People Problems
Thirty years ago when I was hired as a technical professional in manufacturing, my boss who was running the division told me that he was told that moving into management meant that 80 percent of your problems were now people problems, only 20 percent are technical problems. I don't know if the ratio holds in all cases, but dealing with people is still the supreme skill for leaders to possess.
At Automation World, we're interested in finding the best ways of applying automation to increase a company's productivity, quality, and ultimately profits. Some sort of convergence seems to be happening around addressing people problems. Last week at Rockwell's Automation Fair, several people I interviewed brought up the necessity of working with people to implement the new technologies.
This week, I interviewed an engineering manager for my December article on data communication strategies. His comments are leading me to consider people communication strategies as well. He had implemented some advanced loop control software designed to find problems with process control loops and provide enough supporting information to enable technicians to solve the problems. The plant has eight units. He has implemented the software in four. When I asked about results, he said that three of the units showed substantial gains in reliability, while the fourth one was the same. The difference? In the three units, there are regular meetings of engineering and operations personnel to review the data and decide on improvements. Guess what, no meetings or communication in the fourth.
Read all about it in the December issue of Automation World. http://www.automationworld.com
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