What separates companies is not the equipment; it’s the approach.

A question often asked after I have evaluated a customer’s plant is, In your opinion, are we a world-class manufacturing operation? However, manufacturing has no fixed rules governing how to operate, score performance and compare operations. I have seen numerous variations on a defect opportunity; what is a defect and how and when is it counted and reported; process cycle time, etc. These variations make it impossible to compare reported performance data from company to company, even within different divisions and sires of the same customer.

That said, my definition is the sum of experiences from numerous manufacturing operations I have evaluated during 30 years at Speedline Technologies and Motorola, including being a member of Motorola Quality System Review (QSR) teams that spent several days evaluating potential assembly suppliers and scoring them against the formal QSR matrix.

Speedline offers a service called a Manufacturing Systems Assessment. This is a formal evaluation using a scoring matrix designed to identify the level of performance of a particular operation, list the strengths, note areas for improvement, and offer recommendations on how to achieve the operation’s quality and cycle time goals. We also factor in our collective experience to determine the final rating of the operation against the best seen in many specific areas, such as material handling, process development and process control.

The primary element that separates world-class operations from the rest is manufacturing culture. What is manufacturing culture? Culture is a collection of customs, rules, laws, behavior, values, traditions, etc., that define what is acceptable and correct and what is not. Culture also dictates how we behave. There are often a number of ways to accomplish a goal or task. What makes us choose a certain method to get something done? In many cases, our culture.

We certainly understand regional and geographical cultures. The culture of a region or country drives its beliefs, goals, values and behavior. One of the pleasures of traveling is enjoying local food, behavior, dance, dress, customs and festivals, and learning – and, hopefully, understanding – the local cultures, without which the world would be a much less interesting place. We enjoy and celebrate the diversity of cultures around the world.

Manufacturing cultures have to be considered in an entirely different light. There certainly can be variation in how a process is designed, how it is organized, what equipment is used, etc. However, very little variation in culture can be tolerated in the area of process monitoring and control, problem solving and product quality. Does the existing manufacturing culture drive disciplined, well-planned and effective approaches to problem and defect prevention, or does it move from one day to the next continually addressing the same issues and problems? One culture will provide optimal results and the highest probability of satisfied customers. The other culture will have "good" and "bad" days, and customers continually looking for more consistent results, and eventually for other suppliers.

A manufacturing operation can have two basic cultures: reactive or proactive. The most obvious way to determine the type of culture that exists in a particular operation is to identify whether the process or the product is being monitored. If the product is being monitored, then inevitably the culture is reactive. The emphasis is on finding defects. If the process is being monitored, inevitably the culture is proactive where the focus is on preventing defects.

A proactive manufacturing culture can be the secret weapon in gaining a competitive advantage in electronics manufacturing. Virtually all the world’s electronics manufacturing operations can purchase the same equipment, materials and software. What separates one operation from another? The manufacturing culture. It is how effectively and efficiently the organization uses all the resources it has. Whoever uses resources best will have a competitive advantage.

Many organizations primarily focus process improvement efforts solely on the latest technology innovation. Besides its focus on defect prevention, a proactive manufacturing culture has a well-established continuous improvement program with specific, quantifiable goals. The road to quality and cycle time improvement never ends.

Workers in this manufacturing operation are well trained in process development, statistics, problem solving, project management, and DfM. They understand customer requirements and improvements needed to maintain the highest satisfaction levels. They feel they are an integral part of the operation and what they do has an impact on the business’s health.

A few years ago I wrote a paper titled “Transitioning From a Reactive to a Proactive Manufacturing Culture” that details specific steps. Email me for a copy.

Joe Belmonte is project manager, advanced process development, at Speedline Technologies (speedlinetech.com); jbelmonte@speedlinetech.com. His column appears bimonthly.