August 2025 Volume 7

OPERATIONS & MANAGEMENT

1. Tell the Story Behind the Stability One of the most powerful tools a quality or operations leader can use is storytelling—not fiction, but fact-based cause and effect. When reporting on a “stable” area of the plant, don’t just say, “No issues to report.” Say: “This forging press has gone 7 months without an external defect. During that time, we’ve completed 27 control plan verifications, 14 layered process audits, and 3 tooling condition reviews.” Link today’s performance to yesterday’s discipline. If you don’t tell the story, the silence becomes a vacuum—one others will fill with their assumptions. 2. Track Effort Metrics Alongside Outcome Metrics Manufacturing organizations naturally gravitate toward outcome metrics—yield, scrap rate, downtime, cost per unit. But effort metrics can help explain why the outcomes look good. Examples: • Number of in-process audits completed • Frequency of preventive maintenance activities • Training hours delivered per operator These aren’t just operational trivia. They are leading indicators of performance integrity. When effort metrics decline while outcome metrics stay flat, don’t be fooled. That’s not efficiency—it’s debt . 3. Institutionalize the Why When discipline erodes, it’s rarely because someone maliciously dismantles a working system. It’s because the why has faded from memory. Don’t assume that everyone remembers the pain behind a particular inspection or process control. Archive past failure modes. Include photos, cost impacts, and customer consequences. Use these case studies in training, daily start-up meetings, and management reviews. If necessary, write on the whiteboard: “This check exists because we once lost $240K in rework on this part.” Discipline becomes sustainable when people understand what it prevents. 4. Recognize and Reward Quiet Success In most plants, people get recognition when they fix a problem. But there’s enormous value in consistently preventing one. Operators who perform tedious checks day after day, engineers who maintain robust documentation, and technicians who follow through on audit tasks—they’re not just doing their jobs. They’re holding the line. Celebrate that. Tie bonuses, shout-outs, and KPIs to discipline sustained , not just disasters averted.

Final Thoughts The Paradox of Invisible Discipline isn’t just a curiosity—it’s a quiet threat to manufacturing performance. Every quality system, every preventive maintenance schedule, every work instruction is subject to erosion not through malice, but through misperception. When people no longer see the purpose of discipline, they will— often with good intentions—begin to unbuild the very systems that keep things running smoothly. Our job as quality professionals and manufacturing leaders is not only to design these systems, but to defend them—by making the invisible visible, and the silent successes heard.

Ray Harkins is the General Manager of Lexington Technologies in Lexington, North Carolina. He earned his Master of Science from Rochester Institute of Technology and his Master of Business Administration from Youngstown State University. He also teaches manufacturing and quality-related skills through the online learning platform, Udemy. He can be reached via LinkedIn at linkedin.com/ in/ray-harkins or by email at the.mfg. acad@gmail.com.

FIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2025 33