Exploring Advanced Manufacturing Technologies. Steve Krar
technology alone cannot provide all these benefits without a skilled workforce who are continually updated and trained to get the full benefits that each new technology can provide. Therefore, training and managing the workforce should be the greatest focus of any firm wishing to compete and survive in manufacturing. The most important investment a company can make to grow its business and ensure a share of tomorrow’s prosperity, is to provide employees with the opportunity to continually renew and improve their skills. Raising the education and training level of an employee by one year, increases the productivity level by 8.5% in manufacturing. Figure 1-3-2 compares high technology and conventional technology.
Manufacturers have long recognized the importance of skilled and highly motivated workers in preserving and enhancing the capabilities of American industry. The assistance of a skilled and dedicated workforce is essential to derive the greatest benefits of any new technology, without which we cannot survive in the manufacturing world. Technology has given us exceptional opportunities to advance living standards; only our inability or hesitation to use those technologies can hold us back.
We cannot remain the world’s economic leader unless we continuously renew and hone the skills of current and future employees so that they can work successfully in the modern manufacturing environment. Education packs a double economic wallop. First, it helps the economy grow faster. By increasing the skills and knowledge of the workforce, it quickens the pace at which productivity improves. Second, education counteracts the forces of inequality. By enlarging the supply of educated workers and reducing the supply of less educated workers, it narrows the wage gap.
Fig. 1-3-1 The main benefits of advanced manufacturing technology. (Kelmar Associates)
Fig. 1-3-2 A comparison of advanced technology and standard technology. (Kelmar Associates)
STRATEGY IN WORKING WITH PEOPLE
The ability to get along well with people is the prime quality of a good executive. It is a necessity for all if we are to enjoy peace of mind. In manufacturing, transportation, trading, finance, and all other areas of production and commerce, as well as in social life, we deal with people who are filled as we ourselves are with feelings of pride, the ambition to achieve, and the desire for esteem and affection.
Executives cannot do their best work or be successful in business without the cooperation of others. Facing the human equation and solving it satisfactorily are urgent needs imposed upon leaders in all walks of life. The best leaders take many precautions that most people would neglect.
We Are All Different
To understand people, it is important to first recognize two truths: we are all different, and we are all acting and reacting in different environments, Fig. 1-3-3. Only when supervisors realizes this can they begin to understand people by studying them and going out of their way to encourage them to talk about themselves and their interests.
▪No one in authority can ever do too much listening.
•When a person begins to act in a manner that is different from our expectations, we may be shocked or confused.
Fig. 1-3-3 To work well with people, it is important to understand that everyone is different. (US Armed Forces Training Manual)
•By showing a sympathetic interest, demonstrating our need to understand, and by taking steps toward becoming informed of the cause, we may find what is wrong with the person - or with our own interpretation of their actions.
Every human act can be understood when all the facts are known.
▪Be prepared to meet resistance, especially if the attitude to be changed is a deeply-rooted one.
•It is important to offer something more concrete than generalities.
•If these steps are taken to think out and elaborate our thoughts and the plan in clear consistency, we are likely to reap a reward beyond our hopes.
COMMUNICATING IDEAS
To deal with people requires the communication of ideas; this is a two-way project. The executive cannot possibly put across ideas unless they know what ideas are already in the minds of the workers - ideas that may clarify or confuse, help or hinder.
▪Time is needed to communicate ideas and cultivate their growth.
•An effort to rush into decisions may annoy the workers. The miracle is that so many leaders, by taking time and trouble, succeed in having their ideas accepted.
▪The person who always appears to be in a hurry creates a needless handicap.
•Those working with the person may assume that the responsibilities may too big, and in order to decide, they are not going to be rushed into a decision.
THE ART OF PERSUASION
People do not like to feel that they are being told to do something; it is nicer to feel that they are acting on their own ideas, or that they are thoughtfully agreeing with the ideas of someone else. Leaders who are skillful in working with people have learned the method of giving instructions, proving a point, or winning agreement in such a way that those with whom they shares the ideas feel the ideas are their own.
1.The purpose of supervisors should be not to dominate but to inspire, not to strike fear into others but to earn their goodwill, not to gain a point by fighting, but to win support by making people want to get behind the plan.
2.There comes in every person’s life a time to fight, but it must be tested by asking: “Is the cause worthy? Can I not persuade rather than compel? If I do win the point by force, will the response be favorable among those who count in my life?”
3.If there is no other way to achieve a worthwhile purpose, then it is necessary to lay down the law.
▪Those who insist upon fighting their way through life should remember that it is wise to give an opponent a chance to save face than win and make an enemy.
4.Violence in executives makes enemies unless the people surrounding them are very tolerant.
▪Violence takes toll of one’s health, wears one out more quickly than does persuasion, and it is not gratifying to an intelligent person.
STRATEGY IN CRITICISM
Able leaders take pains to spare others humiliation, even when it is necessary to criticize their actions; it is foolish to scold.
1.The purpose of discipline is to prevent repetition of an offense; it should be constructive. Impatient tearing down is likely to breed distaste for necessary regulation.
2.Criticism should begin with praise and honest appreciation of what the person does well, and then go on to point out how this thing can be done better.
▪Often a friendly remark is enough to give honest praise; never reprimand harshly, especially where others may hear, Fig. 1-3-4.
▪This mode of criticizing appeals to a worker because it shows an honest desires to be helpful. It recognizes the truth that no one ever learns anything without making mistakes.
3.Learning to like people and to get along with them by looking for the good in them is a satisfying way of life.
▪If we complain often about our associates or about the firm for which we work, our associates are likely to think the trouble lies with us.