“Take a look at these two packages. Is anything really different between them?”
The operations manager was trying to make a point to his operators: There’s no reason to put bad product out the door.
He distributed two packages of gauze. The first was our product from our plant. The other was the same product, but made in China. The operators took a quick look at each and passed them to the next person.
Then the packages came to me.
At first, I noticed different sealing patterns. Then different materials for the outside wrapper. Pretty soon I called the other engineers in the room over to take a look.
In under three minutes, we found at least five major differences in package design. Differences that allowed the Chinese product to maintain quality and high throughput at a low cost. Meanwhile, one part of our team was fighting its way through product recalls while another looked for ways to cut costs even further. Our brand had a strong history to lean on. It seemed that would be enough to keep customers loyal.
Fast forward 8 years. That plant is slated to close this August. What makes it more bitter is it is the last of its kind in a market largely taken over by India and China.
It started slow, even while I was still there. I would see it first in the bloodmobiles that switched to supplies from other brands. Then the hospitals. “Buy local” was becoming less of an effective admonition when the nurses who used it complained they had to use a lot more product than they remembered.
I didn’t know how much stock to put in those trends when I started working there. I was fresh out of Notre Dame’s MBA program and excited for the next challenge in my career. To become their facilities engineer, I had traded our dream home in Chesterton, IN where my family could no longer afford to live for a pay raise of over 20%.
The move put me in with a fresh crew of engineers ready to make a difference for the almost 600 employees there. Following a revolving door of six plant managers in two years, the last group was told changes would be made. If they didn’t like it, they were told none-too-subtly to find work elsewhere.
I came to find my predecessor decided to leave facilities engineering to pursue reselling on eBay. Maybe his decision was just a character quirk instead of a warning, I reasoned.
Ignore the foreboding as you walk through the door, because there’s something worth saving inside. Learn about what worked in Part 2 next week.
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