The Quorum Principle: A thin slice of everything

Over his career in manufacturing, John Robinson, Founder of The Quorum Principle, has noticed a systemic problem that continues to hamper the industry. Simply put, it stems from a lack of collaboration. Manufacturing organisations follow the same four investment trends, and so naturally, vendor companies target these specific areas of specialism.

Fundamentally, this isn’t working and there is a glaring need for manufacturers to break down internal siloes and engage with the ecosystem differently. Similarly, solution providers need to follow suit, and work with each other, realising that their solutions aren’t omnipotent in curing manufacturing’s problems.

“My background is quite unusual,” began John. “I started in manufacturing originally. I always tell people I’m not a consultant, neither am I an IT or OT person. But after manufacturing, I moved into the OT side of things, at ITS. I then progressed to the MES software vendor, Wonderware. Then I worked at Atos, a large global IT system integrator.”

He worked for EY’s smart factory team before moving to SAP for three years where he was Regional Head of Industry 4.0. He then went on to hold the same role at managing consultant firm, Kearney. This unique trajectory has allowed John to see manufacturing from a variety of perspectives, and it’s this that has enabled him to recognise the overarching problem in the sector. “I did try to make a change,” he said.

“But I came to realise that you can’t do this from inside the system. What I’m trying to do is so disruptive; there’s pushback and resistance to change within organisations whose business models are quite well established.” John clarified: “It’s not a criticism, but if I’m going to try and achieve what I want to, I needed to take the leap and do it off my own back.” As such, John set up his own business, Neotrez, around 18 months ago.

What’s the big idea?

The problem sounds complicated but, when broken down, appears obvious. What John has observed is that all the manufacturers he has worked with over the years have followed the same four big investment trends, aimed at performance improvement. Firstly, strategy work is undertaken at board level, where suppliers such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain and Kearney will likely have their services called upon.

Then there’s the big IT investments, which involve the likes of SAP, Oracle, Infor et al. The companies that sell the large ERP systems invested in by CIOs. Thirdly, most companies have an operational excellence programme based on the Toyota production system. And then finally, there are the operational technologies used in factories that are sold by the likes of Siemens, GE Vernova and others.

John explained: “Those investments have traditionally delivered performance improvement, but they’ve not delivered exactly what the client wanted; the reason being that the client is internally siloed in terms of areas of specialism.” He continued:

“There’s the board who work with the strategic consultants; IT and the CIO who work with ERP vendors; OT vendors who are predominantly selling to engineers; and then operational excellence – what the factory runs by – which is sold to the people in the factory.”

John claims that these four areas of specialism don’t understand or appreciate each other’s needs, demands or areas of expertise and domain knowledge. “By the same token, the supplier ecosystem is a mirror image of the internal silos,” added John.

“There’s a whole range of consultants who target the board. Then there’s all the IT vendors targeting the CIO and the IT budget, while factories are built from CAPEX budgets and are being targeted by OT vendors. Then operational excellence is about boutique consulting capabilities – people who come in and teach you the Toyota production system and that way of working.”

Each of these domains are excellent in their own area, but don’t fully understand each other’s. “Manufacturing is a complex system,” he continued. “When it comes to the big topics of the day, and solving problems like net zero, there is no one vendor that can deliver it all. You need a thin slice of everything.”

He believes that everything needs to join up. The strategy has to be aligned to the data that’s in IT systems, which is usually financial. However, usage data, in terms of kilowatt hours, raw materials and waste is coming from OT systems but data is useless if you don’t know what to do with it. That’s where operational excellence comes in; systemic problem solving, root cause analysis, driving out waste. As John said: “You need all four areas of capability.”

So, the problem really is deeply ingrained, systemic and it exists both inside the manufacturer and in the supplier ecosystem. John added that it’s been prevalent throughout the 30-plus years of his career. “It’s just not fit for purpose,” he emphasised. “That’s the bit that I’m trying to change.” To me, this posed the question, why has the problem existed for so long?

Seeing the problem

I put it to John, that if the problem has existed for such a long time, he can’t be the only one that has spotted it? “I do often think about that,” said John, “There is a possibility that I am the only one, because of the strange career that I’ve had.” Most recently, John has worked for Kearney and SAP.

“If you want to get to the absolute top of Kearney as a senior partner, you have to be, more or less, in that industry from finishing your MBA. From there, you work your way through to become partner.”

He explained that it’s the same at SAP, although the business model is completely different. He added that to be a global VP within that particular organisation, you need to have worked there for 20 or 30 years, or at least in that industry. This is unsurprising; these roles require experience and depth of knowledge. Such positions need individuals with credibility and valuable insights amassed from years in the industry.

“In my view, it also makes those people institutionalised, to a degree,” John added. “They can only see the world through a certain set of eyes. But as I mentioned, manufacturing is a little more complicated than that.” At the heart of John’s solution is a blend of all areas – a thin slice of everything. John’s “very strange career,” as he puts it, has given him a window into how everyone works. “I think that’s when you’re able to see a problem that maybe others – who are so embedded into one particular work stream – don’t.

This has been the feedback John has received when he has presented at conferences. Indeed, the same question I had has arisen a few times – why has this problem not been identified before? The truth is that it’s perhaps something that can only truly be seen with the full 360 degree view that John has.

He also has the benefit of having worked across many industries; from submarines and jet engines in aircraft, through to food and beverage and life sciences, metals and minerals. “I’ve been very fortunate to travel the world,” said John. “And when I saw this problem across all industries and in every geography – a pattern that’s just repeating itself – I eventually had an epiphany. The current system doesn’t work.”

Andy Dobson, Lean 4 Business: “I worked with a multinational who managed to save an awful lot of money by light weighting their packaging. They saved around $100,000 which was great, but someone then reported that they hadn’t taken into account the monsoon season in India. They ended up losing six batches worth $1m each.

“Had they at least talked to each other, someone would have hopefully spotted that. Can you ever have too much information? Certainly, The Quorum Principle should give more information to people to make better decisions.”

Ben Ellins, Independent: “In many of the organisations I’ve worked in, it has been easy to achieve success in a single site or use case. However, achieving value at scale, particularly in large international, or even national organisations, is quite a challenge. It’s harder to implement across different factories, where you potentially have different systems and processes.

“If you can work together across the internal silos and bring together external providers in a collaborative manner, you’ve got a much better chance of achieving success and getting out of the pilot purgatory that we continue to talk about in this space.”

Wes Sugden-Brook, Singleton Birch: “Generally, people are siloed into the KPIs and strategies that they need to deliver. For instance, IT would look at cyber security and hardening networks. However, from an OT point of view, obviously they want to try and open networks up and become more connected to collect data, which will allow the wider business to make decisions.

“I’ve seen it throughout my career in manufacturing – because of the siloed nature of operating, it stifles what the business should be doing. And that’s not done for any other reason than people trying to deliver their day-to-day KPIs and the strategy for their department. But it needs a more holistic approach, which I believe The Quorum Principle opens up.”

Oliver Charlton, Revicon Solutions: “The ideal scenario would be to manufacture the part, measure it in cycle, capture the data, f lag it for some problem, then use that data to auto correct and fix itself before you move on to the next process. And along the way you’re adding continuous value.

“Because we can’t get systems to talk to each other, you see situations where you’ve created something, you don’t know what condition it’s in, it’s moved on to the next operation, you’ve added more value, and then it suddenly gets to the end and you realise it’s wrong and need to start again. “I’ve seen that a lot in industry. And actually, if you had the data connected to a reporting system with a level of analytics, you’d be able to spot the problem there and then and fix it – or not even create the problem in the first place.”

Ghislain Taschini Bourton Group LLP: “I’ve worked at some large automotive companies, and I can say for sure that some of the principles of John’s idea would have definitely helped in several instances. When you go inside these organisations, the silos are concrete, particularly between upstream and downstream. Design, engineering and manufacturing teams need to interact more with sales and after sales. If you put a collaborative approach in place, then things become more efficient and effective.”

The key to change In the main, the feedback John has received has been positive. And business leaders realise that moving away from siloed ways of working is intuitively sensible. ‘You’ve described my business,’ some have said. ‘Why haven’t we seen this before?’ others have questioned. However, the challenge comes when people ask how to make a change. Where’s the playbook? How do we adopt and embrace the sort of radical collaboration that John is talking about?

“That’s where the problem is,” said John, “but that’s where I think I’ve got the solution, because you have to understand what everyone needs – both the manufacturers and suppliers – because we all need to be profitable. It should be a symbiotic relationship, a win-win for both parts, and it can be. But the business models of both currently don’t allow it.”

He added that the challenge is that businesses don’t operate with one mind: “They don’t think like the Borg from Star Trek,” John joked. People have their own opinions and much of the time there are polar opposite views on strategy and ways that people should work.

“I don’t want to offend anyone, but the blocker to all of this is sales-minded people. The commercial need makes people self interested. They have objectives, quotas and targets to hit.” He continued: “The solution that I have, I would argue, can deliver those results faster than the current system, and by the same token, can deliver the value to the manufacturer faster as well.”

The COP26 leadership faced a similar mindset challenge in 2021. The question was how can environmental and economic objectives be achieved simultaneously? At the time, they weren’t seen as compatible, and it was a case of choosing one or the other – either you’re sustainable but economically unaffordable, or the sums add up but you’re environmentally unfriendly. If you can find an answer that balances both, you’ve solved the problem. “

In my view, my approach balances both,” said John. “I see so much waste in manufacturing every day. The solutions are there, but the way that manufacturers engage with suppliers – the vendor selection, the beauty parades, the way they play them off against each other – is counterproductive.”

The basis of John’s solution, which he’s termed ‘The Quorum Principle,’ is a more collaborative approach. Collaboration has become a bit of an industry buzzword, but in real terms, this proposal represents something of a paradigm shift, on both sides of the equation.

The manufacturer needs to rethink how it engages with the ecosystem, and vendors need to reposition themselves and pivot away from their traditional selling point of having the complete solution. “They’re pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,” explained John,

“Some are bigger than others, but individually, they can’t solve all manufacturing’s problems, however good they are. It’s going to require them to work collaboratively with other vendors to supply the manufacturer with a solution that actually delivers. That will speed up the sales cycle and time to value for both sides.”

Momentum building

John has managed to form a core of companies and individuals that are willing to explore this proposed paradigm shift in manufacturing. At the time of writing, a high-value consulting firm is on board, vendors from the realms of ERP, OT and MES, as well as system integrators in both IT and OT.

There are also a number of start-ups that have lent support; people who have Industry 4.0 solutions that they’re trying to bring to market. The initiative was launched at an event in London in early September and was attended by many representatives from this group, which has been termed ‘The Coalition of the Willing’.

Why the UK?

John has taken The Quorum Principle on a world tour in recent years. But he has decided against launching this in the US, Asia or elsewhere in Europe. This is partly because he’s British, and has a greater understanding of the UK ecosystem, having worked in it for most of his career.

However, he said it’s also because the UK manufacturing sector has got a unique set of challenges. We share the same global problems, of course, such as the cost of energy, raw materials, availability of skills and ageing workforces. But then there’s the global realignment of supply chains, and geopolitical change in the last four or five years, with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. The UK has also had to contend with issues following Brexit.

The question during that time is how can the UK create inward investment within the global economy that it finds itself working in? “Technology is not a differentiator,” answered John. “Because you can buy the technologies anywhere. “My argument is that we can gain our competitive advantage by working differently. We can adopt this collaborative way of working and bring our combined values to the table, both from the manufacturer’s perspective and the supplier ecosystem.

“By doing this, we can drive out that performance improvement that I’ve been speaking about to the benefit of all parties concerned.” Politically, the UK also faces a fresh start, with a new government in place. It faces challenges such as early financial decisions, which will be heavily scrutinised. Not least because, in the run up to the election, Labour was adamant that it wouldn’t borrow more money or raise taxes.

What’s the alternative?” Questioned John. “The only other way to balance the books is to cut services, which clearly nobody wants. “The silver bullet is if we can improve productivity. Create the finances in the system by eliminating waste, creating profitability that manufacturers can then reinvest in increased wages. “They can hire more people and build new factories – that all creates a stronger economy to help balance the books. This is exactly what I’m targeting.”

John referenced examples globally where, again, if the UK doesn’t do something, he believes it could be left behind. In Germany, Catena X was an initiative which brought the whole of the German automotive industry together, with the objective to make it more globally competitive.

It included companies like Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and all of its suppliers. The means of achieving success is a bit different to John’s proposal, but it did demonstrate what can be done when a sector unites under a common aspiration. Catena X has more recently become Manufacturing X, expanding to all industries in Germany.

“They’ve focused on data exchange, interoperability and sharing information across supply chains,” said John. “It’s valuable, and I get that, but it’s not what I’m talking about. It still doesn’t address the human nature of the problem that I’m trying to solve. But it is a good example of multi-party collaboration.”

A positive disruption

The big picture is to make UK manufacturing globally competitive. John recognises that the initiative he’s trying to launch is disruptive to the whole of the ecosystem. A positive disruption, but a disruption all the same. There are also more than two parties in this equation. There’s the manufacturers and vendors, but also the government and the likes of HVM Catapult and Made Smarter.

John has also called for the help of industry bodies such as Make UK, and then there’s us, The Manufacturer. We’re covering this for the newsworthy and disruptive story that it is, but we also see the sense and potential benefits that the initiative could bring to UK manufacturing.

John has presented his ideas to audiences at Smart Manufacturing Week in June, and he will do similar at this year’s Manufacturing Leaders’ Summit in November. Henry Anson, Director of The Manufacturer, said: “I have been involved with the collaborative approach John is advocating for four years and I genuinely believe that this is something unique that has enormous potential.” John now believes, following the press launch in September, that he has a core of suppliers, some of which are high calibre enough to convince manufacturers that a new approach is vital.

“These solution providers are saying they will work within a new paradigm model, or at the very least, they’re happy to discuss the possibility of working in that way. I appreciate we’re entering unchartered territory. But the fact that they’re willing to get behind this initiative is newsworthy. And hopefully it’ll add further momentum to what is already building.”

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