The Pit of Despair:
Job-Think and Custom Product Manufacturing

Almost every customized products manufacturer with whom I have ever worked talks about their orders as jobs. For them, each job is uniquely different from the ones that came before it. Even though they talk about what the job produces as if it were something familiar, this is similarity is treated as unimportant.

"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before."
-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

But I would argue that the commonality with other jobs is the most important thing about it. The differences between the jobs, even though they will absorb 80% of the company’s time, energy and talent, are not really that important. It is in the commonality that real opportunity lies.

The problem with job-think is that it conditions people in your organization to look at each new problem as if it were truly a unique new problem and not just a continuation of the problems that you solved in a different context yesterday. Thinking job-to-job robs your organization of the ability to learn from prior mistakes and improve itself. You are stuck continually pushing that same stone up the hill.

While your company is hardly unique in embracing job-think that does not mean that this is the crowd that you want to hang with. Breaking out of the job-think mentality and starting to think systematically about your business’s products and processes is a powerful tool for growing and ensuring success in today’s competitive manufacturing environment.

While some uses of Visual Enterprise seem to reinforce the job-think mentality; when properly used Visual can be a powerful tool for breaking the job-think mindset. The ability of Visual to collect and organized information about your operations helps you sell customized products with the efficiency of a repetitive manufacturer.

I am Kurt B. Carr and I have years of experience in teaching companies how to use Visual Enterprise as a tool to operate effectively and achieve success. Call (941.776.3830) or email me today to learn how I can help your company break out of the job-think herd.