Haris: Good afternoon Martin, how are you?
Martin: Good afternoon Haris, I’m good. How about yourself?
Haris: Excellent as always, almost perfect.
Martin: Good, good, why almost perfect?
Haris: Well, if you become perfect, that’s it, that’s the end of the game. I still don’t want to end my game.
Martin: Nothing left to strive for, huh?
Haris: Well, once, a great comedian from the UK said: ‘I have no problem getting old, think of the alternative.’ So, you know, improving is good, means, you’re still alive. So, when we speak about improving, last week we discussed the lube room and how it affects the bloodstream of the factory. But there is another aspect of the clean, nice, and tidy lube room, right?
Martin: Yeah, and I think we kind of touched on that at the end, is about perception, so, you know, it’s like getting old, people perceive that you are getting old, but in your head, you are still young.
Haris: Of course, I am!
Martin: But, you know, that perception thing is extremely important, because it’s about the message it sends.
Haris: Yeah, dirty lube room says that dirty people are working there some unimportant job.
Martin: Sure, you know, just looking at the lube room behind you, looks lovely and clean, looks like it’s well maintained. It sends a right signal: precision lubrication.
Haris: And most probably you will not enter this kind of lube room with your dirty shoes and dirty hands and I’m absolutely sure you will be very happy to invite your manager to see the good lube room and to say: I’m doing a nice job.
Martin: Yeah, I mean, I’ve had people that have set up fantastic lube rooms and they’ve actually brought customers to see the lube room and the customers have said afterwards: ‘Wow. If that’s how seriously you take your lubrication, how seriously do you take the quality of your product? Let’s do business!’
Haris: That’s an excellent message and that’s an excellent way to put it. So, being proud of the job the lube people do is very important. We certainly agree on that.
Martin: Yeah.
Haris: So, what’s the next step in improvement? At least, the way I see it is stop believing in opinions and feelings and start believing in data.
Martin: Sure, data is so important because it helps with that justification process, you know, cost benefit analysis, all that good stuff. You need data to be able to work the numbers!
Haris: Yes, so, the great thing is learning foreign languages. So, one of the languages is oil analysis, understanding what happens with the oil, then we can do something based on data, instead of based on opinion. What we do is exactly what you can see right here behind me, this is one of our happy happy bearing saying: ‘Thank you, I’ve just got enough grease that I need.’ So, changing all this transformation from opinion to data is, we can put it under the industry 4.0, but, as you said, we can put it under common sense. Why doing something if you are not sure it needs to be done.
Martin: Yeah, and I think, you know, as we’ve said before: oil analysis reflects what you’re doing on site. Let’s make sure it’s reflecting that you’re applying best practice.
Haris: Exactly. Martin, I want to thank you do much for this several episodes, I want to thank you for your time, I want to thank you for the beautiful experience and the wisdom you’ve shared. We didn’t talk about your childhood, but we can make a specific section and talk about your childhood. What do you say to me about your childhood once?
Martin: I don’t want to end up paying a therapist if I start talking about my childhood.
Haris: I’ll do it for free, don’t worry, I’ll do it for free.
Martin: Fair enough, have you got a decent couch?
Haris: Absolutely!
Martin: Well, thank you for the opportunity, the shared ice creams, perhaps I now need to go for a run, because that ice cream is getting into me! So, it has been great, fabulous, thank you.
Haris: So, I’ll take the liberty to invite you again.
Martin: Brilliant, that sounds great!
Haris: Thanks a lot, on behalf of the entire SDT family and the entire audience. See you next time!
