When Jase Kaser and his team at Kaser Blasting & Coatings in Lincoln, Nebraska, found themselves ones day in the unusual position of falling behind in production, they knew they had to do the right thing by their customers.
“We had been firing on all cylinders for weeks, churning out great work in record time through our busiest season,” says Kaser, the facility’s General Manager. “Then, in a single day, we fell behind – so much so that we had to inform a handful of customers that their orders were going to be late.”
Jase KaserThe problem was excruciating to Kaser, who is meticulous about the powder coating schedule.
“Every night, I post the next day’s plan; every morning, I make sure the floor manager is on board with it,” he says. “Throughout the day, I make adjustments: moving people and projects around as needed to get things done on time. The cycle repeats: plan, revisit, adjust, plan, revisit, adjust.”
That particular day this summer was no different. Everything started up as usual, and Kaser says he were on track to hit their quotas. By the time he made his mid-afternoon walkthrough, he was dumbfounded: production had ground to a halt, and the day’s work was far from done.
Solving the Problem
“I’ve been doing this long enough to anticipate my own reactions,” Kaser says. “A bad production day is frustrating. I’m going to feel annoyed and overwhelmed. I’ll be tempted to assume that someone dropped the ball. All of these emotions are knee-jerk, and totally normal – any passionate human in a management role will experience them at some point.”
However, Kaser says he also been doing this long enough to know that this initial flood of frustration is ultimately unproductive.
“My frustration doesn’t coat parts,” he says.
Instead, Kaser took a breath and investigated. He looked at the time sheets. He asked questions. IHere-created the day in his head, and I realized something: it was all his fault.
“My schedule — which had worked well all morning — created a bottleneck in the afternoon,” he says. “I had run my team into a corner. There’s nothing any of them could have done differently.”
Taking a Step Back
When Kaser stepped back and looked at the team’s trajectory over the last couple of months, it was so clear to him: they had been exceeding his expectations every day,for weeks. He asked himself: “Why would I let one bad day trick me into thinking – even for a moment – that they’d been lazy?”
The next morning, Kaser had to let a few customers know that their parts were running late. It’s never pleasant, he says, but they were gracious.
“It took a couple of long days for us to bounce back,” he says. “Now that we have, we’re unstoppable.”
Kaser says that 99.9% of the time the processes they have in place work really well, and he is going to keep making schedules, and he is going to keep visiting the shop floor throughout the day.
“I’m going to keep moving people and projects around as needed,” he says. “We’re going to keep putting out good work in a timely manner.”
But next time a bad production day rolls around, Kaser says his knee-jerk reaction will be different.
“I’ll start with the assumption that I messed up, and go from there,” he says. “I’ll get to the bottom of things much faster this way.”
Word to the Wise
What advice would Kaser give others when trying to solve a similar issue?
“My advice is twofold,” he says. “First, watch your assumptions and your emotions. Both will pop up organically, and that’s normal – but what you do with them is your choice.”
Ksser suggests reminding yourself that you’ve hired smart, competent people. Investigate before blowing your lid, and be open to the possibility that you’re to blame.
Second, he says, is check in with your team.
“Yes, I create daily schedules, work orders, and written protocols, and yes, my team is trained, competent, and largely autonomous,” Kaser says. “But I still visit the shop floor three times a day. If I wait until the end of the day to find out that everything’s gone wrong since 7 a.m., I have no one to blame but myself.”
