Transformation versus Improvement

Throughout my career I’ve worked in both transformation and improvement. They are the same and different all at the same time. At a basic level, improvement looks at exisiting processes and structures, to identity and implement incremental changes, to improve how it works. Transformation fundamentally restructures processes and how a business works.

I learnt the fundamentals of transformation versus improvement early in my life. My father was a boiler maker welder for the largest exporter of onions in the Southern Hemisphere. An amazing little company down in Tasmania called Vecon. I spent a lot of time going to work with my dad, where he showed me how to improve all parts of the onion harvesting and processing value chain. For example, I helped him modify the bagging machine, so they didn’t damage the onions as much when they were bagged. But he also inspired me with his transformation, for example, he once took a tractor and transformed it into a self propelled onion harvester.

A good example of improvement versus transformation is early in my career when I was working for a company that converted Chevrolet Corvettes to right hand drive, so they could be driven on the road in Australia.

It was a fairly large facility with up to half a dozen vehicles being converted at any one time. The boss had me focused on improvement, by helping the technicians convert cars quicker, easier, and cheaper whilst ensuring a quality job. This largely consisted of designing parts that could be mass produced by companies with the right equipment, instead of the technicians hand building each part as they converted.

However I had just graduated from university and my favourite subject had been Lean Manufacturing. This gave me the vision of fundamentally transforming their production, using Lean Manufacturing to create an assembly line. Their current production method was to drive the car onto a hoist; jack it up; pull it apart; and reassemble. Technicians were constantly traipsing around the property gathering tools and parts to do this. From my Lean Manufacturing experience, I could see the efficiency gains by introducing a production line, where tools and parts were placed strategically, so that the technicians had exactly what they needed, when they needed it.

A production line would also introduce machinery that would perform the conversions more efficiently and effectively. This would also transform the type of technician required, which would be of huge benefit. There are no training courses/diplomas/trade certificates in how to convert care to right hand drive. The technicians learnt the skills on the job, which takes a long time. When the company sought new technicians it was rare to find one with experience because the steering conversion industry is small in Australia.

Doing that would transform the way steering conversions were done. Unfortunately at that stage of my career I had not developed enough experience to efficiently design the production line, or the stakeholder engagement skills to sell the benefits of doing it. However, the work I was doing would have been the first step in creating a production line, so the improvements I was doing could have led to transformation.

I’ve also worked in several roles in Strategy and Business Development. I was in an improvement role when I worked as Competitor Intelligence Analyst for Lockheed Martin. In this role I supported Proposal and Bid teams, to improve their bids and proposals, by analysing and developing our competitors strategies. This allowed the teams to improve their bids and proposals to be more competitive. But it also led to transformation when I found that competitors had a more competitive solution i.e. a better technology. The Proposal team then had to transform their proposal to be able to compete. They didn’t necessarily transform their technology, they could for example transform their business model to offset the competitors technology advantage and be more competitive.

I was in a Transformation role when Boeing created an Advanced Systems team and we were asked to look across the wider Boeing company, to identify products and services we delivered elsewhere that could be applied to the Australian market. We then developed strategies to introduce these products and services into Australia and transform the Boeing Australia business. I found a Boeing subsidiary in America, that produced the most efficient Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) solar power cells in the world. They were used for space based applications such as powering satellites, but they had developed a land based power plant. They were unable to gain traction in America because Boeing is not a power company and the electricity supply market is very different from the aerospace market. However we thought that it may be more attractive if we proposed to build the new power business in Australia. It would significantly increase the earnings of the Australian business, which would generate greater management support, across different business areas.