29 people coming to dinner? No problem! I thought it was all under control. The apple and pumpkin pies were cooling nicely. The turkeys were out of the oven. The ovens were pretty much empty (or at least, I didn’t see billows of smoke). I placidly sipped red wine as I flipped potato latkes, the hot oil sizzling.
Reflecting on what turned out to be a near-disaster, it occurs to me that there are lessons to be learned in managing surges in manufacturing flow. Safety note: in manufacturing, I do suggest deferring wine consumption until after the production surge.
A little background
This year, Chanukah and Thanksgiving coincided; the blended holiday was informally dubbed “Thanksgivukah.” The Thanksgiving dinner consists of traditional dishes, most of them complex and fattening, and many of them requiring labor-intensive preparation. Specific “must-have” foods depend on the background of the people involved. Chanukah involves food, traditionally food prepared in oil (burp!). And, for people tracing roots back to Eastern Europe, one “must-have” food is potato latkes. They’re sort of deep-fried hash-brown pancakes; and you have to make them at the last minute.
Customer Demand
Our guests arrived all at once and on time. Everyone demanded latkes. NOW. They swarmed my kitchen stove, trampling small children underfoot. Children climbed on chairs to “help.” Oil spattered.
One answer? Educated, skilled labor. I enlisted the help of an old friend willing to work for “first dibs” on the extra scraps of latkes. She shooed away children and moved pancakes from the production line to the customer distribution center, one that she isolated from the stove.
If you anticipate a surge in customer demand, line up extra, well-educated staff. This means people who understand both the manufacturing process and the requirements of your customer. If you have specific customer requirements, it is a good idea to provide a modicum of employee education in advance. Barking last-minute instructions to a temporary employee will not provide quality results. You can’t assume a temporary employee can intuitively understand a manufacturing process or critical cleaning requirements.
Supply Chain
“Just heat up this spinach soufflé.”
“You’ll need to warm up the Jamaican curried goat.”
“Where can I brown the marshmallows on the yam casserole?”
(We had a rather eclectic dinner.)
In the case of this celebration, the customers and the supply chain were one and the same. I discovered potential issues with the supply chain management and production equipment. The hungry guests arrived, carrying an array of covered dishes. They walked over to my great big burner/oven combination, held the dish up to my face, then attempted to shove me aside and open the ovens – all this as I ran the production line of latkes frying in bubbling oil. I certainly didn’t want a safety violation. I shooed everyone away from the bubbling oil. I staged the food, reheating it gradually. Not all of the reheating requests constituted a “process emergency.” I had a skilled labor force (a husband, in this case) ready to move the food through the final heat-treating process. He was familiar with the internal dimensions of the process equipment relative to the fixturing.
So, let’s extrapolate to your manufacturing facility. Clarify manufacturing requirements with your suppliers – this means you yourself have to think through the implications of those requirements. If suppliers or contract workers come to your facility, make sure they understand your policies. These policies have to cover not only the manufacturing process but also safety and environmental issues. If there’s an emergency behavior problem on the part of a supplier, speak up right away. In those few instances, I found it effective to say “get the ‘blankety-blank expletive’ out of my kitchen, or you don’t get any food.”
Critical Cleaning
One place where I successfully practiced what I preached was in critical cleaning. Our dinner was not prepared in a certified cleanroom. I’m a euphoric, messy cook. However, we took the time to clean equipment (i.e. mixing bowls, utensils) as we went along. It made the difference between success and disaster.
In your manufacturing facility, there can be a temptation to short-cut or even defer cleaning during a production surge. Resist this urge. One important facet of critical cleaning is to clean immediately to avoid heat-curing and chemical reactivity of the soils. This means the critical cleaning step may occur early in the process. When you plan for process surges, factor in the need for increased attention to cleaning and contamination control at key points in the process.
