This is a distinction that many owners do not immediately see. When they hear the price of serious work on the system, the first reaction is often: "it's expensive."I understand that reaction. But the problem is that you don't compare the cost of the system to the cost of chaos. It compares the price of a consultant to the salary of someone who “leads production”.
I've seen a lot in practice.
A director of production who does not have any measurable reports and serious KPI. He doesn't know the actual capacity of the line. He doesn't know where he's wasting his time. He doesn't know why the plan is late. He doesn't know how to make a basic daily tracking system. He does not even know how to introduce an initial liability structure, but he is formally guided to “hold production”.
And sometimes it looks good enough to the owner, because it's cheaper.
Only the production doesn't go down in a day. The plan starts late. Then the issues are resolved on weekends and overtime. Then the best people carry everything on their backs. Then each stall is resolved by pressing the operators:” go faster“,” squeeze“,”must today".
That's not a system. It's exhausting people.
When you ask people for more and don't give them the resources, clear information, support, standards and a realistic plan, you don't get a better performance in the long run. You get fatigue, mistakes, resistance, absences, and a decline in engagement.
In production, this is very clear.
The operator is not late because he is lazy, but because he does not have the material on time. The manager does not solve the problem because he has no information. The Planner makes an unrealistic plan because the norms are not realistically measured. The director presses people because he has no other tools. The owner thinks that someone runs the system, and in fact a few people manually push the production from day to day.
The company can't stand the competition. Not because there are no people. Because there is no system that supports these people.
The most expensive is not always what you pay the consultant. It is most expensive when you pay for years for the consequences of bad management: delays, waste, overtime, lost customers, good people leaving, and production that depends on one man.
It's not just how much it costs to build a system.
The question is, how much does it cost you to not have it?
