The Research -> Production TANGO

The Tango is a flamboyant dance, and a memorable performance depends on both partners knowing the steps and being able to execute them.

Ideally, the relationship between research and manufacturing can be a kind of dance, with a synergy and cooperation between them.

A comment on the relevance of my background:

I have led and worked in high intensity process-centric projects in both research (Corning Science and Technology) and production situations (at Corning Inc. and Bose Inc.) for ~60,000 hours. The documented bottom-line contribution of these projects has been in excess of $70 million. My comments and ideas are based on my own first-hand experience complete with lots of battle scars. I’m not talking about something I read in a book or someone told me about.

So, how should research and production “dance” together? How should they cooperate and work together? Some possible “dance-steps” include…

Dance Step #1:

Actually understanding the situation of your partner…

• Production leaders need to talk to research leaders to understand what’s coming, and to give inputs on what might be useful for production (what chronic problems in production need to be fixed?).

• Research leaders need to spend some time in production, real production with real products being shipped. Researchers would be well served by spending half-day or full-day stints in real-life production environment.

Dance Step #2:

Understand how money is made for the corporation…

My (admittedly simple for the purposes of this discussion) view of the function of each is:

> Research is the conversion of money to ideas. > Manufacturing is the conversion of ideas to money.

• Production leaders need to understand how they can help the researchers move things forward. Who are the “high-spirited” researchers who want to see their research rapidly commercialized? These are the researchers to work with, bet on, and provide resources to.

• Research leaders need to understand what cumulative commercial impact they have had. Ideas do not (generally) generate revenue, shipping real product does. What significant products have the researchers worked on and what has been the financial impact for the corporation?

Dance Step #3:

R-E-S-P-E-C-T your partner…

• Production leaders need to understand the pressure on and limitations of their research organization. They need to ask the researchers what (chronic and repeating) problems they need help with.

• Research leaders need to understand the many factors that make production difficult and unforgiving, including: production pressures; process and equipment limitations; tradeoffs between cost/quality/reliability, and the impact of supply chain problems. Effective researchers listen to manufacturing concerns and help solve them, while creating better products.

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My main learning from this is the coupled relationship between research and production. Research depends on production to generate the revenue that pays them. Production depends on research come up with new ideas to maintain a competitive posture over time. Structures (such as innovation models. effective champions with sufficient horsepower, and, shared goals) can help the research-production dance happen with minimal stepping on each other’s’ toes.

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CHALLENGE TO READERS

Please think about your process engineering projects over the past 5 to 10 years…

• What grade would YOU give YOURSELF on each of the above dance steps? What can be learned from that? Can these learnings be systematized and spread to improve current and future efforts?

• What grade would YOUR PARTNER give YOU on each of the above dance steps? What can be learned from that? Can these learnings be systematized and spread to improve current and future efforts?

I’m interested in how research and production dance together in your organization. I’d love to chat about it with you (508-410-8081) and learn what your insights and experiences are.

If you email me I’ll get back to you promptly, thanks.

All the Best,

Marty

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