How to Practice Responsible Manufacturing
How Did We Become So Irresponsible?
We need to understand that irresponsible manufacturing practices do not fall solely on the
shoulders of one or two top executives. Throughout history, it is clear that irresponsible manufacturing practices are the result of a team effort at every level within a company. It seems odd to consider that it is the factory supervisors who are the ones directing truck drivers and forklift drivers to store toxic drums in open fields, not the CEO's. When irresponsible manufacturing practices become the norm, almost everyone working in the factory sees it happening, recognizes the dangers and just turn a blind eye to it. How does this happen? How do manufacturers get to a point where irresponsible or illegal practices become the norm?
The Competition Made Me Do It!
Well, much of it has to do with competition. If competitors are saving money by following irresponsible practices, then in order to compete, you need to do it too. Doing the right thing usually costs money and paying that added expense can only come from one of two places. You can either raise prices or you can lower profits. Customers aren't typically willing to pay more so if you raise prices, then they will just buy from your competition. And shareholders are always looking to improve their return-on-investment so they just won’t accept a lower ROI. As such, if the competition is hiring child labor or dumping chemicals or applying unfair labor practices, then in order to compete, your company would need to do the same or close it's doors.
When you understand how and why irresponsible 
manufacturing practices occurred, then you can understand why government agencies step-in and create laws. Even though compliance is costly and rather inconvenient, understand that the FDA, EPA, OSHA and all of the other government enforcement agencies actually allow manufacturers to be both responsible and to fairly compete in an open market. Agencies enforce laws which require that everyone comply to the same set of rules, and this structure creates a level playing field in the market.
I’m not a big fan of compliance for the sake of compliance, and I wish corporations could self-regulate, but I also understand why that’s not possible. It’s kind of like having rules and referees in sports. When everyone competes under the same rules, then the best team wins. But if there weren’t rules and referees in multibillion dollar sports leagues, then the team that cheated the most would win the biggest paychecks. Rules and referees provide level playing fields in sports. And so do laws and government regulatory agencies in manufacturing.
At the individual level, irresponsible practices happen with the support of shop floor employees, supervisors, managers and executives - and these practices happen because of fear. Fear of falling short of shareholder expectations and fear of losing a good paying job. This fear often makes good people make bad decisions. Sometimes doing the responsible thing requires an overwhelming amount of courage and that is where personal accountability comes into play.
Personal Accountability
You see, through personal accountability, shop floor leaders get to decide how they will respond to every situation they face. When leaders practice personal accountability, they don’t fall victim to circumstances, they just decide on how to respond to each particular situation.
We can all consciously decide if we accept the current conditions or not. Then if we decide we can’t accept the current conditions, then we can determine what actions we will take to address the situation. We need to understand that we always have choices, but we also need to understand that our sphere of influence is actually quite large. You see we all have the capability to make a big impact in the world. Seemingly small decisions to dump chemicals or to turn a blind eye to landfill waste or ignore air pollution can actually affect the health of young children and devastate entire communities.
This concept of personal accountability has been longstanding throughout our industrial history. Individuals had choices to accept irresponsible manufacturing practices or not. Now in your plant, I’m sure you don’t struggle with massive levels of irresponsible manufacturing practices. However, you still need to explore every situation with your eyes wide open and look at things in a broader context and decide for yourself if and when actions are required of you.
Things to Consider!
Here are some common place manufacturing situations that you could favorably impact, should you decide:
Quality of Products: What if quality of your product is borderline acceptable? Do you ship it to your customer as is? Or do you scrap it, thus sending it to a landfill somewhere? Neither option is great but recognize that you have a choice.
Waste Streams: Are your plant’s waste streams being recycled or is there opportunity to recycle more? You can decide to tackle this initiative or not.
Packaging Materials: Can you reduce the thickness or quantity of packaging that goes out to your customers or maybe even reduce the amount of packaging that your suppliers send you every day? Most package ends up in landfills. You can decide if the current state situation is acceptable to you or not.
Payrate Equity: Maybe there are employees who are underpaid based on skills and experience. Whenever I got a sense of payrate inequity, I would make a spreadsheet to correlate payrates to employees’ length of service. Recently I had HR adjust the payrate of a woman who was making 18% less than her male coworkers in the same role and the men had less time of service. The cause of this payrate discrepancy wasn’t intentional, but regardless, I found it and I made the decision to request a payrate change.
Inappropriate Behaviors: Maybe you observe inappropriate situations or behaviors? If so, you can decide to take action or not. Just understand that ignoring any form of harassment implicates you. But you do have a choice as to how you respond in every situation.
Safety Compliance: What about safety compliance? Are there things in your plant that are unsafe? Do you make safety a top priority? Do you support the safety team? Do you enforce your plant’s PPE requirements? What about hearing protections? Employees may not experience hearing loss for years, so you may need to enforce safe behaviors now, to protect employees in the future. Your level of safety engagement is your choice. So never complain about your EH&S department.
A Final Word
When we practice personal accountability, we are going to be more conscious of our environment and the events that are happening around us. We need to understand that when we come across problems, issues, situations and injustices, we have a choice to either accept it as is or to take action. When we unconsciously just "go with the flow", or play the victim, or complain, we disempower ourselves and allow bad situations to continue. But when we decide to accept personal accountability, we become the CEO of our lives. Remember it is your life and you get to make the decisions. Become the CEO of your life! Act responsibly in all situations!
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