Beyond an innovative product, what a start-up business needs most is an efficient and economical means of production. According to recent press releases, training sessions, bank loans and grants appear to be in abundance but no one is mentioning the means of production, whether it is on the kitchen table or the factory floor.
When I am asked to advise businesses here in Dominica, I invariably find that it is not improvements in the product or the workforce that are needed, but improvements to the way the job is being done. These improvements do not necessarily need a huge amount of capital but what is needed is an orderly workplace and logical thinking.
Some years ago I offered a series of training sessions for the private and public sector. They were titled, “Good Workshop Practice”. Personnel from the Fire and Ambulance Service attended one of the sessions. The next day I received a phone call from the Chief Fire Officer to say: Mr Burnett, I don’t know what you did to my men yesterday but first thing this morning they tidied their workshop!
If the workplace is in a state of confusion, the product or service will follow suit. As an apprentice I was told that you can judge a workman by the state of his workbench. Visitors to my workshop remark on its state of order and cleanliness. My response is that I run a precision engineering workshop and not a scrapyard. One of my machines was doing service in the Second World War. It remains in pristine condition and is as accurate today as was then and the chances are that it will still be giving good service in another eighty year’s time. But the same cannot be said of machines manufactured more recently. Like automobiles, they are not built to last.
Fifty-five years ago my work as a design engineer included what was then known as Work Study. In this context the term work study is not related to providing students with job experience but rather a means of improving methods of working by observing the work in progress. Incidentally, it was a woman, Lillian Gilbreth (1878-1972), who is now recognized as the innovator in this field. She focused on the importance of the worker and the arrangement of the workplace, rather than on machinery.
Some years ago a product that was originally intended to be packaged by machine was being packed by hand. I observed the six women doing the job and found that one was packaging twice as fast as the rest and with less effort. To get each member of the team working to the same efficiency all it required was the reorganization of the workplace: packaging material close at hand, correct table height and comfortable seating.
On another production line, a bottle washing machine was so inefficient and dangerous in terms of stoppages and breakages that I calculated the same number of operators could do the job safer, better and faster by hand. Low cost jigs and fixtures can be more effective than complicated machines for small scale production runs. They don’t break down and they don’t consume electricity.
Some contraptions that pass as machinery in Dominica, ingenious though they might seem at first glance, resemble the Heath Robinson Pancake Making Machine shown in the opening illustration. Unfortunately, we have do not have an abundance of skilled practical mechanical engineers. By the time a faulty part reaches my workshop a ham-fisted “big hammer” attempt at repair has made it unrepairable.
Simple devices, made in my workshop here in Dominica, have increased the output of small businesses and larger manufacturers up to tenfold. There are no computer components to fail, no complicated mechanisms to break down and no expensive parts to be replaced and ordered from overseas. The recipient of a device for taking the hit and miss out of slicing trays of bread pudding was overjoyed and considered it a minor miracle.
My advice to those setting up a small business is to resist being lured into purchasing sophisticated equipment that the manufacture claims will work wonders. Use the internet to research alternatives and source customer feedback. In the Caribbean if anything can go wrong it will go wrong, so keep things simple.
You can find out more about my work as an engineer and pictures of my machine shop at: https://access767.com/listing/roger-burnetts-precision-engineering-services/
Roger Burnett
Antrim
26th November 2020
The photographs of my workshops that are shown in the link were taken before Hurricane Maria. On the day they were taken I had just completed making two gears for Dominica Brewery & Beverages and was about to start on turning three bushes to an accuracy of for 0.00025″ for DOMLEC’s Portsmouth generator.
Work or no work, my workshop is always kept in a state of readiness. Squalor has no part to play in skilled workmanship.
I roger that! Point taken. Total respect for your abilities I meant to be constructive.
Good advice. Ya but your lab reflects the current economy, not a spec of dust, translation: no work coming in?
Sound advice that entrepreneurs should take on board! Thank you for sharing.
Interesting article. Good order is essential and very important.