The Quorum Principle is entering a new phase, with a dedicated event at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in December and a new white paper aimed squarely at manufacturing CEOs. Our interview with John Robinson expands on his long-running campaign to change the industry’s approach to transformation.
For almost six years, The Manufacturer has followed John Robinson’s attempt to tackle what he believes is one of the most persistent problems in global manufacturing – ingrained business silos.
The premise behind the Quorum Principle remains relatively straightforward. Manufacturers are divided internally between strategy, IT, operational technology (OT) and operations, while the solution-provider ecosystem has developed along almost identical lines.
The result, John argues, is a transformation model built around individual projects, suppliers and departments rather than the performance of the manufacturing system as a whole.
His latest thinking takes that argument a step further and has led to two developments, marking the next phase of the Quorum Principle.
The first is The Quorum Principle Live at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry on 8 December, which will bring together manufacturers, solution providers, trade associations, government, academia and media to discuss the future of UK manufacturing.
The second is a new white paper, written by John over the summer, which sets out his hypothesis for why the systemic problem exists in the first place. This is aimed primarily at the CEOs who ultimately make enterprise-level transformation decisions.
A problem bigger than individual projects
John has long pointed to the failure rate of major transformation programmes as evidence that something deeper is wrong.
“Since the mid-1980s, 70% of transformation programmes have failed globally across all vertical industries,” he said, citing research from organisations including McKinsey, BCG and Harvard Business Review.
“That 70% failure rate doesn’t just impact the manufacturer and the solution providers involved in the project. There are much wider implications because it affects governments and global organisations like the UN and others who are trying to drive topics like climate change.”
He continued: “If manufacturers are failing 70% of the time with these big transformation programmes, then there are global implications for entire economies and some of the global challenges that we face.”
John accepts that individual programmes can fail because of poor leadership, change management or technology. But he argues that these explanations don’t adequately explain why the failure rate has remained so consistent for decades.
“I think the problem is much bigger than that. it’s a systemic problem in global industry.”
Four parts of the same problem
John has identified the four headline components of the systemic problem to us before.
The first is the internal structure of manufacturers themselves:
- C-suite making strategic decisions
- IT who provide all of the software that runs the business.
- OT people who build factories, and oversea engineering, production lines, MES and other factory systems.
- Operations in charge of delivering the organisations objectives
The issue, he argues, is that these groups are not always sufficiently aligned.
The second problem is that the solution-provider ecosystem mirrors those same divisions.
“You have the consultancy world, the IT world, the OT world, and people who understand things like operational excellence and the Toyota production system,” he said.
The third is the complexity of manufacturing itself. Performance is dependent on the interaction between the ERP, plant data, automation, cloud infrastructure, integration and operational processes rather than any one component.
And the fourth problem is the way manufacturers and suppliers engage with one another.
“Strategy and procurement are approached in a linear and sequential way,” John explained. “The consultants are first through the door provide the strategic direction and roadmap, that plan is then given to internal departments like IT, engineering and operations and they break the five-year plan into component pieces.”
Those individual pieces are then sourced from individual suppliers. John continued: “Because they’re internally siloed and the vendors aren’t talking to each other, essentially it results in the manufacturer just buying a bunch of jigsaw pieces that don’t fit together very well.”
For John, this isn’t a temporary problem. In fact, he’s seen it continue, stagnate and morph itself into the industrial status quo.
“I can say this confidently,” he said. “As you know, I’ve worked for EY, SAP, Atos, Wonderware, Kearney. I’ve travelled the world and seen this. I’ve dealt with manufacturers from every vertical industry, I know it’s just the way we do business.”
What is causing the problem?
This is where the new white paper outlines John’s hypothesis, which centres on the divergence between technology and corporate strategy.
“Since the late 1960s, early 1970s, as we all know, technology has completely changed the world we live in,” he said.
But while technology has become increasingly connected, John argues that corporate structures have not fundamentally changed.
“If you go back and look at any of the big companies that were around 100 years ago, their organisational structure is still largely the same as it was.”
What he means is these organisations remain hierarchical and divided into functional silos, each with its own KPIs and performance objectives.
“Corporate strategy is still, by and large, the same as it was 100 years ago, but in the last 50 years, the world’s changed completely,” he said.
His argument is that this model is increasingly incompatible with a world in which technologies, data, suppliers and processes are interconnected in real time.
“Corporate strategy is trying to manage a world that doesn’t exist anymore,” he stated.
“The world of discrete silos that can be managed and controlled is long gone. Everything’s interdependent on each other now, and we need a different approach.”
Reversing the model
The proposed different approach is where the Quorum Principle comes in.
John describes it as a methodology and playbook for CEOs making enterprise-level transformation decisions. Its purpose is to reverse the characteristics of the existing model: moving away from silos, sequential procurement and competition towards collaboration.
One of his clearest examples involves the relationship between a manufacturer and its key technology providers.
A manufacturer might need strategic consultancy, ERP, plant-floor data and automation, cloud infrastructure and an implementation partner. Rather than engaging each organisation independently, John argues that the C-suite should bring those providers into the same room.
“If you pick the five market-leading brands in the industry; the consultants would be McKinsey, the ERP would be SAP, the plant-floor data automation layer would probably be Siemens, a hyperscaler could be Microsoft, and the implementer could be Accenture.”
The relationship between those companies, he argues, needs to change.
“I’d say to them: ‘Look, you’re not working separately, sequentially anymore. I’m going to tell you what I need to achieve, and then you figure out how to do it collectively.’”
Taking the next step
The UK Manufacturing Initiative, launched by John in 2024, was intended to develop a working model in Britain that could ultimately be replicated elsewhere.
Since then, he says, the initiative has gained support from manufacturers, trade associations, solution providers, government and academia, while a growing number of manufacturers are exploring the approach.
That momentum will now come together at The Quorum Principle Live at the MTC on 8 December.
The event will focus on the future of UK manufacturing, and particularly the idea of organisational interoperability – the part of the transformation challenge john believes is currently being overlooked.
John also sees an opportunity for the UK to develop the model before other countries do. He’s already exploring opportunities in Europe and North America, but believes the UK has a window to establish itself as the originator of a different approach to industrial transformation.
“I genuinely hope now that the UK takes this window of opportunity and leads the way on this.”
The next stage is therefore less about explaining why transformation needs to change and more about finding manufacturers willing to try something different.
The white paper sets out his latest thinking on why the existing model has become embedded. The December event will bring the wider manufacturing ecosystem together to discuss what should happen next.
