Rooster's Revenge

Interesting conversation the other day with someone about getting the job done fast. Although the topic of discussion was quoting dies in advance of an actual design, this applies to design, formability analysis, and just about every other J-O-B in this business.

It seems like everyone rushes to say “we need faster quote tools” or “we need faster simulation software” or “we need faster die design programs” and the like.

I counter with faster does not mean better. Better is usually accuracy. Believe me, they want accuracy too. But speed is the challenge.

At the heart of the speed challenge is usually not about the job of quoting, forming, or designing. Quite the contrary.

When I was doing die design, I spent more time seeking information to do the job than it took to do the design job itself. The same goes for when I did formability analysis. Hell, I would spend more time trying to find out what some bullshit proprietary commodity code for material really was than it took to set up and run the simulation.

So, let’s take quoting for a detailed breakdown of what I am talking about. To quote a job, you need a process. Once you have a process or die operational lineup, most companies use some form of semi-automated Excel spreadsheet for quoting.

To process and quote a job, for instance, this is typically what happens:

1. Search for CAD file. (5 minutes)

2. Launch one-step to get blank size. (5 minutes)

3. One-step needs IGS and you have a Catia file. Go get coffee. (10 minutes)

4. Launch Catia, open file, and save as IGS. (10 minutes)

5. Run one-step to get blank. (5 minutes)

6. Determine process (5 minutes)

7. Get files needed to create process and quote forms (5 minutes)

8. Export images of part and blank from one-step (5 minutes)

9. Import images into process sheet and crop so they look pretty (5 minutes)

10. Fill out process form by copying info from a BOM (9 minutes)

11. Use Ouija board quoting tool to get price (1 minute)

12. Put quote 10 folders deep on a server to make them hard to find (10 minutes)

13. Take the quotes out of the folder and send to 57 people for review (10 minutes)

14. Make necessary changes and put back in the folder (10 minutes)

15. Take a nap until the next job comes up (usually 5 minutes) 

As you can see, most of what needs to happen to get the job done is NOT time well spent. Instead, it is spent doing things that really do not, or should not, matter.

Bottom line in this example is the quote itself – the price – is only 1% of the effort. Getting the quote depends on the process and the process takes 9% of the effort. The other 90% is spent getting to the point of doing the meaningful work.

Let’s say you cut the time spent quoting and processing by 90%. This comes down to 1 minute. Everything else still takes 90 minutes (in this example anyway). So now instead of having 90% of non-value, we have 99% non-value to complete the task.

Why not focus on cutting down on the non-value like searching for CAD files and material specs and such? Keep the coffee and lose the folders I say.

If you want to go faster, focus on cutting out the steps that consume non-value added time, like finding and converting CAD files.