Have you driven near a construction worker on the side of the road and slowed down, just in case the worker would happen to fall into the lane of traffic? You may have the throttle open wide and your music cranked, with little to no care beyond getting to your destination. Maybe you are focused on the numerous tasks you need to get done and you realize you can’t remember the section of road you are on or possibly even took a wrong turn due to your lack of attention.
I’ve been that road construction worker, and I can tell you firsthand that not keeping an eye out for change can be dangerous. Whether it was leaping into a ditch away from a veering semi or seeing a concrete saw blade discharging out of a machine and lodging into an unsuspecting passing car, I have experienced it. My most egregious error was in my first year working on-road. I had not taken my surroundings into account and was pinned between two semis going in opposite directions on Interstate 29. I had a hill to the north of my location, and a few hundred feet to the south was a bridge that hid a corner. I knew I couldn’t step into either lane, so my only option was to ride out the situation on the double yellow line that separated the 55mph traffic. I failed to view the entire rapidly evolving environment, and the mistake could have been fatal. To say I needed change was an understatement.
Let’s look at change. I could confidently state that most people enjoy when the weekend comes. A paradigm shift occurs when we are working. Once we find our pace and comfort zone within our job, we tend to like consistency and oppose change. Transformations in commerce, however, can produce a vacuum for industries that are slower to adapt. Not all companies and individuals embrace change. Businesses that don’t do not plan for their technology to change, and they do not anticipate their customers’ growing demands.
Would you say you roll with work developments stubbornly, or do you fully embrace them? At some point in your career, depending on the situation, you may have done both. Did you plan to change, or did the plans change you? What’s the value in planning for change? Don’t you waste time by devoting energy toward something that may or may not come to fruition?
True change is not in the situation but in how you plan to master its effect. In commerce today, the three most influential change agents I see within the supply chain ecosystem are acquisitions, technology, and simplification.
Acquisition
2019 has been arguably one of the largest acquisition years for process pump companies. Enterprise brands were able to add great OEMs to their portfolios; this will usher in new solutions. With acquisitions come opportunities to share knowledge across processes. I am looking forward to the fruits of these changes, with standardization of product data, increased product quality oversight, and the potential to access more brands being some of the benefits I foresee. However, anticipated changes resulting from acquisitions don’t always come to pass, and personal opposition and obstructions to change are often at the forefront of why. When a group is actively accepting of transitions and looking for ways to resolve issues, the group will be agile enough to face what lies ahead from a position of strength.
Technology
Technology in process pumps has been relatively slow to evolve, and adoption of new technologies even slower to take foot. Process pump technologies 10 years ago had not ventured far from where they were at their inception. Within the past three years and with increasing frequency, however, I have come across product development successes that are destined to make waves in supply chains. Recently I was invited to see delivery of an unreleased prototype that will undoubtedly change the way the company’s competitors view research and development in the near future. Whether you are OEM, distributor, or an end user, if you have been part of the group that says, “We’ve always done it this way,” you may find yourself missing out on a game-changing solution.
Simplification
In my experience, name brands have been the top descriptor that end users use in talking about process pumps. Other product categories in the industrial supply chain have seen consolidation through OEM mergers, acquisitions, or business shutdowns as well as through product restructuring, and end users have benefited from simplification of brands. Today, there are substantially more process-pump OEMs than bearing and motor OEMs, but as in other product segments, brand simplification is underway. This will be beneficial to distributors with brand awareness and simplified product offerings. Having fewer brands resulting from consolidation also can benefit end users, who do not have to keep track of varying brands when it is time to search for a new, efficient solution.
By embracing change after a near miss, I can tell you it is not time wasted to look ahead and expect change to occur. The reality is that is that if you expect change and you don’t see it immediately, you aren’t out anything. Start simple: Change a process in your routine, take a new route, and go where you haven’t before.