I just attended the IWF show in Atlanta, and it was great to see trade shows back in full force. Three massive buildings full of vendors and thousands of people walking the aisles in search of that next exciting product or machine.

Lynn Thomson of Quantum Lean and I did a full-day lean symposium and although the room felt full, as all the seats were taken, compared to how many people registered for the show it was 0.2 percent of registrants. 

Some 22,000 people are looking for a machine to help them, costing who knows how much, and only 56 who realize a better process will solve way more problems than a new machine. Or at the very least, confirm the new purchase is the right one.
I did have time to walk the show floor and check out some of the latest and greatest machines, speak to some sales representatives and see some pretty cool new technology. 

I think most shocking was the amount of robots at the show. Six years ago, there were almost none. Now, you can’t turn down a single aisle at the show without seeing one doing something. 

About time! 

We woodworkers are 100 years behind in technology, so it was great to see robots put in place to elevate workers.
Is bigger, faster better?

One thing I noticed when I started talking to all the sales reps:  I would say 99 percent had no idea how their piece of equipment would tie into the overall value stream and the effect it would have on their customer. 

It seems the general thought was the bigger and faster the single piece of equipment is, generally, the better. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. 

The old saying, “Let the buyer beware,” has never been more true. And here is the other problem, the consumers are not much more educated on flow than the vendors selling them things. 

That means a lot of people end up with a lot of the wrong machines, which evoke a lot of the wrong manufacturing behavior on the factory floor.

My three most shocking discoveries were as follows:

1. Nobody selling any feed-thru equipment understood what I meant by subordinating activity to the bottleneck, and/or the detriment of having one really fast machine in a process with dramatically slower machines feeding or following it. 
They just kept going back to how fast that particular machine was. 

The net result of the mutual misunderstanding by both the customer and seller will be an absolute zero impact on the bottom line, and a large lease payment left in its wake. 

Don’t get me wrong, a big fast machine can be great, if it’s the right machine. I know personally a dealer who sold a client a $500,000 finishing line, and the customer’s demand was just 40 panels per day. Absolutely unnecessary and how that dealer sleeps at night is beyond me. I suspect this happens all the time.

2. I spoke at length with some of the owners of new and exciting inventions, and to my astonishment, even the inventors of some seemingly impressive machines literally had no clue how their creation would tie into their customer’s overall value stream. 
When I asked about the feeding operations, they just said, “Oh yeah, we’re not considering that part.” 

These are highly intelligent inventors and business owners who created a product in a silo, and had they considered the feeding and following operations they could have radically improved their offerings.

3. Lying to compensate for ROI. This one was probably the most disappointing one of the bunch. Not knowing something is one thing. But making up information when you know you’re lying, that’s just wrong. 

As a fellow woodworker, I understand that we’re not a rich bunch, and every dollar we invest must have an impact on the bottom line. 

To spend hundreds of thousands of dollars only to discover someone wasn’t being honest — I believe this should be a punishable crime. I think my two favorite uncovered lies were a machine that only required 1/2 an operator — I have been in business for 30 years and have never been able to hire 1/2 a person — and if that company calculated in the feeding operations to keep that machine running it would have been three operators. 

The next one was claiming their process was better than single-piece flow. As a lean guy, I wondered about that. So, I asked, “When Toyota hears about your process will they rewrite all their books?”

Ask questions first
So how do customers avoid some of the pitfalls of buying machines? 

I would start with these probing questions to evaluate whether the direction you’re going is the right one.

• Will this machine force me into batch production?
• How big do the batches have to be to use the machine to full potential, and what will be the effect of that batch size on the rest of the plant?
• What is your current takt time (rate of customer demand) compared to the machine process time?
• Will the machine cause a “trapped labor” situation? (This means will the operator just be standing there watching the machine with no option to contribute and increase throughput?)
• Is this your bottleneck operation? (Not wandering bottleneck, the calculated bottleneck.)
• How much faster is said machine compared to the feeding operations? If it’s faster, is it possible to throttle back the new machine?
• How much faster is said machine compared to the following operations? If it’s faster, you become susceptible to over production.
Remember the goal isn’t a rocket machine, it’s steady, stable and level flow. 

A factory is very analogous to a rowboat. Putting one ace rower in the boat doesn’t help, and actually just causes it to go in circles. 

I know, it’s very counterintuitive — thank goodness it is, or everyone would do it. Gives us lean maniacs an easy leg up on the competition.

The other reason to purchase equipment that is not in a bottleneck operation would be based on a risk assessment. 

For example, your air compressor is not a bottleneck operation, but when it goes down, so does the whole factory. Some machines just need to be replaced before they break.

In closing, it’s probably not a bad idea to get a lean consultant involved in significant new machine purchases. When buying equipment, it’s clear and abundant, there is a need for more knowledge when it comes to creating overall flow.