“We have plenty of people to do the work,” Max explained. “I wrote all the steps for them to follow, a nice flow chart as a visual on the cover of the binder. As the projects move through, I have Gant charts to help me understand the status, so I can explain to the customer.”

“It all sounds very organized. So what’s the problem?” I asked.

“The problem is, the production team doesn’t follow the work instructions. I walked by the work cell yesterday and it was clearly being done out of sequence. I suddenly knew why we were having QC problems on some of the output.”

“And?” I pressed.

“I asked why they were doing it that way, when we had just completed a training program on the correct sequence. Do you believe this? They told me the training program was wrong, that they had been doing it their way for a long time and didn’t see the need to change. Besides, it was easier to do it their way.”

“And they had just been through training?” I wanted to know.

“Well, yes, it wasn’t like a class. I spent ten minutes with the four of them. It was really common sense. I don’t see why they didn’t get it. If I had smarter production people, they would have figured it out on their own,” Max was clearly frustrated.

“You see something they don’t see?” I said in the form of a question.

“Yes. And how,” he replied.

“Did you ever think, you see something they cannot see?”