Operational excellence and process improvements are significant parts of Mario Iannantuono’s life. After getting an engineering degree, he worked as a process engineer for an OEM. That first role created interest and excitement in the manufacturing process and how to improve it. After leaving the OEM side, Mario switched roles to working for Tier 1 OEM suppliers. Eventually, he became a global manager and worked for other well-known world-class companies such as Danaher. Through all his roles, Mario gained extensive experience in improving manufacturing and making it more efficient.
Eventually, Mario retired but quickly discovered a life of golf and leisure wasn’t for him. Along with a couple of business associates, he formed Quantum Leap Partners, a consulting group that brings operational and process improvement expertise to smaller and mid-size businesses. Mario also acts as an interim COO for BluePrint Engines, a leading manufacturer of high-performance crate engines. In this episode of “Only The Strong Survive,” Mario discusses with host Dan Kahn why process improvement matters to businesses of any size and what he has learned from a career dedicated to it.
Here are our top five takeaways from Dan and Mario’s discussion:
Process and efficiency improvement can help companies of any size.
Measuring the correct data is essential.
KPIs are useless if everyone doesn’t understand them.
Getting to the root of the problem involves going beyond data.
Outside help is often needed to keep scaling.
Process Improvement is for Everyone
Operational efficiency and process improvement were once thought to only matter to large-scale manufacturers like OEMs. However, Mario notes that smaller and mid-size companies can benefit from it, too. After all, the margins are often smaller for companies of this size, and anything you can do to squeak out more revenue is a plus. Improving processes and being more efficient can also give an edge over competitors that aren’t paying as much attention to it.
“We (Quantum Leap Partners) try to stay away from big companies because they have a lot of people like us who can go in there and fix these things. We really think that the small and mid-sized companies are the ones who are starving for this kind of work and this kind of leadership and expertise,” said Mario. “Because they are smaller, they don’t have the resources, and what we do is go in there and show them what they have to do to be competitive.”
Measurable Data is Everything
Creating key performance indicators (KPIs) is central to process improvement and efficiency. However, those KPIs need to really focus on what matters to the company and zero in on problem areas to help rectify them. Creating a bunch of easy wins and “green across the board” KPIs won’t help solve any problems. Gathering the right data is more important than the amount of data.
“What we did (at BluePrint) was focus on what mattered. When we looked at our KPIs, we had green and red. The message that I give everybody is that red is not bad. Red tells us what we need to work on. That’s all red does,” said Mario. “We went through the process of focusing on the red and eliminating those issues. As we started getting some wins, the team got very excited, and it just cascaded from there.”
Translate KPIs Into the Right Language
KPIs often come from the top levels of management and can be financial in nature, such as growing sales by a certain percentage. One mistake Mario sometimes sees companies make is not translating those KPIs into data points that are easily understood by those doing the work. Financials might be great for management but not for workers on the assembly line. To be effective, those KPIs need to be translated into their “language.”
“You are not going to share financials with folks on the shop floor because that is not the world they live in, right? Typically, if you go over a lot of financial information, they really just get lost,” said Mario. “On the shop floor, the world they live in is pieces and production. So, what I have always done is to take the financial data and translate it into languages that the people on the shop floor understand. Like what’s the goal for pieces? What’s the expected number of rejects that are okay, and what’s not okay? You need to put it into their format to make sure they understand it.”
Getting To the Root of the Problem
The right data is excellent for showing where the trouble spots are within your organization. However, even the best data doesn’t necessarily show what is causing those issues. To get to the root of those problems, you must dive deeper and go beyond simply gathering data.
“The data tells us where the issue is, and we dig very deeply into it. Then, we use a process called the ‘Five Whys,’” said Mario. “It is a problem-solving technique that a lot of the Toyotas of the world use, and it primarily says that if you ask a question five times, you’ll eventually get to the root cause of the problem. The last thing we want to do is just put a Band-Aid on an issue and then move away from it without it being resolved.”
Breaking Through the Wall
Most companies cannot infinitely scale up and grow unabated, and this is especially true of smaller, founder-led companies. Eventually, you hit a wall that you just can’t seem to get past. Mario notes that often, the only way to get past that wall is to seek help from outside experts. Pushing past it on your own can be a long, frustrating and costly process.
“Most of their (smaller businesses) systems that are put into place are kind of homegrown systems, and they tend to outgrow them. They know that once they start getting some scale, their organization can’t really absorb all of this stuff with the homegrown systems they have,” said Mario. “So there comes a point where you have to go outside to companies like mine to show you how to get there.”
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