I was visiting some friends recently and overheard their 7th grade daughter complaining about math:
- “This is so stupid!”
- “When will I ever use this?”
- “This doesn’t make any sense!”
I remember expressing these exact feelings about math when I was her age.
I couldn’t have known how much math would help me in the coming years, even allowing me to identify a math error for one of my clients that would save over $1,000,000 per year.
While carrying out an improvement project in a manufacturing environment I was evaluating every step of the process, validating assumptions, and looking for inefficiencies.
This particular product was filled by a volumetric rotary filler, meaning every package was filled with virtually the same amount of product with very good repeatability.
At the exit of the filler, during startup, samples would be pulled aside by the line operator to be weighed and appropriate adjustments would be made to the filler. The weight targets were established by the QA lab at the beginning of the run since this product was sold by volume rather than weight.
The lab had used an Excel spreadsheet for the past several years with a preprogrammed formula – all that was needed was to plug in some weight/density info of the current product after carrying out some simple product analysis and the spreadsheet would spit out the desired target weight to be provided to the line operator.
Upon examination, I discovered the formula that had been used for years was not correct. It was causing the line operator to overfill the products and the value of this product giveaway was over $1 million annually!
I discovered this error because I noticed the units in the formula did not cancel – something my own math teachers instilled in me years ago, even before I could comprehend that math might be helpful to me in life.
I stopped questioning the value of math long ago, but finding this simple error reinforced for me a very basic concept useful to every business: question everything.
When looking for waste/inefficiency within your business or within a process in your business, don’t take anything for granted – question everything.
You might not have volumes sufficient to uncover a $1 million mistake, but the value of errors left unchecked now will only grow with your business.
If you’d like help with your continuous improvement efforts, feel free to reach out to discuss your needs.