There has been much written in the last year regarding the value of experts in a variety of fields. People who have looked at experts generically have developed ten-thousand hours as a typical amount of time to be considered an expert in a field of study. There are of course exceptions to the rule. An expert in neurosurgery typically requires about forty-two thousand hours in their specialty.
Many businesses also gravitate to experts as their solution providers as a result. Is this a good yardstick for anticipated results? If the problem is defined no more broadly than the expertise of the expert then one could expect a high potential for success.
What about instances of broad, dynamic, and complex problems? In these cases it may be of benefit to look for a Multi-Functional Expert™. Having an individual with these skill sets can provide a resource typically delivered by numerous groups in an organization. Even with the strengths provided to organizations through cross functional teams a Multi-Functional Expert can often see opportunities and concerns which may not be readily apparent to the cross functional team.
Recently a customer asked us to help with an integration project to create a significant process improvement in their manufacturing plant. As we brought together the process experts from each specialty we recognized the important skill sets were not being distributed across the project. The machine engineering group did not possess the expertise in process and quality engineering to validate their concept properly and the quality group didn’t have enough expertise in machine design to select and prioritize the critical areas for the project’s success. This was the case even though both areas had experts in their respective fields.
As a Multi-Functional Expert was brought on board several significant areas of concern were highlighted and addressed saving the customer significant costs with the project.
Understanding process capability indices can be tremendously helpful when evaluating current processes as well as planning for the future. These indices are often under used when defining new machines and their associated requirements. Using capability indices and coupling them with production rates will often help a customer to better define their requirements for future improvements.
