John Q. Todd

Sr. Business Consultant/Product Researcher

Total Resource Management (TRM), Inc. 

Everyone loves innovation. So many cool things are on the market for us to buy and benefit from due to the innovative thinking of some engineer grinding away in their basement. Occasionally, we also observe a truly innovative solution to a sticky business problem that makes us take a step back. “Huh, I would have never expected that from them.”

Everyone hates standards. Such wet blankets to our creativity. Formulas and prescriptive procedures that keep us between the rails, not allowing for out-of-the-box thinking. Do this, then this, not this, stop here and go no further. Meeting the standard means you are satisfactory, a “C” student, who simply, “meets requirements.” No high performers allowed. Not meeting the standard is always bad.

Ubiquity is boring. Commonplace things are just that, common. We can rely upon how they function no matter if they are plain looking or bedazzled. 100s of choices on the online shelf, all doing the same thing, it’s just what color or style I wish. Nothing is special. It’s just a box of Klee…, er, tissues.

So, where is this going?

Innovation is like the wild West. Anything goes. Dance with wolves if you’d like, no one cares. At first, innovation does not need to have longevity in mind. Rather, it can initially burn bright then fade quickly as we see where the idea goes. Fail as many times as you wish until the funding runs out. Many, many good ideas in our world have never seen the light of day.

How does innovation make it outside of the basement you ask? First step is that the value to people other than the inventor is determined to be positive. Someone other than you must see the value.

Then it needs to be produced. Here is where those pesky standards come to play. You cannot produce your innovation unless you have a methodical and repeatable manufacturing process. Or you cannot expect your innovative business solution to be adopted by the organization unless it can prove itself out with data-driven results.

Standards are the key to success?

Let’s put the parochial word “standards” aside for a moment. Rather, let’s talk about, “the ways,” you do business. In between the innovation and the output to your clients are the ways you do things. Policies, procedures, best practices, proven methods, regulations, and documented metrics are all examples of hard work that help guide how things get done.

Yes, you may invite outsiders in on a regular basis to show you where you are not meeting the standards. While it is not always fun to hear what they have to say, what happens? You take their advice and improve. Oh, so they help you become better and perhaps innovative in your approach to addressing their findings? Interesting. So, outsiders can be helpful?

Your, “way,” is not set in stone. How you do things today does not have to be the same way a year from now. (Allow me to posit that you should be planning/anticipating that things will not be the same a year from now!) If things need to change… you guessed it… you can innovate to find a better way. Too much manual data entry going on to, “feed the beast,” for the pencil pushers? Then find a better way to meet the data needs of the organization. Prove your innovative ideas and change the standard. (Using proper Change Management procedures of course!)

Ubiquity, while not exciting, is your goal.

You want the output of whatever your business produces to be reliable, quality, and of value to your clients. Your clients come back to you, not because they must, but because they can rely upon your product to give them value. Repeatedly. Boring. No surprises. Just another million gadgets are boxed and shipped to your happy distributor. Huge percentages of your annual revenue is from repeat clients.

Last year you were able to produce (and sell!) 100,000 widgets. With some innovative ideas from the production floor, you can now produce 110,000 of the same things at a lower price without sacrificing quality. Sounds like all three elements were needed: Innovation + Standards = Ubiquity!

Wrap up.

Your People are the source of innovation. Your Processes are your way of doing business. The Programs you have in place foster the ubiquity of your output. By paying attention to your People, Processes, and Programs, very quickly you will have an organization that improves on its own.

TRM and IDCON have been working with clients across industries for many years, to consider each of these elements and foster changes where needed. Reach out and let’s see where we might be able to help from pure consulting to software implementation.

Reach out to us at AskTRM@trmnet.com if you have any questions or would like to discuss deploying MAS 8, Maximo AAM, or Asset Care Essentials (ACE) for condition-based maintenance/monitoring.