Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda…
- Marty Schad
- Oct 17, 2019
- 2 min read
Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda…
These all point to one thing: REGRET!
Regrets should be minimized: that’s fairly indisputable. Interestingly, and fortunately for us, Jeff Bezos has an approach to help us!
Bezos calls it his “Regret Minimization Framework”. It works like this…
Bezos’ thought process:
“I wanted to project myself forward to age 80 and say, “Okay, now I’m looking back on my life, I want to have minimized the number of regrets I have”.
So, the general framework Bezos proposed was:
Question: In X years, will I regret NOT doing this?
**If answer = YES then DO IT!
**If answer = no, don’t bother.
This is a very useful and very flexible metal model. It can be applied to many different situations.
Let’s think about it from the Process Perspective, and consider things that definitely WILL NOT produce regret…
NON-REGRET Producing Process Projects
New Processes
Connecting the inventors with motivated process engineering professionals to discuss high-volume manufacturing options.
Creating early cost models to focus attention and action on expensive raw materials.
Documenting the process with an input - > process - > output (IPO) diagram.
Brainstorming about second and third applications for the idea.
Creating an Ideal Future State reference framework for both process and equipment development.
Existing Processes
Starting a serious and sustained effort to permanently resolve a chronic customer problem.
Starting a serious and sustained effort to improve manufacturing yields.
Looking into upstream processes to see if optimizing them may provide significant leverage.
Creation of a cost model for your competitors’ process.
Balancing and leveraging trade-offs between customer specs and process capability.
My main learning from this line of thinking is that the path to higher performing processes is fairly clear, although it requires a lot of hard work and discipline. New processes must be judged early, carefully, and ruthlessly, when things can be iterated and fixed cheaply. Existing processes must be continuously reinvented and reengineered. Doing this on an ongoing basis will produce more robust processes and reduce overall costs.
CHALLENGE TO READERS
Please think about your efforts building great manufacturing processes over the past 5 to 10 years…
What manufacturing processes have you improved significantly or unhelpfully neglected since January 2018?
Prepare a proposal to learn from this experience, either building on previous gains or addressing important neglected areas. Show this proposal to key executive stakeholders to explore if a project can be launched with enthusiasm and vigor.
How do you avoid regretting the state of your manufacturing processes? What strategies and approaches do you consistently use to avoid this situation? I’d love to chat about it with you (508-410-8081) to discuss how MPES can help you dramatically accelerate your progress and profits.
If you email me I’ll get back to you promptly, thanks.
All the Best,
Marty
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