well. So if we look at even something as simple as the shift report or something as simple as component transfer from a warehouse to the production floor, taking those from paper-based systems or from loosely defined email things to having full systems and structures in place for that. And from the ownership perspective, I actually, I like to think of it as a partnership. So the IT department here is very strong and there's There's some things we'll talk about later in terms of size, but because we're a smaller company, that allows us higher agility and it allows us more direct relationship with them. So the ownership side of it, it's the leaders of the company, I think, are fully invested in it. And it's just a matter of, you know, what's the right process and what's the right plan for us to go after. But I'm driving a lot of it, but it's hand in hand with the IT side of things.

That's great.

Well, that's really cool. You know, in that partnership, what kind of conflicts arise? Maybe you could just— let's follow this a bit further. So, you know, we always talk about IT/OT conflicts a little bit. What are you finding and how do you deal with those? Because they're real. I mean, they can be real anyway.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I've found is, oddly enough, it's the regulatory side, at least in the pharma world. You know, the IT department has obviously, and we all do have a requirement to be compliant client in that sense. So what we have to do is make sure that as we make changes or as we request new tools or devices or processes, that they don't impact the validation. And then once we go beyond that, a lot of it is really just prioritization. So in a smaller company, we can do things faster, but there's also less people. It's one of those things that we have to balance out and make sure that, you know, I'm not chasing a pet project of something that doesn't move the bottom line or doesn't move the needle for us as a company. And it's something that You know, we have to prioritize a little more ruthlessly in that sense.

When you think about— when you say you're a smaller sort of company, can you quickly, without divulging things you can't divulge, how big is the plant? And, and, you know, what does that— when you say you're not— you, you kind of have to do things differently, what does that mean?

We have, uh, 3 buildings that we, we work between, and, you know, the overall size of the company is less than 500 people, and a lot of those are the operations side on the floor. So we don't have a massive IT department. We don't have, you know, teams of engineers to go do things or, you know, a lot of time to sit down and kind of do the vision and long-term planning and things like that. Because a lot of it is sort of making sure that we can monetize what we're going after in the near term and what we're working on has a direct linkage to value in a shorter timeframe, at least for now.

So how do you stay abreast of what's going on in the marketplace when You know, unless you do it personally, are there folks that help you with that, or is it really up to you to find out what's going on?

I think here the IT department brings a lot of that to the table. They help us out with, you know, what tools or devices or what automation approaches are available that I might not be aware of. I do also try to spend time on LinkedIn and just reading different papers and keeping in touch with what technologies are coming out, what the, you know, the flavor of the day is, so to speak. But understanding what else is out there just to see if we can move the needle. One of the big things I found is between the MOMs and the MESs, there's this ability to layer technology onto a traditional ERP system. So what we've— what I've really deployed in my past few years has been kind of what I would call an MES light or an MOM light type system where we layer a cloud-based software solution on top of our ERP systems so that it can pull data. It's not able to write to it, but It also drastically speeds up the implementation. It allows us to really do some things in a more nimble fashion. And it also gives us that visibility we're looking for from front to back if you think about the value stream. So from start to finish.

That's really cool. And so when you look outside, do you have a support structure that helps you like MEP or other associations in your area? Or is it pretty much— are you on your own?

Right now, it's largely myself. I think, you know, from my prior role, I have some contacts and connections at other companies. I think that's how I made the connection here to the Industry 4.0 Club. So, you know, you leverage the network there, but for the most part right now, it's, you know, it's pretty isolated in that sense.

Yeah, so we have a lot of folks that come on and we talk here, and I always say that the work that you're doing there— people ask, you know, how to get started, and I really think this point of self-education, self-awareness is a big point that people need to do. So I commend you for doing it. And then to Mike's point, like, there are a lot of organizations that are out there that are claiming help or have help. One of the things that I question is, do they know what help looks like for an ops leader?

Right?

So maybe if you could take all these different resources that are out there and say, what, what does help look like through your eyes? Maybe give a little framing for that.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think the term help is relative. So from my perspective, I like to take it back to what am I trying to achieve? I wouldn't say it's a full Hoshin Kanri exercise, but from the lean tools and lean terminology, what I like to do is make sure we're solving a real problem that does have linkage to value. So from that perspective, help for me is solving the issue that I— solving the issues that are top of mind, solving the issues that are preventing us from either increasing our revenue or, you know, keep controlling our costs a little better while also looking at the people side of things as well. So there's a balancing act in that regard. But to answer your question more succinctly, I think help is dependent upon the situation. For me, help would be the integration of the data, having that cradle-to-grave linkage on the data side of things, making sure that the processes are moving towards a digital world and not so paper-based or not as analog, if you will, and really just making sure that everything is linked together and I have full data traceability so I can deploy my people on the idea and work with the team to get us on solving problems and identifying problems through data and not collecting the data or trying to just get the basic day-to-day stuff done.

So that's a great perspective. Who within your organization consumes the information, right? So do you have Is it going directly to your ops teams? Do you have continuous improvement teams? You know, who's sort of driving, making sense of the data? Or is that something that comes into your inbox every morning and you're scouring over?

So, you know, I think as you get more experience, I'm still, you know, a long ways to go on the experience side of things. But I think what I see is, if you, as emails come across and as questions are asked, I try to pay attention to what's the nature of the question. So From my side, what I see is our customer service reps are kind of the internal customers. You know, they give us the POs, they tell us what the demand is. Our job is to convert that demand into supply and get that to them. So from the customer side of things, if you take it to that value stream perspective, again, I want to make sure that we're satisfying their needs and they get what they want from us. And when I look at it, when I first got here, the big thing I looked at was making sure that they could easily access the data to understand what was made, when it was made, how much is available, when it's ready to ship. when it'll be ready to release, all those things that go inside the manufacturing world. That's really kind of for me how I tell what I'm looking at on that side and what the issues are that we have to go after. Excellent.

One of the— we kind of headlined this conversation around Justin, the people-first leader. So I want to make sure we get into that conversation we had a little bit further. What is being a people-first leader? What does that mean?

That's a great question. I think it feels like a little bit of a generic LinkedIn term, so it helps to add a little depth behind it. But for me, what it means is the people come to work and it's not assets. It's not anything like that. We have to remember that everybody comes in. We have good days and bad days and we have goals. And one of the things I learned earlier in my career was Not everybody wants to be a CEO, right? So you have to find out what your people, what your teammates want to be when they get older, what they want to be as they progress, and help them get there. And, you know, kind of ferret it out for some of the younger people who don't necessarily know exactly what that is. So for me, what that means is once someone kind of has a line of sight of what they want, or at least what they want to try, I want to train them, develop them to meet the objectives that we have in our current group, in our current role, exceed them where possible, and then also prepare them for that next step. You know, I've had conversations a lot of times with my employees where I talk about my job is to train you, develop you for your next role. And if I do a good job of that, it'll be done within 18 to 24 months or so. And it'll be somewhere in this company that you'll have your next spot ready to go. So my whole objective is not to hold on to people. It's not to create an environment where people feel trapped or they feel like they can't grow. And that's for me, people first becomes meeting the objectives and the needs of my— the people I work with. And helping them get there. Also learning myself. I mean, my journey is never done to that side of things. So if we have those open and honest conversations, I find that people develop faster. We can be more purposeful in terms of how we lead, and we can really help them, you know, get their fullest potential, find their confidence, find their voice, and get out there and make a big change on the floor wherever they want to end up.

So then tying back to your previous answer about the data for your people that It sounds like that would be a way that really you support your people by giving them access to information they need.

Yeah, yeah, it's almost like a bit of a social contract, if you will, where, you know, I work behind the scenes to make sure that the information is available so that the people can go and make the right decisions and make the informed decisions they need to make, not struggle to find that data. And that helps them accelerate their development because they're focused on really where can they add value and less on What value is there to add?

Yeah. So, um, how do you manage the— what can be sometimes anyway— the dichotomy of needs? In other words, um, working on the shop floor, if I'm one of those operators that's running equipment, you know, I might identify a, a problem that when solved really won't do a lot for your bottom line results. And you as the operations leader, you know, you've got goals you've got to hit for delivery and costs. And so how do you balance that when thinking about Industry 4.0 and going after what you go after?

That's a great question. I think for me, it's the traditional transformation mindset, at least from my few years in consulting, where, you know, not everything's going to be a superstar project that comes in and adds 3% of EBITDA or something like that. Sometimes it is going and addressing the quick pain points. And I think what I found, to answer your question directly, is it's that deliberate conversation with both the executive team, the leadership, and the people that are providing those ideas to explain why we can or can't do it at the time we're at, when it may happen if we can't do it right now, and give them more background there. But it's really about that open conversation to say, I hear you on this one, I understand it's a pain We're working on these things above it, and as soon as we get those done, we're going to move on and tackle this project, or find out if there's other resources that can handle it as ready work, or whatever options are available. But at the end of the day, it's about transparency and honesty. So if someone gives you an idea, you owe them an answer, you owe them a response, and in a timely and respectful fashion to tell them. If we're not going to work on it, tell them that. If we are going to work on it but not now, tell them that as well and explain why. But it's, it's kind of that whole transparency. treating people as people thing. And it's kind of simple if you think about it at the end of the day, but we do complicate it sometimes.

So, so just wondering from a corporate culture perspective, right, is this, this is what drew you? It sounds like you have a good team doing a lot of good things together, sharing together, working together. Is that something that you brought or something that was already there that you fit into that drew you into the company?

I think it's complementary. Uh, you know, I think the— you can't you can't give people motivation overnight, right? And that's one of the things I used to get frustrated with in consulting was we're always looking for that horrible phrase of a burning platform. I used to work in oil and gas, so I really, really hate that one. But we would look for what can we do to get the client engaged? What can we do to change the tone? When I got here, what I found was we had a really driven workforce, and I felt like my job was to unlock more of their potential. help them make their days more effective, spend less hours, but do more in the hours that they're here. So to go back to your initial question, it was kind of complementary and it was a happy accident, if you will, to quote Bob Ross.

There you go.

So you've obviously— I know from our earlier conversations before the broadcast, you've engaged in Industry 4.0 and you've talked about a couple of things today. Why do you think some companies are slow to engage Industry 4.0 tools? to help them solve their problems?

You know, it's a tough one. I think, if I may speak candidly, I think some of it is generational. I think there's often a hesitance to jump in and do something digitally where a whiteboard has worked before, you know, 7,000 Post-it notes have worked before. We kind of have a tendency to go back to what we know, but that's an easy excuse. I think the other part of it is also there's a lot of cost issues. There's regulation, like I mentioned before, and then I think sometimes the the marketing, if you will, of Industry 4.0 actually plays against it a little bit. I think some people tend to view it as hype and not understand that it's an evolution in the next step, right? And then with the consultancies and things like that, there's this strong drive to push it, to sell it. But at the end of the day, if you, if you can paint it as something that's complementary to the work that's already been done to the PLCs and the automation and the things you saw in Industry 3.0, it's a logical next step. And it doesn't have to be a lot of flash for very little substance. It can actually be a lot of substance that you don't even see or know about. But the perception I get a lot is that's a nice-to-have, it's not a need-to-have. And at the end of the day, if you sometimes spend the hours at night or on the weekends to put those things in play and show what that looks like, it's a game changer. And I can think of an example at my last job where I had a fantastic boss that really wanted a new visual schedule for the plant, a new finite schedule. He was fully comfortable with, you know, the physical sense, the magnet boards, the whiteboards. We're going to go up and have people adjust it. But what I observed was this could be so much more powerful and impactful if we could just let people access the tool where they're at. And it's a little bit, I guess, antithetical to the idea of the lean mindset of going to the floor and doing the Gemba walks. But at the same time, we need that clarity and signaling. And if you have a dispersed workforce, some working at home, some on-site or various schedules, you have to enable them to do that. So what I did was I worked in the background to build a digital schedule. And I hate using the word I when it's a successful thing, so bear with me on this one, but built a tool, kind of had a proof of concept, worked on it in the background with people to provide, to see if there's value behind it. And once we did a proof of value and kind of really saw that it did provide more clarity and provide better dynamic ability to update, then we went live. And then I don't know if you guys remember, a couple years ago we had this pandemic that occurred, and it couldn't have been more coincidentally ideal timing. Not for the pandemic, which was an awful thing and still remains to be, but for the company, it enabled us to keep our production going, keep our scheduling going in an environment where people couldn't be on site. Hmm. So I think it was February 1st, 2020, we turned on the digital schedule on site. March 1st, we kind of got wind that something was happening. And then I think it was March 13th, that Friday or Saturday, that they shut everything down. And right after that, we had to work from home. And in Jersey especially, it was very strict, very locked down. So I eventually got my pass to go back to site, but until then, we had to do it all through Teams and Excel and all those wonderful tools. And it ended up being a huge benefit for us. And the long story short part of it is my boss came back to me and said, you know, had we not had that happen, had we not seen it in action and been forced to use it, I still probably would've been a little more hesitant about it. Seeing it in action and seeing the concept come to life really changed my mind on a lot of those things. And I found after that that I had a lot more support to engage with the IT department and understand how we can, you know, put that layered solution on top, that MES or MOM Lite that I talked about, drive connectivity and drive the cradle-to-grave mindset in terms of our data. And that helped shift the leadership mindset from it's not something we need to have to, okay, this is something that's foundational for how we operate.

Well, just, just 2 quick things. One, as a, as a recovering solution provider, you can slam the way that the, the systems are, are marketed all day long. I'm at the front of the line to do that. I think it does a heck of a lot more harm than good. And one of the things that we try to fight against here in the, in the club, right, just to talk more about, you know, the, you know, the things that you're going through and the value you can provide and such. I was going to ask, and then you led right into it. I mean, the pandemic obviously was a monster disruption, right? And there are people talking for years to be prepared for disruption, but nobody ever thought it was really going to be like that, right? And then we truly got disrupted, and you have digital tools that are there to enable. Are you seeing as part of the drivers, like, are you seeing your customers with more requests for You know, whether it's traceability or transparency or supply chain connectivity or whatever, are there drivers external beyond the pandemic that you're seeing that will also help play into this?

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really great observation from my side of things because what I see is people want real-time data and they want transparency. You know, that's part of, I think, some of the concern going back to the prior question about taking on this Industry 4.0 mindset and a lot of the digitalization is It creates the ability to share more data, and sometimes people are hesitant to do that.

Oh yeah.

Which, you know, rightfully so in some cases. You don't need to see all the sausage being made. But, you know, I think that the— just going back to it, there's something about the pandemic and the need for data that drives the need to share it more. And customers are every day asking for more and more real-time updates, asking for more and more insight as to where their product's at. looking for tech-enabled solutions, right? So one of the things that we've pushed on here is going to— if we're all in the Office 365 environment, and this is not a Microsoft plug, but it works out well, we set up a shared team site. So we have external people on that one. We share files through that. We collaborate in real time. I've even gotten it where we have our visual production schedule for a segment of our business on that team site, and we update it and work together in real time. So If the customer wants to change the timing or needs to reprioritize, that signal no longer has to go through 4 different people to get to the floor. It's directly available on the operations manager, the supervisors, and also the planner. They all have access to that on their computer. So, you know, as much as there is an uphill battle to provide that insight or provide that clarity and the transparency and share the data with the clients that they're demanding more and more of, it actually has an internal benefit if you can use that. that urgency and that firefighting mindset to enable more people in your company to become digitally empowered, so to speak.

Well, and is the company considering that as a value-add service that you can charge more for what you do versus your competitors because you have, you know, these capabilities to collaborate this way or share more openly or anything like that?

We're not currently there yet, but I think, you know, as we move forward, that is something I've briefly thought about but not to that level. So it's a great idea to really to kind of understand, if you think about an à la carte approach, if you want this real-time data, here's what it costs, that kind of deal.

Yeah, that's cool. I know you have experience in lean as well. When we talk about Industry 4.0, a lot of times folks don't know how to integrate the principles of lean and Industry 4.0. Can you talk about how you see that What are some of the keys to success there?

Yeah, so I think if we talk about operational excellence, lean manufacturing, and Industry 4.0, one of the key things I've seen is the early engagement across the board. And, you know, we talked about it earlier in terms of, is it IT-led or is it ops-led or who owns it? At the end of the day, if IT and ops work together and we get that early input and we get that— going back to that lean mindset of the voice of the customer, you can build the tool and build your goals and objectives appropriately. You know, the next thing is that Hoshin-Conrey mindset for me is what are the goals and then how does that cascade through the organization? And when we look at that, you know, where can digital help us? Is it a basic digitization or is it something that really requires a full transformative mindset there? Beyond that, it becomes the— you do have to have some executive sponsorship. So, you know, if you don't have a champion at the executive level, a lot of these things will fall flat or You'll have to have that kind of lucky moment where something happens where a tool was ready and an opportunity presented itself. Beyond that, obviously, if it can show a linkage to value, show those bottom-line savings, that's the easiest way to sell it for a lot of things. But if I look at it, the correlation between lean and Industry 4.0 is they should be complementary. They don't have to be disparate. They don't have to be mutually exclusive or running parallel forever. They can work together very well. if there's a thoughtfulness around how you deploy digital tools or digitalization in a lean mindset with a waste reduction mindset.

Yeah, the key, I think you hit upon one of the keys that, or 2 of the keys that I think of a lot of times. It's one, engaging others in this conversation. So maintaining this lean brings us to employee engagement. So making sure that's a part of how you deploy Industry 4.0. And then you hit it on the head about waste elimination. If you're still focused on, you know, improving your ability to get product to the customer by eliminating waste, regardless of how you do that, that's a win, right? So that's also a good thing. Those are 2 important principles, at least that I would think of as well.

Yeah, I think, you know, it's one of those things I look at it like, think about the competency curve, right? You start out as, I guess, what is it, unconsciously unaware or something like that, or unconsciously incompetent.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that I found that people— that there's often this belief that everybody— you have a hard time understanding that people don't know what you know. So if you think about as we move forward in Industry 4.0, the leading edge is moving very fast. It's moving further and further ahead of things, but the trailing edge has not moved as quickly. So when I engage with some people, when I talk about the voice of the customer, try to do this, one of the biggest wastes I find is human, you know, the talent waste. We don't go out and engage with people, but what that also means is we don't train them, so they do things in really inefficient, really inefficient ways, specifically in basic tools like Excel or Teams or things like that. Just simple primers on how to use those tools can almost serve, you know, some of the same impact that you get for a large-scale digital transformation, because what happens is you bring the back of the pack or the middle of the pack closer to the front. And it's about keeping that that distribution so it's not so wide at the end of the day.

Yeah, just a quick observation. You mentioned the pandemic, we talked about it. 2 things that I saw happen, because I've been doing this, one of those old generational ones that you were talking about earlier, that's been around a while. So the The pandemic changed 2 things that forever have been an issue. One was the ability, the need, and the willingness to accept help externally, right? But the other one was this conversation about having enough people or using tools, systems, automation, things like that. Used to be, you know, no, that could potentially displace people. Now it is, hey, we don't have enough people, and this is a great way to augment and make the existing people that we do have, you know, able to do more work and give them more tools. Do you guys see a correlation between the labor shortage and the skill shortages and being able to deploy some technology to help the staff that you do have?

Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, it's still early days with a lot of these things, but for us at least, but when we're looking at where we can fill in gaps and where we can do these things, I think the remote work side of it alone has enabled a lot of productivity and a lot of solutions that wouldn't have been there otherwise. So if we think about it from the perspective of pre-pandemic, the idea of a hybrid work schedule or the idea of working from home, I mean, it seems so normal to us now to have this conversation. But if you think back to 2019, 2018, it was one of those things where the person who asked for that either has to, you know, have a young child or has to have some exceptional case to do it. It's not something that's normal. And just by shifting that, we've alleviated what I would call kind of the concern of the loss of labor side of things because people can work wherever they are.

Yeah.

So there's obviously the negative sides of that where you're also able to work wherever you are, so you have to disconnect intentionally. But we have seen the software, the technology really help us, you know, find other places to get information or do some of that remote troubleshooting as well. It's not something that we're fully on board with yet. We're not all the way there, but I do think that I've seen the, the subtle impacts of it. And I know, for example, some of the people prior to my arrival here had just taken on a hybrid schedule, which the pandemic was the reason that they were able to do that. And that's probably the one that jumps out to me the most right now. I'm sure there are much more intricate and meaningful ones out there, but I think that's the one that's kind of enabled us to keep people who might have otherwise even looked for another job, right? Because the The marketing side of the great— whatever the quitting thing was last year, and then we have the quiet quitting on top of that. Or so there's all these things about you should leave your job, you should move on. And that was a big theme in 2022. So basically enabling people to do the same work they're doing at least keeps the status quo and you don't have to worry about, well, they're going to leave because they don't want to drive here every day.

Do you find along those lines, And I don't know your culture or your plant, so it may be a question with really no answer, but do you find a conflict is created because, you know, if you're out on the shop floor, you really can't work from home? You got to be there to run equipment. And yet there are positions that can work from home. Is there a struggle between dealing with both populations inside the company?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's human nature, right? I mean, If I said there wasn't, I think it'd be a flat-out lie. If you look at people who have to be here at 5:30, 6 o'clock in the morning to get the day going, get the plant running, they're going to look at someone who comes in at a different time or doesn't have to come in differently than they would look at their colleagues who are there at the same time or shortly after. It's just how we are as people. So to ignore that would be silly on my part. And I definitely think that that's very real. But at the same time, what we can do is work with the team on the floor and Explain to them why people can work from home and what that means. And then also offer them, if they want to, if there's a way they— if they can, you know, outside the people who are working directly on the line, if there's something I can do for supervisors or for even managers to give them a chance to spend even half a day a week planning or doing some strategy work or thinking, thinking longer term, that's fine. I mean, the supervisors are obviously a little bit harder because they run the hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute. But I do push my managers at least to Take some time, get away from the noise, and collect their thoughts and think about what's next week, what's next month, what's this year. So, you know, it's something you constantly have to address because people will point out that someone's not here at a certain time or they're not available to run out on the floor. And that mindset of being available to run out there whenever there's an issue, it has value. I'm not going to say it's an old-school thing. It's the right thing to do in an operations world. You have to be on the floor to some extent. So just proactively engaging it and identifying where people are getting really frustrated by it is probably the best way I can go about it from my perspective.

That's great. I think the other part, you know, we talk about, you know, tracking the right things and making the shop floor more and more proactive, if you will, so that you don't need to be in this reactive mode all the time that obviously can lend itself then to Planning for, uh, and preparing for what, you know, and trying to avoid the chaos that can occur on— in a— not always possible, but, but obviously the more you can do that, the more people are comfortable with, yeah, okay, so it doesn't have to be here today right at this time. We don't— they'll be okay. We got it under control.

No, that's spot on. Um, you know, we've had a lot of work in the past 6 months that I've been here working with the customer support team, the project management team, the planning team to get ahead of the curve, right? Make sure that we can run everything we have to run. We have all the materials, batch records, everything's good to go. So when the floor sees that their days are becoming easier, like exactly like you said, they start to worry about where people are less. And it's more of an exception than a rule to complain about, you know, I don't have access to this person or they're not here because they don't need them as much.

So, you know, that little bit of planning, like you mentioned, can go a very long way to alleviate these Well, and you even think about it further, not to put a plug in for certain Industry 4.0 tools, but, you know, you think about AI eventually driving predictive maintenance where you, you know, a part's going to fail, or, um, the mixed reality tools, if you will, so that your expert is available when they're not there to help somebody when there's help, you know, the help needed. Those That's where, again, this makes it even more— as we continue to go down this road, those tools can also make it much more comfortable where schedules can be a lot more flexible.

Yeah, I mean, we even see it right now with the evolution from, I'm going to text this person, to I'm going to call this person, to text, to now we FaceTime. So when there's an issue, we're not in the augmented reality space, but we will FaceTime and have an expert mechanic or a technician troubleshoot something. via phone if it's on second shift, which is— when I started consulting in 2014, the expert on the shoulder was a big concept we were talking about.

Right.

We were talking about Google Glass, and then we went on to Microsoft HoloLens and all those kind of things. I don't think we're there yet just because of the ease of deployment, but I'm assuming when the technology becomes commercially available, the cost will come down enough that people will be willing to play with it more. But for now, I think to your point, we can— At least get that kind of using the technology on the FaceTime and things and getting people to feel like they're being supported more through the technology, which is a different mindset, but it definitely works.

I know from our club's perspective, one of the things that we think is important for helping all manufacturers is being willing to share, right? And you're here sharing, and we're hoping that more people will do it and they'll share more. And that'll be just become more of the norm for people that we know that you're going to get help because you're giving and someone else is going to see and make a connection. And then, you know, sort of the 6 degrees of separation kind of thing. Next thing you know, we're all closer to each other and able to find information and stuff. But I'm wondering from where you sit, what can we do as the club or what can the ecosystem do for you where you sit? Are there any— Any things that you can think of that'd be like, man, like serve something up here for me? Or I guess how could we be more of help for somebody in your position?

I think about how do I find information when I have a problem? So what I go to Google or I go to Reddit or something like that and look up information there. So what I would say is if there's a web home, right? Or if there's a home or an app or something like that, conversations can flow naturally. I can go in there, and if you think about it, the biggest thing that we run into is I have a problem, and, you know, we talked about the tech solutions. I don't know which solutions may fit this problem. I don't know how to go about this or how to structure the issue or how to address it. Having the ability to bridge the problem to the solution space, that part there, if there's a way to get the Industry 4.0 Club or get the participants to work together on that, that actually could be something that's hugely impactful for For a lot of leaders out there just trying to find out how to move to that next step.

Excellent.

That's cool.

Yeah.

Well, I think we're probably getting close to the end of our conversation. So I guess, Mike, I'm going to— perhaps you want to start with a final thought for the audience and then I'll move it to Justin. What do you—

Sure. First of all, fantastic conversation. I really appreciate it, Justin. I think that probably the 2 main things from my perspective are the focus on solving a real problem, right, and focus on the people. And, you know, the technologies and such fall in line accordingly. And I think Justin's demonstrated that if you have the right culture and the right commitment, that, you know, these can be enabling, you know, solutions and such. But I'd say people first and focus on the problem is really the key takeaways for me today.

Thanks, I appreciate that, Mike. Justin, do you have a final thought you'd like to share with our audience today?

Yeah, I think the, uh, I'll keep it simple and sweet. I think I've rambled on enough at this point. But, uh, yeah, I think for me the biggest thing is remembering that the technology serves people. As much as we talk about ChatGPT, as much as we talk about automation and everything, if we don't consider how the people fit into the equation, if we don't make these solutions people-oriented, um, we're missing the thread entirely. And we're not at a spot where the lights-off factory is a reality for a majority of people. Cobotics is still something that people struggle with. So I would say that you have to remember at the end of the day who your audience is and who needs to use the technology and what it's trying to solve.

I really appreciate that. That's been— it's been a really great conversation the last 45 minutes or so talking about— we've been talking with Justin Brennan about his approach to people first and operational excellence. So I'd like to thank you, Justin and Mike, for joining us this afternoon. And also thank you to everybody else in the audience who took their time out from their day to listen in. If you like conversations like this, please take a look— please look for them on LinkedIn Live or LinkedIn Audio through our Industry 4.0 Club group or page. We host conversations on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, alternating topics around the themes of women in manufacturing, the future of manufacturing, fireside chat like we've had today, and people, process, and culture. Please join our LinkedIn page as well, or visit our website at www.industry4oclub.com. Anyway, Justin, thanks. Mike, thank you. And I would like to wish everybody a good rest of the day and a good rest of the week.

Thanks a lot, Mike. And thanks, Mike, and appreciate your time and energy. I do see we have one question from Carol.

Ah, I didn't— there we go.

There we go. Thanks.

Thank you for noticing that.

Yeah, no problem.

So Carol asked, do the operators on the front line make tech recommendations or suggestions to consider for adoption?

Yeah, yeah, they actually do. I think one of the big things I find is going out and during the Gemba walks, if they're intentional and purposeful, try to have those conversations. And I'll find that operators Pretty much everybody in the company has an idea about what might work. So what I like to do is carve out a bit of my time of the day, and this is not meant to be as derogatory as it sounds, but it's kind of the concept of time well wasted. So I want to make sure that the door is open for people to come in, share ideas, talk through it at least for 5 or 10 minutes to get the chance to articulate what they're thinking about. But the operators do oftentimes tell me where technology could help them. You know, What might be better than what we're doing right now? For example, instead of using a whiteboard, can we use a digital system to capture and archive the knowledge that comes from that, the data? They definitely do engage, and if they see that you're willing to respond or at least make some changes, the momentum picks up and they offer more and more that way.

Well, thanks for noticing that. Thanks for that answer. Thanks for noticing the question from Carol.

You're doing our job for us.

I was ready to jump off, so I appreciate that. Well, thanks again. And I want to wish everybody a good rest of the day and rest of the week. And thank you, Carol, for that question.

Yes, thanks.

All right. Take care.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.