Anyone who tells you that running a business — any business — is easy, is lying to you. Each one has its pitfalls. When it comes to the heat-treating industry, those pitfalls run the gamut from misguided management decisions to product issues to a workforce that needs the right resources and the right leaders.
Heat treating parts requires a set time and tolerance. The furnace ramps up to a certain temperature with a calibrated and tuned furnace to achieve the necessary properties for the parts that are loaded in the qualified work zone. The parts don’t need another two hours to get the job done if the solution cycle only requires one hour for the complete solution of atoms. This time can even be theoretically calculated and estimated by measuring the interdendritic spacing and looking up a diffusion coefficient to determine how long it will take for the solute atoms to properly go into solution.
But sometimes things don’t always go according to plan. It’s easy when the process is going well for the heat-treat team. It’s easy for upper management to sit back and manage the process, as nothing is going wrong. But if something IS going wrong, this is a critical moment for leadership at the company. When there are failures, they need to know how to properly manage it from start to finish. That is the true test and capability of the leader.
A lesson from the atoms
The atoms in the metal parts need only so much time at a particular temperature to get things done. For this to happen, the temperature rises to the setpoint in the furnace, providing the activation energy for diffusion per the Arrhenius equation. The imperfections in the casting process introduce vacancies for the atoms to jump to. And if the parts are over aged or tempered for too long, the properties are not desirable for the end use application.
So, how can this methodical process with predictable results relate to optimizing leadership situations?
Companies must be careful when calculating the hours worked for the heat-treat team and properly determine if the output is matched. And yet, often companies make decisions based on the premise that just adding more hours at work will get the job done. More hours in the office does not necessarily equal desirable output or performance or quality. The longer the atoms “cook” in the furnace doesn’t add any more value and could actually add problems, just as having an employee working longer hours during the day won’t always bring a satisfying result. If anything, if there are longer hours being required, the obvious question should be why?
If a furnace is running away in temperature, the over-temperature instrument catches it to stop it from overheating the parts. And like the timer that goes off for the 15-minute upper tolerance allowance, the furnace stops the work. If there is a problem with the furnace and/or process, it obviously must be fixed for safety, quality, and economic reasons, among others.
Similarly, it is up to management to view the team in the same way. When operators are having to work longer hours to get things done, leaders need to think about whether the operators have the right resources for determining what needs to be controlled and recorded. It is a common misperception today that the longer people work, the more work will be produced. This is not always the case.
In psychology, Parkinson’s law states, “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Thus, if the heat-treat department thinks working longer hours is required, the team will work the longer hours. However, if management is calculating the resources and adding that in with the training of the team, they should be able to condense these hours to fit more work in a normal amount of time, say the typical 40 hours a week of any given production shift.
The irony of good leadership
Leadership is about demonstrating behaviors that are to be upheld at every level of the organization. Leaders set the example. They have the potential to be role models and activate their employees’ engagement in the work being done. And one cultural aspect that benefits a team the most is how the leader effectively demonstrates the responsibility of failure.
Failure to produce in the time required for heat treatment results in nonconforming product and quality issues. Failure for the team to produce in the allotted forty hours a week is… well… this is where the leader must determine the potential of faults, to perform a root cause analysis as to why the team is unable to complete the work done in the necessary time. Is it due to poor and ineffective training? Is it due to faults in the system? Pyrometry testing that isn’t being performed? Is equipment malfunctioning?
The team in the “office” always seems to quickly place the blame upon the operator. But the fault, per the direction the aerospace industry is taking, cannot be on the operator. Human error is not acceptable in a corrective action. And the reflection as to why must fall upon the leader to manage resolving it.
When the leader can successfully admit their own faults and effectively demonstrate that to their team and turn this into an opportunity, the irony is that the team will not want to make mistakes. Instead, they will do their best to not make them in the first place. But it must start with the leader effectively managing their own time, managing their own process, and taking responsibility for making a mistake. Just as there is an upper tolerance in heat treat processing parameters, upper management must set the bar of quickly admitting fault and taking the corrective action without pointing blame.
Understanding how to do this comes with recognizing one’s intellectual humility. It is “the degree to which people recognize their beliefs might be wrong.” A leader must control their continued interest in understanding why others might disagree with them and the motivation to continually learn. Recording of this open mind and reflection of their own thoughts and actions will allow a better view of the heat-treat team — and both sides might find some incentive for a little extra effort within the allotted hours.
Leadership needs to step up today, and not by pretending to work more hours as the example, but more effectively and efficiently managing resources — and hours — appropriately. And to step up, they need to know when to step back and admit when they need to work on something themselves. Failure to do this will result in nonconforming parts, ineffective processes, and quality control issues, not to mention possible employee discontent.
References
- Judith Bryan & Edwin Locke, “Parkinson’s Law as a goal-setting phenomenon,” (Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1967)
- https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/humility/definition
