Who is Sorin?
Sorin is CEO of Santinela
Santinela is an integrated Management Environment for production facilities, unlocking their full potential. It covers diverse functionalities specific to the management of production facilities, as a transversal platform designed by the workforce for the workforce.
Key Takeaways
How to help manufacturers improve their digitalization. 1:45
The right process isn’t it. 4:41
Advice on how to improve your processes. 8:06
Understanding the interconnectivity of processes and implementation. 11:53
The importance of diversity in process improvement. 14:52
Bringing people from the shop floor into the planning process. 19:30
Valuable Free Resource or Action
Find out more about Santinela at www.Santinela.com
A video version of this podcast is available on YouTube :
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Transcript
Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
digitalization, processes, process improvement, factory, understand, people, organisation, important, problems, therese, roadmap, question, point, big, shop floor, continuous improvement, company, spending, talk, website
SPEAKERS
Sorin Petcu, Stuart Webb
Stuart Webb
Hi and welcome back to it's not rocket science five questions over coffee. I'm here today with Simon Pesci. Sarin is the CEO of Centinela. They're a agency which is dedicated to making the manufacturing of efficiency greater and improving it through process improvement and using digitalization to do that. So I'm really excited about this, because this is something I've done in my past. So I'm really excited to welcome Soren today to the to the podcast, and sorry, welcome to It's not rocket science five questions over the coffee, which I have in front of me, I know you've got one as well. Excellent, excellent news. Well, I'm sorry,
Sorin Petcu
you're enjoying a lot of stuff from my cup of tea, coffee, whatever.
Stuart Webb
Yeah, whatever it takes to get through. Sorry, tell us a little bit about the sort of the customers you're trying to help with these with this great way of trying to digitalize some of the some of the work that's going on today and in process improvement.
Sorin Petcu
So first of all, Stuart, thank you very much for having me. On today. So since 2003, I've been passionate about helping manufacturers to improve their manufacturing waste, let's put it like this. And after maybe 2005 2006, I started to see that there are lots of possibilities for digitalization in companies, and especially in the manufacturing businesses. And I've been working for different companies in food and beverage, so we are more specialised in food and beverage. And in 2016, I started to do consulting work. And I found out that food and beverage companies they were far behind, and they're still far behind in comparison to other to other industries, in terms of digitalization, digitalization is a very, very big word I would say. And what is happening is that manufacturers have some challenges, and they try to understand them. But to put in a very simple way, if you have a factory, a factory is like a black box, right. And if you look in, in the box, if you if you look at the box, you have inputs and your outputs. And in the box, if you don't understand it, as I was saying is a black box, you need to do something to be as efficient as possible to get those outputs the best way possible at the right time, the right quality, the right quality, you know the right quantity and stuff based on the inputs you get. So the challenges that they have, especially in this difficult and changing times is, I believe, to understand what they need to do to have the right digitalization. So how do you get from a process that is pen and paper in many, many factories and what we really want to do at something nela we really want to help manufacturers no matter the size, so there are small, medium or big. So the point is, how do you help them understand or generally they have a big problem to you know, to not look at the holes in front of the bike, but to look in the long term because they don't have time there are firefighting many times. And to think about how to optimise the processes, they have and digitalize them. This I believe are big challenges that they face in digitalization. Besides all the other challenges they have to face you know, with the inflation with Labour with whatever. So if we talk about digitalization, is about how you get the right processes, the right processes, not the wrong processes, digitalized and reliable Yeah,
Stuart Webb
and that's the key isn't it? Sorry. And because I remember back in when I was one of the first companies I started was was was working with workflow technologies and we've talked about getting the right work to the right person at the right time. So so the problem that that many factories face. Is that right process, isn't it, which is the right process because you can pull a lever to digitalize a process which does not affect the if the efficiency of the factory does it you can, you can you can spend a lot of time and effort processing and working on a process which actually doesn't have as big an impact as you expect it to. So it is that right process, isn't it? And some, I would guess, of your customers have spent a lot of time trying to digitalize a process and then discovered it didn't have the effectiveness that they expected it to have.
Sorin Petcu
Yeah, so the most interesting case I've I've seen many times in factories is that they tried to digitalize to digitise processes that are not, as you're saying that are not necessarily that important to the business. But most of all, they don't have the right processes in place, like the daily management system in a factory is critical. I call it the backbone of the factory. If if you don't have the right process in the in the shift, you know, the shifts, eight hour shifts, if you don't have the right meetings in the morning, if you don't talk about the right things in the morning, you know, the KPIs the actions from the day before the day the priorities of the day if you don't have the right processes and continuous improvement, right. What do you digitise you digitise some firefighting system, that will never give you the right results? So this is, I believe, the best example I have, and I've seen it in multiple multiple factories. So we go there to some basics of of management processes, let's put it like this.
Stuart Webb
Yeah, yeah. And it is that problem of, of knowing, which is the right lever to pull, isn't it the growth lever, the big lever that you pull, which is the greatest growth lever for any, for any factory to improve its efficiency.
Sorin Petcu
From from our experience is that, you know, factories have systems like ERP warehouse management, quality system that they need for the for the whole, for their survival, and from a legal standpoint, and then they have the assets, right, they have the lines, and those lines have to produce in a reliable way. They also have the teams of course, that need to be trained, they need to know what they're doing, they need to have reliable processes, standardised work and stuff like this. So, in our experience, the biggest lever to improve efficiency and effectiveness, let's put it like this and productivity in a factory is by making sure that the lines and the assets run properly, and they produce the right quality product at the right time. And there you start with the holes with a whole package of methodologies for continuous improvement that you can of course apply and afterward digitise, right. But the biggest one I would say is the is the way the lines run the OEE, as general people call it, you know, but generally people call it
Stuart Webb
so and I'm just gonna show on the screen now the your the link to your your company, LinkedIn profile. Now, there's some interesting stuff going on there. And then your website, or other any free piece of advice you have on the website that you can help people to understand exactly how they can make use of this obvious thinking, in order to get them to sort of understand that the way they should start to, to attack and to to approach these problems.
Sorin Petcu
Yeah, well, we don't necessarily have these things on the website. But together with Leila, that was your that you invited last week, we were trying to make these messages come across to as many people as possible in the near future. But I would say if you want to improve your processes and digitise your processes, that's something along the way we think is the following. So first of all, don't think short term. So short term is you can cherry pick, but you won't see the whole stuff, you won't have the time to do a holistic approach. What is really important is to understand your problems, map your processes, understand your problems, create a roadmap, this is really important. There are some companies that you know, there are a pen and paper and they have some processes that sometimes are not the best one so they can be improved. And they're already thinking about deep learning AI but without necessarily understanding the full extent of all this. So Yeah, the way we think is, you know, you depending on the maturity, you must learn how to walk, then you must learn how to run, right. So understand your processes, understand and build your roadmap, talk to the people in their own your company, and the especially the ones that are impacted by the change, because fear of change and not not understanding the change can be a very big roadblock. And sometimes, you know, without any sustainable proof, so he's just about the feeling of people, right how they see the change. So afterwards, make sure that the roadmap is made in a pragmatic way, because your resources are limited, right? And take a look at what you were saying before about the things that mostly impact your business. But without you can cherry pick, but you can cherry pick from the roadmap, you don't cherry pick just to cherry pick, right? So and make sure that you plan the improvements, and that you have some way to track the success. And once you understand your needs, and you create your roadmap, only then you look for the suppliers that might help you. And one more thing, the suppliers, I would say that there's really two things very important about the suppliers, the hidden costs, sometimes are there. And the second one is get the supplier that can also help you not only from if we talk about digitalization, don't take a supplier that can only help you from an IP perspective. But also from a methodological aspect. It's good
Stuart Webb
point, I'm just going to show one point that somebody has pointed out on LinkedIn, which is a great point about changing the roadmap taking from your roadmap, which is thing. But there's a great comment that's coming in from Therese Batista, which is unless you understand the interconnectivity of the various processes, and proper implementation of change management, any change can lead to chaos. And as a really good point, because I do remember in one particular project in which I was involved in one company that I was involved with, for a while, the management decided to apply some some really interesting technology to one process. And all they did was made rubbish, effectively move, not rubbish knowledge move through the organisation much faster. I mean, I did say to them, I said, Look, I hate to tell you this, guys, I'm going to use a bad word, you just made the ship flow faster, rather than actually, rather than it clearing out what you should have done and actually get the right that these people had just just picked the wrong interconnectivity on various processes. And what they'd ended up with was a bigger mess that was now just flowing much quicker through the organisation. So it's really important. And Theresa makes a FIPS is picking suppliers to look at their understanding of compliance with ESG. That's really, really key, isn't it?
Sorin Petcu
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, again, talking about talking about things that that you have witnessed, I've also witnessed to SAP implementation some time ago, a long time ago. And I heard there was a consultant that was saying crap in crap out sorry for my word, right? So whatever you make sure you put the right data in there and without affecting the people that input the data, and also thinking about what's in it, about what they think you know, what's in it for me, because if you just asked me to put some numbers in, then it doesn't have my work. It doesn't help the digitalization process in any way.
Stuart Webb
Sorry, news, there have been a particular book or something which has affected your thinking that you you'd like to share with with the people that are we're talking to at the moment, that would help them to understand some of some of what you're saying.
Sorin Petcu
Yeah. So first of all, I would say that in order to have good digitalization processes, you must understand the continuous improvement process. If the organisations that, listen to us today, have the possibility to take to take a step back from the daily business, you know, and think a little bit about the continuous improvement roadmap that they'd like to implement. I think that some very good books would be TPM for process industries, which is, which is like, that was one of the first books I've ever read about, you know about TPM. It's really great. Then you have the Toyota way, which is also really good and it gives you but At one point here, it for both books. We are Europeans or from the US or certain things do not necessarily apply, as well as they would apply in Japan, for example, because we're not that. How do you say? Yeah, let's say that we have another way of thinking, right?
Stuart Webb
The culture is different, isn't it? There's no point in pretending that you're right the process improvement is culturally dependent. You cannot employ process improvement in a culture, which is determined not to necessarily think in a particular way, Ken Yeah,
Sorin Petcu
exactly. But these two books they can give you hints about the steps to take. And you have to adapt them to the culture and to the into the company you're in. Right. So but these are two books that are really great. And the third one I've just started was white digital transformation fails. by Tony Sultana, I just have it in a document here. They this guy, I've just started it. So he's from Procter and Gamble, and Procter and Gamble, they are really well known in the industry for having some very good processes. So and I think that they've made it and they are making it the right way. Yeah. So I think that we can learn some things from their
Stuart Webb
Sinem. I'm gonna throw in a question which is coming from the audience. So we can have a debate around this. But it's a question about how would you engage colleagues on equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging? What what do you think are important considerations for organisations to take into account to enable things like equality and diversity to get embedded during the sort of process improvement activities that you're, you're talking to your customers about? Wow, that's a long question. It's a it is a long, and we could talk for many hours about it. So let's,
everybody by having a long debate, but I mean, the importance of diversity and equality are quite important in process improvement, because a lot of what you're doing at the moment can seem to disadvantaged people unless it's brought in so that people understand the change and understand how their part within it isn't. And bringing people along is a really important part of process improvement activities.
Sorin Petcu
So all my life I've so one of my first one of my first credos, let's say in life is that I want to help people money comes, money comes if people are happy at the workplace, if they come to work, you know, liking the fact that they come to work that day. So, and in manufacturing, the manufacturing industry, the operator the technicians, the people on the shop floor, they are the ones that are really making the production happen, management is a supporting function. So, we do believe well, me and my colleagues, we do believe that equality and listening to people on the shop floor and making their lives easier and having good teams you know, that are motivated and happy to come to work. These are key to any digitalization and to any process improvement. Digitalization if it comes top down without explaining anything to the to the organisation will fail in probably more than 80 to 90% of the cases. So, diversity, inclusion belonging are really really important in all of this, but how do you engage? I would say I don't know if we can engage at the global level ourselves, but each organisation or small medium or big company, they should engage their colleagues you know, so, they should think that and operate operator is equal to a manager, you know, and their needs are equal. And moreover, a production line cannot run for the moment cannot run without an operator but it can run without the manager.
Stuart Webb
Yeah, I have been involved in a number of change initiatives within organisations and the one thing that I nearly always advocate for where I where I where I can, I can help management to understand is to have people from the shop floor be involved in the planning process, because it's those people on the shop floor who have most understanding of where the changes will in fact impact on people. And, and I think that without bringing those people into the planning process and actually making the part of the team, you are going to be pushing against the forces, which actually, you can't understand from the boardroom, you don't understand. And actually having that person sort of tell you about where the real problems are, will enable you to make the the digital change so much easier, because you will actually be helping those people to make their lives easier and happier. And, and and, you know, sometimes that is about inclusion, sometimes it's about, it's about belonging. And I know that Theresa just made a great point that they have not given consideration to employ people with more skills. And and that's something that is part of this process as well, isn't it? It's bringing those people back into those skilled those skill areas.
Sorin Petcu
Great points you both made, either in writing or verbally, I would like to add something here. So first of all, what is happening is that, you know, that you have I've seen over over time, two types of management in factories, yeah, top down. So basically, most of the decisions are taken at the top level of the factory, and the operators on the first line managers don't necessarily have any influence over the decision. But this is the not this is not the right or let's say the most successful, the most successful and the most inviting way of working. So in what we do at Santa nella, we try to invert this pyramid where operators team leaders, first line managers take most of the decisions. And we have, I have a great example from our of our customers that has implemented a ticketing module that we have with like, with a chat inside and people can work together. And just imagine that in over three is operators, with technicians, with team leaders with technical team leaders, they have worked on more than 100,000 tickets in a 150 person plant. Okay. So this is an extraordinary involvement of people in solving problems and the data, the the solutions, the problems, operators, know them, technicians know them. And most of the time, they also have the right solutions for the problems. Instead of getting an engineer like myself going there and creating, like the friends, they lose the night guys. So a guest station, right to solve a small problem. So these guys have a lot of experience, we should listen to them, and make sure that their lives and their opinions are respected.
Stuart Webb
Great point. Listen, sorry, we could talk all afternoon about this. And I'm very conscious of keeping you away from doing something which I'm sure is really important in your business at the moment. So I'll bring it to an end. By asking you if there is a question that I hadn't yet asked you. Well, what would you have liked me to have asked you? And then obviously, you need to give us the answer to the question that you would have liked me to have asked you?
Sorin Petcu
Well, I would I would say that something really important to ask, but not necessarily myself, but maybe the manufacturers, I would have a question for the manufacturers, you know, in these in these really challenging times I was talking about the inputs, the inputs are getting more expensive, you don't find them at cetera, et cetera, right. So these are things that you can control up to a point. But every manufacturer is taken into account, the way that continuous improvement implemented a good continuous improvement programme, you know, what Lean Manufacturing, TPM, whatever, plus the digitalization, what implementing these things would bring to them in terms of resilience and come competitivity let's put like this. And this, I think that this is a question. Not that you haven't asked me, but I think that it's a pretty important question too, for manufacturers to think about maybe at the end of our session. So how have they thought about continuous improvement and digitalization? Have they taken these into account to help them get more competitivity and productivity
Stuart Webb
Brilliant Sauron. Thank you so much. You know, I gotta I gotta finish by by thanking you for your time. Just to show one more comment from Therese, we what we're trying to do with this, in case you haven't guessed, guys, we're trying to remove the silos to give more exchange of information. Because for me, you know, removing silos in businesses is gonna lead to greater and I'm somebody who spends a lot of my time thinking about innovation. And one of the things that I find that too many companies think is that innovation is somehow just happens. Innovation doesn't just happen. Innovation happens to come from having conversations like this, potentially with sort of, you know, different viewpoints. And that brings together new ways of doing things. So I just love having people like sarin, come on and talk and give us their insights into things. Sorry. And thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us for talking about what you do at Santa nella, I would encourage you all to get onto the Santa nella website, which is here at Santa nella.com. And if you can't get on Santa nola.com, because your LinkedIn person, then get back to the LinkedIn website, which is Santa Ana, oh II on LinkedIn. And I really appreciate you, you coming on and spending a bit of time with us today. Sorry, if you're one of the people who comes on and listens to these things, please join our newsletter, where I send out an email which basically says who is going to be coming on, you can get details of that at HTTPS forward slash forward slash link the complete approach.co.uk newsletters, so that's link dot the complete approach.co.uk forward slash newsletter, go onto that website. And just subscribe to the newsletter. And you will get the notification coming and spending some time like people like Therese has done today. And being able to ask questions of our guests like sarin and future guests. Sorry, thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us really appreciate your insight. Love the
Sorin Petcu
pleasure, real pleasure to be with you. Thank you very much for the invitation. No
Stuart Webb
problem. We could talk all afternoon and my coffee would go cold and I don't you need to get back to your job. Thank you so much for joining. Appreciate it.
Sorin Petcu
Have a great Day. Bye bye bye bye
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