In 2006, I was deployed with a unit that set a record for the best AH64 Apache maintenance performance in Army history. I was a platoon leader. If you know the aircraft, you know it's a maintenance pig. It takes relentless, disciplined effort to keep one flyable. You don't get reliability by accident. You get it because people believe in the checks they're running and do them right, every time. That deployment, my battalion set the record for the highest fully mission capab

A supply chain expert in my network told me something today that I thought was worth discussion: he plans better when he can visualize how his schedule actually unfolds on the floor and that only happens when he's out there, talking to the people running it. He said he thinks great organizations always have leaders on the floor. He's right. Leadership is just a relationship, and relationships start with interaction. If there is no relationship there cannot be leadership. W

It was already July and we were set to miss our quality target for the year. The quality manager asked if I had any ideas. In truth, I didn't. But I love a challenge. I'd just read The Power of Habit and I was enamored with the idea of using habits to improve process. So I set about building a method, and it came out pretty simple. I proposed that people break rules for 2 primary reasons: They don't know the standard or they don't think the standard is important. I proposed

My best operators had the worst OEE. Not because they were bad, but because they were the only ones who could run the hard jobs. OEE was the metric. On paper, my strongest people looked like my weakest. They knew it, I knew it and it made performance discussions impossible. We had over 200 dies in that department. Every SKU had its own die, some were easy to run and some were not. And more than that, OEE didn't tell me what to do. It was a number that described a problem wit

A core function approach to eliminating maintenance reactivity. Walk into almost any industrial facility and ask the maintenance manager how things are going. You will hear some version of the same answer: "We're getting killed and everyone is mad at us.”
 It's typically not a laziness or staffing problem. It's usually an organizational issue and sometimes a matter of technical knowledge. But it's fixable.
 Running maintenance is like driving through a forest. It's easier

Hiring a maintenance planner can set a maintenance shop back. I see it too often. As soon as a planner is hired, techs stop making parts lists. Because that's planning, and they want support. Techs are overworked. They want a planner so they can stop doing paperwork and get back to the floor. That's how it should be... right? Nope. If you're doing it that way, you're better off without the planner. Making parts lists... that's not a planner. That's a very expensive assista

Every organization runs on 4 levels of work. Technical. Tactical. Operational. Strategic. Technical - does the work in accordance with process. Tactical - ensures the work is done in accordance with process. Operational - writes the process. Strategic - wields the entire organization. Each level has the same 3 core systems: Daily operations - do what needs to be done (planning and execution) Process improvement - learn from feedback, improve the standard. Accountability

Most leaders think about errors one at a time. One mistake → one fix. Done. But that's not how it works on the plant floor or anywhere else people execute complex work under pressure. Every error you DON'T prevent creates the conditions for many more. Here's how: A team member skips a verification step. The product gets made wrong. Now you have rework. Rework eats time, disrupts the schedule, and puts people in a state of rushing. Maybe not just your facility, maybe materials

I recently received a DM asking what 180 OPEX actually does. We fix process compliance problems. So what's a process compliance problem? That's when habits, convenience, distraction or disinterest at any level derail success because your team isn't in full alignment with your process. Now, there are really 3 ways to be out of alignment with the process: 1) Complacency - We don't follow the process because we don't think it's important (or it's inconvenient and nobody cares

Lean is irrelevant to your operation right now. Not because it doesn't work. But because if you keep having the same problems, which is where most of industry lives, you have a control problem. And Lean doesn't fix control problems. It hides them. Here's what a control problem looks like: An operator puts the wrong date/label/product/lid/quantity on the wrong box/pallet/product, and now you're scrapping, reworking, or apologizing your way out of another disaster. This happe

You're Just Not Running It Right. Games aren't fun because they're games. That sounds backward, so let me say it plainly: there is nothing inherently enjoyable about jumping on a mushroom or chasing an oblong leather ball. What makes games fun is that they simulate things we're already driven to experience: status, mastery, belonging, discovery, completion. Yu-kai Chou spent years mapping this out in a framework called Octalysis, which identifies eight core human motivation

Everyone in industry knows Deming's line: "A bad system beats a good person every time." It's true. Systems make success. But systems require a foundation. Without it, they don't work. We can prove this experimentally. Lean is one of the greatest system-building tools ever conceived. And it fails the vast majority of the time. The statistics are clear and supported by thousands of iterations. Why does it fail? Ask the Lean practitioners and they'll tell you: leadership. But i

And why the difference between the two always compounds Every plant manager has watched it happen. A changeover gets rushed at the start of second shift. The operator swaps the change parts but doesn't verify something critical. Maybe it's a standard that's been written down, maybe it's not. The line runs for forty minutes before someone notices there's something wrong (bottles dented, labels crooked, wrong materials, wrong print, etc). Now there's a quality hold, a financial

There. I said it. Not because people can't learn. Not because your trainers aren't talented. Not because the content is wrong. Not because people are bad. Training doesn't work because of how we're wired and because most organizations aren't compensating for how people learn. The numbers are brutal. Studies consistently show that only about 15% of training is ever applied on the job without additional support. Only 10% of companies have a formal strategy to ensure training co

There are Three Systems Every Plant Needs and They Have to be Implemented in Order There are three core systems in every manufacturing operation. Most plants only build one of them and it's the wrong one to start with. Your first system is Accountability. It's the system that gets people to follow a process. Your second system is Continuous Improvement (CI). It's the system that makes the process your people are following better as you learn things. Your third system is Daily

Hand a team a mission with no planning and everything except the desired end-state becomes an unknown. Under those conditions, Hofstadter’s Law rules: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.” Every unclear step, hidden risk, surprise need, and mismatched expectation lands squarely in the gap you left, which causes performance to suffer. Leaders who issue jobs like this live in perpetual disappointment because every single job

Ever go into a meeting and see a Pareto Chart that is linear? Or maybe there is a slight rise at the top... but clearly it's not in accordance with the Pareto Principle? Pareto Principle: Also known as the 80/20 rule, it states that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes—in ops, 80% of downtime might stem from 20% of factors. This one is essential for setting priorities in a leadership role. When leading change, the temptation is to pull the most easily accessible dat

Lean is arguably one of the most powerful and comprehensive frameworks for process improvement ever developed. Yet, studies show that 70-95% of Lean initiatives fail to sustain gains, often ending up costing more than they deliver. Applying Lean without the right groundwork completed can actually hinder progress rather than help it. And without the right prerequisites in place, Lean will fail every time. How does that happen? Lean is celebrated for a reason, it’s transformati