By Gerry Nejman, Founding Partner, Manufacturing Resource Network
I recently passed the 10-year mark in my consulting career. That’s a decade of walking plant floors, troubleshooting, and learning from some of the best people in manufacturing. Before that, I cut my teeth in airplane landing gear, stamping tools, and a forging shop. Those early years taught me to respect the people who make things, the ones who turn ideas into real, tangible products.
Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work across many industries: ink production, plastic extrusion, oil and gas equipment, cutting tools, consumer goods, and building supplies. Each new client asks me a version of the same question:
“Why should we hire you when you’ve never made [insert product here] before?”
My answer never changes:
“You have the same two problems as everyone else; you’re not making enough money, and you’re not listening closely enough to the people who could help you fix that.”
Problem #1: Not Making Enough Money
Whether it’s lack of sales, inefficiency, scrap, untrained workers, outdated equipment, or poor product mix, every manufacturer fights these same battles. Lean manufacturing tools like value stream maps and sticky notes can cover the walls, and they’re useful. But those are second steps.
The first step in any continuous improvement effort is finding and empowering the right people: the ones who know their jobs better than any consultant or executive ever will. Without them, no process improvement initiative, no matter how well planned, will ever reach its full potential.
Problem #2: Not Listening to the Experts You Already Have
Yes, it’s true; I might not know how to bake bread or mold floor mats on day one. But your employees do.
That’s where I like to work: on the floor, in jeans and safety glasses, watching, asking questions, learning. The best data I’ve ever collected didn’t come from a dashboard; it came from conversations.
Here are some of the lessons I’ve heard straight from the source through true shop floor leadership and employee engagement:
- “We could double capacity if they’d only give me the money to fix this machine.”
→ Translation: Invest in maintenance and capital planning. - “Sure, I can work faster, but the parts will just sit here.”
→ Translation: You’ve got a line-balancing or bottleneck issue. - “How many do we need per day?”
→ Translation: Takt time and expectations aren’t clearly communicated. - “Do I really have to test every one?”
→ Translation: Apply SPC and statistical methods to improve efficiency. - “When we bought our material from XYZ, everything ran better.”
→ Translation: Vendor quality and certification control are critical to operational excellence. - “We had a tool for that, but we lost it last year.”
→ Translation: Time to revisit your 5S and Lean manufacturing disciplines.
Every one of these small observations is a gold nugget, and they almost always lead to larger, systemic improvements that drive manufacturing efficiency and profitability.
Lesson for Leaders: Listen Before You Lean
At Manufacturing Resource Network, we like to say we’re boots on the floor, not suits in the conference room. We’re T-shirts and jeans, safety glasses and steel toes. We roll up our sleeves and build solutions from the ground up, side by side with the people who know where the problems really are.
If you want your next continuous improvement project to succeed — whether it’s Lean, automation, or cost reduction — start with this:
- Spend one full day a month on the floor. Don’t observe from a walkway; get in the cells, the workstations, the shipping dock.
- Ask operators what slows them down. You’ll be surprised how many fixes cost nothing more than attention and follow-through.
- Make feedback loops real. When someone suggests an improvement, close the loop. Tell them what happened even if the answer is “not yet.”
These small cultural shifts multiply over time. They build trust, improve morale, and tell your team that you value their expertise, which is at the heart of sustainable manufacturing excellence.
A Final Word of Thanks
This post is a simple thank-you to every hands-on worker who ever took the time to show me how things really work. You’ve taught me more than any textbook or training program ever could.
Information from the shop floor always carries the most weight with me.
And yes, I admit it, I often took the credit.
But the truth is, I didn’t solve those problems alone.
You did.