Shownotes
Ever had to clean up someone else’s mess at work and wondered why it even happened? Let’s dive into a real-life mess between two manufacturing plants and what leaders can learn from it.
In this episode, we tackle a story that’s all too common in the manufacturing world—two plants, one shipping defective parts, and a whole lot of chaos in between. We share insights into the root of the problem, discussing why incentives sometimes create the exact opposite of teamwork.
What happens when the goals of one team don’t align with the greater good of the company? We dig into how siloed operations, poor communication, and lack of trust can escalate simple issues into costly mistakes. From the power struggles between leaders to the frustration of employees caught in the middle, there’s a lot to unpack here.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. We also explore practical solutions, like rethinking processes, focusing on first-pass success, and aligning individual goals with company objectives. It’s a masterclass in identifying whether your problem lies with people, processes, or both.
So, whether you're in manufacturing or any other industry, this episode will get you thinking about where the real gaps are in your organization—and what you can do to close them.
Please subscribe to the podcast, leave a rating and review, and share this episode with someone who could use a fresh take on leadership and process improvement.
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Transcripts
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Blue Collar BS with your co-host Brad and...
Steve Doyle (:Steve.
Brad Herda (:There we go. Perfect. Perfect. What's going on in Detroit City, Mr. Doyle?
Steve Doyle (:Well, you know, it's a nice wintery day. So, you know, people are out, you know, getting their cars washed and the clouds and the gloom just preparing for another, another cold day. It's great.
Brad Herda (:We're recording early December and this show should air mid to late January so could have felt like it was live.
Steve Doyle (:That could have felt like it was live. Absolutely. For sure.
Brad Herda (:So what are you brought a text earlier in the week of a buddy that you are talking to facing some issues And thought it would be worthwhile to bring some potential business solutions to that problem here on the old show So why don't you lay the framework for what we're dealing with?
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, so got a friend. Maybe maybe one, maybe two friend quote, air quotes friend right? And we were we happen to be talking and he was, you know, bending my ear a little bit about some things that were going on and with where he works. So let's give everyone a little bit of context. It happens to be a manufacturing company. It happens to be a multi a company that has multiple plants and.
Brad Herda (:friend in air quotes.
Steve Doyle (:We're not going to get into the specific details of what the plant makes or what the plant ships, but in this environment, plant A ships to plant B. They make parts, they make components, widgets, and they will ship them to plant B to put them into an assembly, if you will. So not uncommon at all.
Brad Herda (:Not uncommon.
Steve Doyle (:Well, here's the conundrum. So my friend won't really get into which area that he works, but you'll get the gist. So what's known is the parts come in, they get reviewed, they get inspected, and they're either identified as conforming or nonconforming. If they're conforming, they move on into assembly. If they're nonconforming, they're tagged and
Let's just say they're supposed to be sent back.
Brad Herda (:This is how we create recalls people, just so you know.
Steve Doyle (:This is yes. So herein lies the internal conundrum that we know that, you know, as leaders in businesses, employees in these businesses, we will say it was the decision was made fairly high up, knowing that the parts were nonconforming out of plant A, knowing they were nonconforming to ship them out to meet quota.
Because in the book, yep, to meet their delivery, their delivery trucks and their timeline, knowing full well the parts are defective. Defective in the standpoint they do not meet.
Brad Herda (:Good ol' ol' Koda.
Brad Herda (:So are they defective or not? So hold on, back the truck up, because words matter. Are they defective or not controlling?
Steve Doyle (:They are, they are, they are, they cannot be reworked to make conforming.
Brad Herda (:So they were shipped with a known understanding that they were non-conforming and non-reworkable products. Okay.
Steve Doyle (:Correct. Yep. So they get shipped to plant B. Now, plant B receives them with no notification that they're not conforming or they are conforming. So they do their own analysis, if you will, and they determined and found that we cannot use these parts, they cannot be reworked, and they are going to be tagged and need to be shipped back.
to plant A for a refund because funds also transfer. Plant B has to for the pay for these parts that were received. And in order for plant B to send them back, they need plant A to issue them a notice, whatever that notice happens to be.
Brad Herda (:Wow.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, the return material authorization notice. And let me guess, plant A is saying too bad, so sad, go fuck yourself.
Steve Doyle (:Yes, you're RMA.
Steve Doyle (:Correct. So here, and this is all known. And so what needs to be done is that now because you have a material has been paid out for, can't refund. Now they're sitting on known scrap and it has to go up the chain to get, to get.
clarification on what needs to happen. And everybody.
Brad Herda (:Right, you're going to have UC suite executives from plant A, plant B. Both general managers are going to basically get to a fisticuffs.
Steve Doyle (:Yes, yes, absolutely.
Brad Herda (:and the employees are stuck in the middle.
Steve Doyle (:Yep, and they are showing, and the employees, rightfully so, are actually showing what is it actually, so the employees in Plant B are showing what is this costing us as Plant B for having non-conforming product from a bottom line perspective, not just in the parts that are sitting there that are scrapped, but also in the downtime because they don't have enough parts.
Brad Herda (:They don't have enough parts to continue the assembly of making the widgets because they have containers full of bad parts.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yes. So what it's doing, ultimately what you're doing is you're creating... Go ahead, Brad.
Brad Herda (:So I have.
Brad Herda (:So I have a question. are they a 100 % inspection? Are they a C equals zero inspection? What kind of inspection process are they? It's just a, got two on the top and the whole thing's no good. What would be your assumption based on what you know about the industry and things that they are in? Would you assume that it's... Because every organization has a different type of criteria.
Steve Doyle (:I didn't get into that. let's add lip from.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. Yep.
Yeah, so knowing the organization, you will inspect one, you will identify, hey, is this good or not? It falls into the not category. Let's increase our sample size now. So you increase your sample size till you get to a big enough state, and you know what? We've done enough of these. We're not gonna be doing 100 % inspection. The whole thing is now dub scrap, and you know what? The plant A can go through and sort out their mistakes.
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:on the back.
Brad Herda (:Right. It's always fun when it's internal to an organization that shares common goals and common objectives.
Steve Doyle (:energy.
Steve Doyle (:But do they?
Brad Herda (:They do. They do. They do. I'm going to assume that they have an overarching entity that they're both responsible to. I'm also going to assume that each entity has their own individual goals and objectives that are being outweighed and out identified compared to the greater good. So to me, it seems like the incentives
Steve Doyle (:They do.
Steve Doyle (:They do. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:They do.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:might be in the wrong place from the corporate level that they are incentivizing behavior at a individual plant level that is not supporting the greater good for the company. And whether it's a plant or an inter-department, you may have a sales goal for a department and a production goal for the department and other things.
Steve Doyle (:What?
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Yep.
Brad Herda (:And if those things aren't congruent to get you to where you want to go, sales will shit on operations every time and operations will ship back on sales every time.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. And guess who's holding the bag of the bag of fun in between? The bad guys, the quality group, the quality group, the quality group. And everybody just wants everybody to figure it out and make it go away.
Brad Herda (:Accounting. Quality,
Brad Herda (:Just figure it out, it'll be fine. As you have pallets of shit sitting where you don't need them.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Exactly. And so to me, you you bring up a great point. You bring up the point that yes, obviously you have an old, you have a main goal. Now with within each, I would say division, have your, you have goals that roll up into those goals, but now these goals, because you're in a silo, they're competing. So now you have two competing things and you have two silos acting independently.
in a company that should have this, everyone should have the same vision, the values and the goals. And clearly they...
Brad Herda (:Well, yeah, they don't. where I would change plant A's goals, because apparently they have a, I got to get shit out the door number. I got to get shit out the door is one of their things that they're being measured on that that particular plant manager is heavily focused on. What they don't have is the, what does my customer say?
Steve Doyle (:They don't. Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:about the stuff that I'm sending to them. What they don't have is what's my customer's perception of your on-time delivery? What is my customer's quality perception of your product along the way? And that should outweigh any of their internal stuff because at the end of the day, their internal stuff doesn't matter because it's got to go to plant B to make, it's got to make the bigger thing that they're going to sell for a higher margin and get it out there.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Yeah. But if they can't get it out the door now, plant B is sitting on not just the bad inventory, they're also sitting on good inventory that they can't sell.
Brad Herda (:Well, it's called whip.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, absolutely. So there's there's a whole lot of things. Now the other underlying thing that is also happening here is you're also setting the notion for people at plant B that they are going to trust that the people at plant A don't give a shit and are going to do whatever they can. To hit their numbers, so now you have a trust issue going on between.
not just apartments, but plants. Yeah. And they're going to trust that they're not going to do the right thing. So now we have, now we have, from that trust thing, now you have a start to time out. Okay.
Brad Herda (:So hang on, hang on, time out, time out. I just want to get some clarity here. Time out. Red flag. Here's the challenge flag.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, there is no challenge.
Brad Herda (:We the you said doing the plant B doesn't trust plant a in doing the right thing. I'm well Doing the right thing from whose point of view from plant B's point of view what's in the overall change company's point of view because You my I'm taking is you're assuming from plant B's point of view. They're not doing the right thing What's the right thing from the larger corporate?
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:AAAA-
Brad Herda (:perspective, the umbrella, the big house, is, it'd be the guiding principle, not what plant B is, you know, who's, who's dog, whose dog's tail.
Steve Doyle (:well.
Steve Doyle (:Well, it should be.
Well, it should be. Here's the concern or the issue, if you will. The precedence has been set that the silo is now governing, not the overarching body. So your corporate team, while they are all in kumbaya saying, yes, we agree, they go back to their silos. now they are actually setting the terms for what's acceptable and not acceptable. And then they will meet about it when it boils up.
so that every party now has an issue. And now you actually have a trust issue at that corporate level, at that executive level, because now you have two silos that can't seem to get it correct from either side, because how they are measured and how they are governed, you have two completely separate voices, tones.
and decision-making values that are going on and not a singular decision-making values based on the values of the company itself. And that is a problem because the C-suite isn't strong enough to govern collectively.
Brad Herda (:Are they not strong enough or do they not care?
Steve Doyle (:Either way.
Brad Herda (:I think those are very different things, right? If it's a no confidence vote, you know, like what's going on in all these European countries of ousting all of their elected officials because they can. Is this a opportunity which then drives, you know, lot of the conversations is what's more important strategy or culture. And because right now you've got two plants that are completely unhappy with each other.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:because all they're doing is listening to each other bitching and playing, trying to create the common goal and make it good. It seems like the upper levels either A, haven't cared or haven't heard about it, or if they've heard about it, are leaving it up to them to figure it out because we want to empower our employees. So we'll let them figure it out. We want to empower them.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:But at some point you need the referee. Somebody's got to be the judge and jury is to say this is what needs to happen or facilitate the arbitration and mediation process to come to a conclusion as to what's acceptable, not acceptable.
Steve Doyle (:Yes, and when we and when we say arbitration, we're not talking quote unquote in legal terms. It's about people sitting down and having a fucking conversation across the table with each other, not a shouting match. And whose whose cojones are bigger and who can walk through the door of 10 feet and people know they start coming in the door 10 feet before they're there. Right, it's it really is about having that conversation.
Brad Herda (:I'm gonna say the guy in plant A has an ego problem.
Steve Doyle (:What? Maybe.
Brad Herda (:because all he or he has or he has a well this is this is very judgmental right he may have a ego problem he may have a gambling problem he might have a financial problem whatever because apparently he's definitely doing something in order to motivate his own personal gain
Steve Doyle (:Yes it is.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. Yep. But again, is it his own personal gain or is it because of the goals and precedents that were set in the silo that were not set in terms of the greater good of the company?
Brad Herda (:I don't know if you're if you're if you're at that position on that level and you're saying ship bad product You are doing it for your own personal gain There's there's no doubt my mind if you are willingly and knowingly shipping product that is scrap and no good to your next destination that is 100 % for personal gain there's you cannot
Steve Doyle (:potentially.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:I cannot even fathom an opportunity where that even comes out as a... Well, I didn't know.
Steve Doyle (:And I know some of our listeners are like, does this shit really happen? Unfortunately, it happens every damn day.
Brad Herda (:it happens inside your own. It doesn't matter if it's a large company, small, right? Just, just think about your, your sales order process or your order entry process where your admin or your sales associate puts in 50 % of the information to push it down the line. And then it gets to your production production group or to your service tech. And they're going, what the fuck am I supposed to do here? I don't have all the information. And now they're spending half hour 40, 45 minutes trying to get all the calls to find it all out.
Steve Doyle (:huh.
Brad Herda (:So they're losing time, they're getting hammered for poor efficiency, sales teams getting kudos for bringing in all the work and we can't get all the work done because we're not efficient enough. So now everybody's all pissed off because we're not efficient enough because we didn't fix the process or the problem was we think the problem is the techs, but the technicians are not getting the right information so they can be effective and efficient. And that happens all.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:often in many service-based organizations where the right information, the five minutes spent getting the right information and entering it correctly and doing those things will make you more money in the long run than anybody will ever ever imagine.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. So, Brad, what can, if people truly wanted to start to address this, what is your opinion or what would you recommend to them as some first steps?
Brad Herda (:I am a big, big fan of inputs and outputs and understanding what your customer needs to do their job role and then have the conversation around who's going to be responsible or not responsible. So we'll just go back to that example of a sales order. If you need customer name, phone number, email's optional, but now email's needed and we're not going to spend the time to go get that and we're going to communicate.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm?
Brad Herda (:Whatever those things are for the next person to do their job They should be able to identify in their screen so they can have a first pass yield of a hundred percent What is the things they need to have? And we should be able to go back upstream and downstream identify all the needs to Identify what's going to create a first pass yield success? Because then I can identify once I know what the process needs to look like I can then identify do I have a process problem or do have a people problem?
Brad Herda (:Because right now it's a coat of arms of it's your fault.
Steve Doyle (:You got it. Everybody's pointing their finger at each other.
Brad Herda (:So that is kind of where I would take it from working with my clients or even when I was working back at back at Bucyrus. And it's like, okay, what do you need? You know, we got yelled at all the time from receiving because we had the, we did all our subcontract work and we would have drawings go through revision changes, maybe not the right way.
but we would have parts go through revision changes or we had a note changed. So it would go from Rev 3 to Rev 4. Rev 3 was the one that was out at subcontract, no fit, form, or function problem. But receiving inspection didn't know if it was a Rev 3 part or a Rev 4 part or whatever. So I'm like, okay, talk to receiving. What do you need? So in our purchasing group, we set the process of you're going to put in the notes.
You're going put a receiving note in. This purchase order has been assigned revision three of the drawing. Great. Comes in from the supplier. They look up the PO. They see the receiving note. Hey, revision three. Perfect. Great. Now they can receive it and move on.
But it took us an extra four or five, six minutes to go and do that in our job. And I had PAs and buyers that were pissed to no end about, fuck, now we got to do all this extra work just to make receiving life easier. Like, dude, we're going to make, we're going to spend the five minutes here because what I'm paying you to spend your five minutes to do the bunch of orders versus it's sitting and receiving, tying up space, not getting moved along to put a $22 million machine out on the fucking field.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Brad Herda (:Are you kidding me? And we're paying the union guy and everybody else that we're holding up. Your $6.50 to put that note in is peanuts compared to the hundreds and hundreds or thousands of dollars that we're holding up because we're not, we don't want to do it.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:And just
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Completely agree. Completely agree, but had had that conversation so many times in my career.
Brad Herda (:Sorry, it's a passion point for me. Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Yeah.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So.
Brad Herda (:So what did they what happened? What did they decide? Do you know what happened yet at all or no?
Steve Doyle (:No, don't. Honestly, I do not know what happened. It was just a conversation that we were having and that was the that was the frustration that, you know, the person was talking through was just this is where we're at. This is what we're doing and we're consistently doing it. And I'm just frustrated. Because no one seems no one seems.
Brad Herda (:Sounds like an opportunity for professional business coaching,
Steve Doyle (:It does sound like an opportunity. It is an opportunity, which is, besides the point, it's more about making sure, hey, is this an organization? Clearly, this is tolerated in the organization because of the frequency of how it's happened, of how much it's
It is a tolerated, whether it's gone all the way up or not, it doesn't matter because it continuously happens, it's tolerated.
Brad Herda (:well, see now we're going to get into a whole nother realm of, of things inside plant B, right? Cause all right. So obviously plant A person in charge is very behavioral style goal orientated from a disc profile, probably a very D driven person.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yes!
Steve Doyle (:Correct. Yeah, bottom line results. Absolutely. I'd agree with that.
Brad Herda (:making some very bold, whole general assumption from out here. And it seems like potentially plant B leader is gonna be far more in that probably S characteristics in the disc profile, being more supportive, more whatever. Cause if it was another high D, they would have been fucking in the office of the corporate execs like the next day going.
Steve Doyle (:Yes, same thing.
Steve Doyle (:Go!
Steve Doyle (:they are. That's the thing I haven't told you is that they are in those offices.
Brad Herda (:well, you dick.
Steve Doyle (:I gotta withhold some information. Gotta pull that. You gotta pull that. So regardless if the person is a is a compliance or steady type person or if they're a high D. Right, the thing that the things that are going on is there. The conversations. To resolve this.
at the level they need to be resolved at, unfortunately has to go up so far because the employees, whether or not the leaders think they're empowering the employees, the employees are bound by some other measures that they're holding their ground with.
Brad Herda (:So they ultimately have a COO problem and a CFO problem and a CEO problem to squash this and make it happen. So here's the other potential opportunity and I don't know, right? Because I've seen organizations, I've been part of organizations where this has happened where, you know what? That stuff is so piddly, it doesn't matter, we're just printing money. Who cares?
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:And if that's the level, if that's what's going on inside the organization, is they will find themselves by 2025, 2026 with massive gaps in their labor pool.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Yeah, because because yes, because people can't stand the environment because the environment is they have created a toxic culture that embraces low engagement.
Brad Herda (:if that's the case.
Brad Herda (:That's right.
Steve Doyle (:So there's lots of nuggets in this one to learn from.
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:man, go win the deal. Just go win the deal. Just go win it.
Steve Doyle (:Not saying there is a deal, but
Brad Herda (:Just go win it. I'm saying there's something to be had there, so go fucking win it.
Steve Doyle (:So
Brad Herda (:because it's not an overly complex problem to solve.
Steve Doyle (:No, is not when you can see it through the lens that we see it through. It is when you're looking at it through the lens when you're on the floor, when you're in the environment and you're not working on the environment. Yeah.
Brad Herda (:Not disagree.
I'm not saying it's not going to be complicated. There's a simple solution to a very complicated problem. Fire them all.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:I we can go down and score a trip pass. I mean, that's fine too.
Brad Herda (:or stop making scrap. If you stop making scrap, this whole problem goes away.
Steve Doyle (:totally go down scorched earth path. That's fine. anyways, yeah. So, well, thank you for indulging me in this. Yeah. Thank you for indulging me in this conversation. appreciate it and hope the listeners can really appreciate that and cause the cause themselves to think, where in my business am I actually doing something of this nature where, you know, am I, am I setting a precedence where it's, it's
Brad Herda (:Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to the follow-up.
Steve Doyle (:putting people against each other for what they believe is the common good. Versus, and it's really, and it's creating conflict within the teams.
Brad Herda (:and
Brad Herda (:When you start taking that self-reflection looking at it, it's okay to Admit it was wrong admit. It was the wrong thing If you get everybody on the same page for the greater good there's gonna be you know The plant B got plant a guy is gonna lose money From an incentive program if he has to do things correctly because he's not gonna ship as much Or be able to steal let's put this let's put this one. You won't be able to steal from the company anymore
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Because essentially that's what Plant A is doing, is stealing from all of their employees, from an incentive program perspective. And when you start using those types of terms and language, people may get upset, they may get frustrated, but let's just be honest about it. It's no different than the employee that's supposed to be a full-time, salaried employee. They work 20 hours a week, they're scheduled to be making 45, and they never even come close to it. They're stealing from the
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Yep. Mm-hmm. So.
Brad Herda (:Cool. I can't wait to hear when they become your client and what happens next.
Steve Doyle (:Yes. So I will keep you in tune with that one. All right. Yeah, you too. Thanks.
Brad Herda (:All right.
All right, man. Have a great week. Thanks.