Thread by @joshuamschultz

Did the worst thing you can do in my business yesterday.

Customer ran out of parts - what we call "Line Down".

The number one rule is don't ever cause a line down

The only thing that matters in a parts business is

OTD and PPM

passing quality, and on time!

Some lessons >

1. When a major problem occurs, you should be constantly communicating with the customer. This is the. most. important. thing.

Whether there is news or not, share updates, share what you're working on, share what's working and what's not.

Be Transparent and constantly sharing

2. Dive in past the issue. We ran out of a part, but why? You can use the classic 5Why approach.

In this case it was:

1. a faulty warehouse report
2. an algo missing data
3. an incorrect use of the systems
4. untrained personnel.

All my problem.

3. Protect your people at all costs from the customer.

The customer will be angry, they have a right to be.
I am angry, I failed, my people didn't execute as they should have.

It can be easy to turn on your people, yell at them, blame them, save your ass.

This is cowardice

Take the heat personally or as a company.

Do not expose who messed up.

Damage your own personal rep to save the rep of the company, the team, and the employee.

If you are a good leader, you can repair your own reputation (or even enhance it) much faster than the others.

4. Now is the time I can build trust with my customer and build respect from my team. They will see how I handle, how I treat them, and how I go above and beyond for the customer.

This will instill a customer-centric attitude more than any video, training, or policy.

5. Understand there are 2 things that need to be addressed asap.

Short term fix
Long term fix

5a. Short term fix is how do we get the customer's line back up and running asap.

The key here is parallel attacks. For the first 4-6 hours, you are only gathering information. There is little cost involved.

Attack from every angle.

We are:
- having parts airshipped from TW (very expensive)
- Buying a similar part locally
- Buying a close part, but too long and having it cut by a machine shop
- Taking some extra supply from another warehouse

The point? Dont "solve" and assume it will work, assume failure.

5b. Long term fix

What do we do to make sure that this never happens again?

These changes are process changes, new rules, etc.

1. have a data quality flag that lets a planner know when data is missing and the result can't be trust.
2. Fill the training gaps

3. Check reorder points and quantities
4. Extend lead times given current environment. Make this a dynamic variable that auto adjusts
5. Use demand classification for different forecast methods.

6. When the problem is fixed, go +1

This changes by industry and situation. But I never just fix an issue. The second an issue is fixed, there is a new issue

Trust and reputation repair.

Dont wait a second, they will respect you more tackling that openly, quickly, and honestly