Raise Your Standards and Take Ownership

I was the industrial engineering manager at a ceramic tile plant in New York. We made mosaic tiles. The color went all the way through the tile. Mosaic is also a word used to describe the artistic patterns we made as special orders from our customers.

For years, we had a department that had the task to take any requested design and turn it into reality through manual assembly of the many different colored tiles we made. Sometimes this required tiles to be cut, an extremely slow and difficult process to accomplish. These special orders took many weeks to complete and were very expensive.

We heard about a technology called “water-jet” cutting that was being used at a few locations in our parent company, Armstrong World Industries. Using high pressure water, you could cut into almost any material (metal, plastics, etc.) and get a clean and precise cut. We were intrigued and felt there might be an application for this technology at our plant.

We arranged a visit to two of our plants, one, a ceiling tile plant in Beaver Falls Pennsylvania, and the other, a vinyl flooring plant in Lancaster Pennsylvania. We took the company van and I was joined by two operators, a programmer, and an engineer.

When we got to the vinyl flooring plant, we were met by a project engineer, who oversaw the samples department. They were using their water-jet to cut small pieces of vinyl flooring out of the larger rolls, so that they could send samples of different colors and patterns to customers. The shapes being cut were rectangles, so although this saved a lot of labor, we weren’t convinced it would help us cut complex shapes into our ceramic tiles.

Our team was convinced that in order to program and cut complex shapes and designs, we’d need someone specially trained and highly compensated for this new skill we were seeking. As an industrial engineer, I knew it wasn’t a good idea to have such a highly specialized job very few would be able to master. It limited flexibility and raised operating costs.

At the ceiling tile plant, we were met by a production operator. She showed us how she programmed and cut complex designs into the face of ceiling tiles using the water-jet. We were intrigued and impressed by the variety of shapes and designs she was able to cut. When we asked her how difficult it was to learn to program the equipment, she told us it was extremely simple and intuitive. You could either import a CAD (computer aided design) drawing or scan an existing design and the machine would figure out the cuts to make.

Our team members weren’t convinced that anyone could do it. They were ready to leave for home when I asked the operator if she’d provide some basic training and let our operators try it for themselves. She said yes, and I was able to convince my team to take the extra time to decide about the skills needed.

They picked out a couple of designs and after an hour of training, they were cutting ceiling tiles exactly as programmed. Now they knew they could do it and easily apply the water-jet to our ceramic tiles. On the way back to our plant, there was excitement about how easy this new technology was to master.

A few months later, we purchased and installed the new equipment. The plant was able to make beautiful mosaic patterns for many years thereafter and had the flexibility to use almost any operator to do it. Although seeing is part of believing, it wasn’t until the team actually tried their hand at the process that they were convinced it was a good idea. The lesson: open your mind to fully experience your options before counting out a solution.