Process AMBITION Anyone?

What ambitions do you personally have for the manufacturing processes your business depends on?

Ambition is defined as:

• A strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work, and;

• Desire and determination to achieve success.

I started thinking specifically about ambition after a nephew of ours moved for a much better job. His old job kept him busy, but there was scant opportunity for growth. His new job is more of a sales engineer-advisory role, has tons of room for growth, and he is visibly excited about it.

Why is he so enthused? More money helped, but that was not the big part of it. The important thing was he could pour his efforts into something and get results and learnings. In short, he had an “ambition outlet” (a phrase I coined)…something he could put his efforts into and be confident that good things would happen.

Let’s think about this a bit from The Process Perspective, and what process ambition might look like.

Higher manufacturing yields, increased manufacturing profitability, increased product reliability, decreased customer problems, and increased product development velocity: all of these tangible benefits accrue as we have ambition and apply it using a mindset of Process Excellence and Process Stewardship.

For new processes, process ambition might look like:

• Manufacturability is relentlessly and ruthlessly checked and improved if needed.

• Margin is built into the process, the way airplanes are designed.

• Researchers care about commercial impact.

• The process has SOP and IPO diagrams completed and available.

• Why the process works is understood and documented.

For existing manufacturing processes, process ambition might look like:

• Product quality is insured by robust processes and methods, not via inspection.

• Life-cycle impacts have been examined and optimized where possible.

• SPC is implemented based on real process capability; the “levers” to re-center processes are known and reliable.

• The process gracefully tolerates input material variations (over long time periods).

• The “Process Window” is measured and known.

---

My main learning from this line of thinking is the concept of “process ambition”. The ambition to create great processes is a precondition for doing breakthrough process work. If we have the ambition to see what is possible and “let the chips fall where they may”, amazing and very profitable things are possible (and even predictable!)

---

CHALLENGE TO READERS

Think/reflect about yourself, your process engineering organization, and your colleagues…

• Who has real, no kidding, PROCESS AMBITION? Why do you say that, what is the evidence for that? What has the payoff been from that?

• Can those with the most process ambition be enlisted/”drafted” to accelerate a current key process development project?

This topic of “process ambition” is interesting to me, and I’d love to hear what your take on it is. Please call me (508-410-8081) so we can compare notes and learnings.

If you send us an email, we will get back to you promptly, thanks.

All the Best,

Marty

---