An introduction to problem-solving

Welcome to Drew Farwell Consulting

While there are a million reasons to be in business, there is only one thing that can keep your business going: Profitability.

But anyone who is in business knows you need to turn a profit if you want to stay in business. That’s hardly a mystery. However, knowing you need to make a profit and being able to turn a profit are often two very different things. That’s where consultants like me come in.

Hi. My name is Drew Farwell, and I’m the owner and operator of Drew Farwell Consulting. I’ve been in the transportation industry for over 15 years and I’ve dealt with the delivery of goods from perishable refrigerated foods to high temperature hazardous materials (not all on the same trailer, thankfully). I’ve worked in various roles in Transportation, ranging from Vice President and Chief Strategy officer to Maintenance, Load Planning, Safety and Driver Management. In 2011, after a stint as the Hours of Service Champion for one of the largest trucking companies in the United States, I was approached by my first client to serve as a subject matter expert on the FMCSA Hours of Service Regulations. A new consultant was born.

Now, allow me a quick diversion here. I never wanted to be a consultant. As a nontraditional student that once double majored in Physics and Mathematics (with a minor in Astronomy), I had hoped to leave the business world behind for academia. However, as a nontraditional student, just going to school wasn’t going to pay the bills. I maintained full time employment in the industry I cut my teeth in, reasoning that I could focus on school without having to learn the ins and outs of a new industry. I accepted an extended services role with a mid sized carrier just South of town, covering the early morning, driving an hour to school, then returning to work to finish the evening shift. Sure, it wasn’t glamorous, but it allowed me to go to school full time and still keep a roof over my head.

That after hours job was paradigm shifting. My finger firmly on the pulse of the business, I was able to identify recurring problems with ease. Mistakes in logging, traffic and construction delays, weather, missing pick up and delivery numbers and so forth. I began applying the concepts I was learning as a physics and Math major to the challenges I faced daily in the work force. It was like having a crystal ball. I could anticipate and correct failures and potential issues before they occurred. Even when a solution could not be found, I was able to notify shippers and receivers in a timely fashion to reschedule appointments and prevent costly detention situations. But I digress…

Having been exposed to Six Sigma in various supply chain process management projects, I was also starting to learn about the scientific method in school. This lead to the startling realization that the reason that so much of the process management teams I had been a part of never realized their full potential was confirmation bias. There’s an old business expression that states “when you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. This was echoed by the great physicist Richard Feynman, when he noted “the first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool”. Where six sigma had taught me to focus on the end result, the scientific method taught me how my assumptions, often influenced by my own personal bias despite my desire to remain objective, were also affecting the outcome of my processes.

Ah, the dreaded buzzword â€œchange”. Anyone who has been around business long enough knows that profitability does not necessarily follow change. In fact, change can be (and often is) for the worse. To be honest, when we say “change”, what we often mean to say is “improvement”.

That said, I believe that every part of profitability from operations and supply to marketing and sales originates from just two basic change related concepts: Refinement and Innovation.

Let’s start with refinement. Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines refining as “to free from unwanted impurities and materials”. In other words, how can we accomplish the same (or better) results with fewer actions. The act of refining, as it relates to business, if often less about purity than it is about efficiency. Refine in this context, is simply about doing it right the first time. This can include removing irrelevant data to ensure that you have the right information at the right time to make a critical business decision, or investing a few minutes in letting your car warm up before performing an oil change so that the oil quickly flows out of the drain plug (but not so long that it might cause burns) – ultimately saving you time, or using macros to reduce a process that used to take 15 keystrokes into a single click of the mouse or numerous other examples. Refinement is an excellent option when small changes are needed. Process improvement lives in this space. But what if refinement isn’t enough?

“It does not matter how refined your process for changing light bulbs with sledge hammers is, there are better tools for the job”

-Me

That brings us to innovation. Innovation comes from questioning our assumptions. It is the “Why?” of process improvement. “This is the way we’ve always done things”. Why? That’s not to say there isn’t a good reason. However, as new innovations pop up, those assumptions may no longer be valid. Case in point; when I started working in the transportation industry, not a single carrier at the time used GPS. Paper maps were used exclusively, and shorthand directions were entered into the computer system for each and every locale. It’s not hard to imagine how the advent of commercial GPS units transformed this aspect of the transportation industry. However, it was the drivers, and not the transportation companies themselves, that were the early adopters of this amazing technology. Fast forward almost a decade, and turn by turn navigation is considered standard equipment. The consequences have been far more reaching than anyone initially imagined. Not only do drivers no longer need to know how to read maps, much of the time/distance trip planning that they used to calculate by hand is now completely automated as well. This has greatly reduced the amount of training carriers have to provide in orientation. The difference is stark, as I have explained to many people who have questioned what I can do with a degree in Mathematics, there is a difference between understanding Math and knowing how to use a calculator.

In the same vein, recognizing innovation and innovating are two completely different exercises. The first is easy, if the way it is done today is different than it was done “back then”, especially if the results are as good or better, innovation has occurred. But how do you bridge that gap? G.K. Chesterton once said “It’s not that they can’t see the solution. They can’t see the problem.”.

Think about something simple, like moving five gallons of water from point A to point B. What is the “best” way to accomplish this goal? Let’s say the first time you ask this question, the best technology available is a 1 gallon bucket. You and your peers all move five gallons of water one gallon of at a time. While the average person only gets four gallons of water to point B after spilling, you notice the most careful movers can get four and three quarters of a gallon to point B. You change your process, and the average person can now get four and three quarters of a gallon of water to point B each and every time. However, you notice that the amount of time it takes to get the water from point A to point B has almost doubled. Being the brilliant process manager that you are, you design a lid for your bucket. No longer having to worry about spills, your employees can now safely deliver all five gallons of water in record time. Wanting to increase production further, you increase the bucket size from one gallon to five gallons. Production jumps the first morning, but your employees quickly tire from the strain of the additional weight the bucket can carry. Injuries start to rise, and the government steps in and tells you that an employee can only be required to carry one five gallon bucket of water to point B every thirty minutes. Injuries go down significantly, but so too does production. There must be a better way…

What you have experienced in the story above is refinement at its finest. Of course, that still doesn’t help you innovate. The issue is that the thing you see as the solution to moving water, the bucket, is also your problem. Sure, some will blame government regulation or lazy employees, but the problem is actually bias. You’ve always used buckets. The buckets today are so much better than the buckets they used to have. How can the bucket be the problem?

If you assume there is no better way to move water from point A to point B than carrying it, you miss the opportunity to be disruptive in your market place by innovating.

…then the idea hits you, what if you built a pipeline and used a pump to move water from point A to point B? Now, instead of hiring people to move buckets of water, you need construction workers to build the infrastructure, engineers to design more efficient pumps and mechanics to maintain the pipelines. 

This is innovation.

Can’t make that leap yet? You’re not alone. Call or email me today and together we can help you see the problems facing your business.

Drew