MANAGEMENT EDITED BYSTEPHEN MRAZ

Let's roast engineering'sSAC COWS

Companies intenton improving theirmanufacturingand designprocessesshould takea hard look at changingsome of their mostclosely held beliefs.

A. SANDY MUNROPresidentMunro & Associates, Inc.Troy, Mich.

I f a company changes its rules , itcan change its culture and benefittremendously. And when it comes

to design and manufacturing, the onlyones who can change those rules are thepeople most involved and responsiblefor it - the engineers .

Unfortunately , getting ordinary peo­ple - let alone engineers - to changeis extremely difficult . Old rules diehard, and most people will want to con­tinue using those timeworn rules, theones they were taught when times weremuch different. Even after the old ruleshave been proven wrong, there will stillbe people crawling back to them, likepagans rubbing a clay idol or a sacredcow in a cave , hoping the bad thingswill go away.

In manufacturing, the sacred cowsare the untouchable designs, specifica­tions, processes, and facilities thatcompanies cherish most. Whether self­inflicted or imposed by someone else,they have been part of the company forso long that often no one knows theirtrue origins. And because they aresometimes perceived as the heart andsoul of a product or system, they are

never challenged.Sacred cows

are easy to iden­tify : simply ques­tion aspects of adesign until youhear it vehementlydefended by some­on e insisting,"We' ve alwaysdone it this way!" "This is theessence of our product!" or "We can 'tchange this, the boss came up with it."And my personal favorite: "We alreadyhave too many problems with this. Wecan 't change!"

If they say it can't be done, you 'vefound a sacred cow. And sacred cows,although they are the hardest tochange , yield the most profit whenthey are toppled.

Sacred cows run rampantSacred cows are hardly unique to

any single industry . They 're in the au­tomotive field , defense applications,aviation work and the appliance indus­try, to name just a few.

Automotive: For years , engine de­signers harbored a prime example of asacred cow. They believed that alumi­num was for pots and pans, plastic wasfor kids' toys, and only iron was for en­gines. That certainly isn't the case now,

but in 1984 while working for a majorautomaker, I was part of a team makingan intake manifold out of lost-coreplastic. The idea was a little ahead of itstime, but the design saved weight, re­duced assembly and cut complexity .Quite proud of our concept, we showedit to several manufacturing people .They agreed it was great, in part , be­cause it eliminated an entire machiningline costing millions, and reduced as­sembly costs by 50 percent.

When we showed it to the productdesign engineers, however, it was re­jected . They absolutely hated it and re­fused to even discuss it. To top it off,my boss said that if I didn't stop pursu­ing this ridiculous idea, my perfor­mance evaluation would suffer.

After leaving that company andstarting my own, I made the same sug­gestion to other engine divisions. Al­though skeptical at first, they put it to

~EMENT

Who casts the biggest shadow?

Influence %

Cost % c::::J

"The best design is the simples t onethat works ."

The sacred cows are everywhere.Just look in the engineers' cave.

Crutches for cowsThere are several types of crutches

that engineers rely on to help prop uptheir sacred cows . One of the mostcommon is called engineer ing incest .Here, people only deal with their ownkind . Auto engineers , for example,only deal with, talk to, work with, andhire other auto engineers. The resultcan be a stagnant industry character­ized by a pool of lackluster, look-alikeproducts .

If you're one of those engineers wholooks to other fields for new ideas ,however , you're usually met with a lotof resistance . If you're an appliance en­gineer trying to bring a technology tothe aircraft industry, you hear, "Hey,this isn't a washing machine. If awasher stops, it 's no big deal. You justgo to the laundromat. But if an airplanestops, you 're dead."

To combat engineer ing incest and ul­timately grow, it is crucial to venturebeyond the walls of the company cul­ture and explore new territories , newcompanies, new industries - in short,to benchmark.

It's amazing where new profitableapproaches will come from , if you'reopen to them. For example, decadesago, automotive giant Henry Ford rev­olutionized the world with the assem­bly-line concept. But he didn 't get thatidea within the auto industry. He got itby touring a Chicago slaughter house.Even when he was one of the world'srichest and most powerful men, he wasalways looking outside his industry fornew ideas.

Going outside the company for in­formation and benchmarking againstother companies can be extremely un­popular, especially with engineers andmiddle managers . It disrupts the statusquo and threatens change . Al thoughmost people are afraid of change, it canwork wonders.

An instance of cross-industry bench­marking that met resistance - but paidoff - occurred when we were involvedwith an aircraft manufacturer thatwanted to apply Design for Manufac­turabil ity (DFM) rules to a complexbulkhead. The assembly required over10,000 parts and operations. Followingthe DFA philosophy of minimizing the

monolithic structure instead of the riv­eted plate construction currently used.It is a paradigm shift the aircraft indus­try doesn' t want to make . As a result,they're missing golden opportunitiesfor elegant new cost-efficient designs .

Appliance industry: In this indus­try, too , the old ways run rampant-

especially when it comes to the numberof parts used in a product and how theyare assembled . When one appliancemanufacturer we were working with in­sisted we couldn't change the design ofits stove burner saying, "Can't touchthat . . . the regulations, the U'L, testing... No, this stays as is," we knew we haduncovered a sacred cow . By challeng­ing this design and applying Design forAssemb ly (DFA) principles, we devel­oped a new sealed burner that providedeasier assembly, grea ter integrity, bet­ter ignition , and more profit.

Medical industry:The medical fieldis crowded with sacred cows, and fearis used to defend them. When anyonesuggests a change, the product engi­neers say , "People cou ld die if we .change anything." However, mostmedical equipment isn't designed forprofitable manufacture. Instead, med­ical companies operate under the rules :if it functions, it's tested. And if itpasses, it's produced . Profitabilitynever seems to be an issue until thecompany is up for sale . This meansthere's great potential for improvementin the medical industry. There's alsoroom for eliminating unnecessaryparts, lots of them. As Einstein said,

~U 5%

Labor Productdesign

5%

30%

OverheadMaterial

use and improved engine performanceand the manufacturing process.

Military: Defense contractors havea penchant for threaded inserts , one ofthe most common self-inflicted sacredcows. They are used only because theyhave always been used; there 's no realreason for using them. (Try to find one

50%

in your car.) On one project , when wechallenged peop le close to the projecton why they used threaded inserts , theirresponse was, "Well, we have to havethem. They lock things in position ."When we proved that wasn't true, weheard , " Well, then it 's because theywill strip ." When we disproved that aswell, they became silent. These peoplereally didn't have any reason for usingthreaded inserts other than just becausethey always used them in the past.

Relying solely on the past to justify apractice rather than an understandingwhy that practice was first used, will al­ways yield a dangerous sacred cow. Itsdangerous for two reasons. First, noone understands the technology andtherefore the design may not be as bul­let-proof as everyone assumes. Andsecond, profits suffer due to cost with­out value.

Av iation: For some unknown rea­son, rivets are still widely used on air­craft. But what industry uses rivets tothat exte nt anymore? Look at oldbridges versus new ones ; or look atbuildings. Even shipbuilding doesn'trely on rivets like that anymore, butthey're still on airplanes. It 's a struggleto get this industry to even consider a

MANAGEMENT

profits.Other sacred cows exist, and the best

way to identify them is to bring in out­siders. Such corporate fixtures are usu­ally invisible to insiders, but outsiders,such as those in an unrelated field, re­cent graduates, and consultants, can of­fer new insights . They can examine thesituation from a totally different per­spective and with a new set of eyes.

The good news is that once these sa­cred cows are identified, they offer thegreatest opportunities for improve­ment. Forget everything else, this iswhere the real profits are: turning sa­cred cows into cash cows.

morning, we had coffee and doughnutsfor everyone. It was like a little party.As they were drinking and eating ,

everyone was asking"What' s this all about?"

\I:::J,......~......~I When I was sure every­one was in attendance, Ipicked up a shoe box

full of ashes and toldthem : "These are all the

company's reference draw­ings. It's also the root of

what 's wrong with our shop."One guy dropped to his knees . An­

other spilled coffee all over his shoes.Others ran back to their drawing boardsto see if we had really gotten every-thing . We did. There was nothing left. Barbecuing sacred cowsAll of them were scared be- Once a sacred cow has beencause these were the found , the real work be-crutches they had been re- ~ gins. Strategies to ridlying on for years. We A - the company of thatdidn't have many man- II problem have to beagement changes, and developed, usuallywe didn't have any , 'J using teamwork .changes as far as the \1 , These strategiesdesigners were con- ~ ~ and new ideas don'tcerned . We just tossed ~ ~ have to involve fastout the crutches. ~~_~~~~ and furious change.

The difference was almost They should be brokenmiraculous. Getting rid of those down into three categories:drawings made them stand up on their low-level risk, medium risk, andown two feet. In six months, we went stretch . Then implemented accord­from the worst design shop in the city ingly.to one of the best. • Low-level risk ideas can be put

Re-evaluate your reference draw- into effect almost immediately.ings. How reliable are they? How much The technologies are not new toof a crutch are they? Do they contribute the product market, and all teamto problem parts and components that members are comfortable that themake you less profitable than you ideas can be incorporated withcould be? Ask these questions every- minimal testing and validation.where. Reference drawings are creativ- • Medium risk takes a little bitity 's worst enemy. more research before adoption.

Blind spots are another common Ideas may be technologiesphenomenon that help perpetuate sa- utilized by other industries or acred cows . In physiology, they are combination of materials andplaces in the field of vision where the processes unfamiliar to the team.brain overrules the eyes. But there must This level can produce patentablebe plenty of them within the engineer- concepts and is the most likelying community since the inability to level to be implemented.see things clearly is certainly evident • Stretch represents a level whereamong designers. ideas require experimentation,

Futurist Joel Barker calls this the research, testing, and validation."paradigm effect" and, like him, I have They are the ideas on the edge ofseen engineers with beliefs so strong new paradigms and, in somethat their brains actually fail to register cases, propel their company to thewhat their eyes are seeing. Then, when forefront of their industry. Almostthose engineers' preconceived notions always patentable, these ideas canare challenged by new evidence, they truly leap-frog a company aheadjust can't see it. The results are parts of the competition.and products that never change. It be- At our consulting company, we havecomes a sacred cow and an obstacle to three rules for business that also apply:

number of parts, the team proposed amonolithic structure cut from a singleblock of aluminum. "Impossible," saidthe aircraft designer, claim­ing high resid ual stresswould cause cracking.

Experience and expo­sure to other industrieshas shown us otherwise.We knew machiningthe structure with ahigh-speed spindlewould remove metal fastenough to prevent residualstress. With some reservation, theproposed concept was applied by thedesigners. The result was a strongerand lighter bulkhead with no residualstresses . Plus, by eliminating 9,999parts and operations, the companysaved a bundle in manufacturing costs.

Reference drawings are another typeof crutch used to support sacred cows .By opting for reference drawings overnew ideas, mistakes repeatedly end upon the factory floor and in products.This reliance on drawings helps main­tain a company 's sacred cows or ulti­mately becomes one itself.

I once worked as chief engineer at aDetroit-area tool and die shop whichhad a real problem - the engineeringdepartment had absolutely no credibil­ity . The build shop was great and em­ployed 500 of the best toolmakersyou'd ever want to meet. They couldbuild anything and a host of majorcompanies sent them work, includingNASA, aircraft manufacturers, the au­tomotive industry, plastic injection­molding firms , and even competitors.But the design shop received no workin spite of the fact that it had a lot ofold-timers who really knew their stuff.

The problem finally dawned on mewhen I noticed the designers alwaysdepended on "old reference drawings ."They kept them in a back room andstuffed them in the bottom drawers oftheir desks . However, every time theycopied something, they copied itwrong. And every time a job went outto the factory floor, it got machinedwrong. But the designers never wentback and corrected the drawings, soeach new job perpetuated a mistake .

One night , the blueprint boy and Igathered up all the reference drawings,all of them , including the ones tuckedin the bottom drawers. We took themout and destroyed them.

When the designers came in the next

Innovate. Innovate. Innovate. Produ ctengineers should dare to deviate, moveaway from the norm. "We always did itthat way before," is the last whisper inan empty factory.

TURNING SACRED COWSINTO CASH COWS

D Challenge the most protected, oldest or most basic designs.D Bring in "outsiders" to offer clever perspectives.D Avoid "engineering incest" through benchmark-

ing. And look outside your company andindustry for new ideas.

D Toss out reference drawings .D Don't be afraid to stretch. Dare to deviate .D Keep management involved from early on.D Make product designers spend a day on the

assembly line putting together their own designs .

Mu n PO

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A s s o ci at es, Inc.900 Wilshire Drive . Suite 30 1

Troy . M ichi gan 48084Phone: (810) 362·5110

Fax: 810-362-5117

Copyright © 1995 by Penton Publishing, Inc ., Cleveland , Ohio 44114