‘I brought the company to a standstill to make a point': Manufacturing comes to a halt when an engineer weaponizes a software flaw he had been trying to fix for months, ends up getting updates fast-tracked by the VP himself

Every request that upper management makes for their underlings is considered "URGENT," but when the tables are turned and the factory worker engineers are asking their bosses for something, it's always getting back-burnered. There's only one real way to get upper management's attention when it comes to urgent matters from the factory floor—mess with their cash flow. 

This engineer saw an opportunity to update the massive bugs in their company software after months of trying to get their bosses to prioritize the manufacturing workflow. Although the engineering department had been juggling the struggles of faulty software, the bosses didn't feel the heat of urgency until manufacturing and sales came to a screeching halt. 

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Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer Jesse Kessenheimer
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  • When things started heating up in the engineering bay, this worker noticed some massive holes in their company software. He knew they had to be fixed, but his work orders were constantly denied or postponed. Finally, when faced with an opportunity to make it everyone's problem, this employee seized the day and got the job done. 

  • Cheezburger Image 10510725888
    via shironosov

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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  • "I brought the company to a standstill to make a point"

    I worked in the engineering department of a smaller manufacturing company (around 70-80 employees). My responsibility among other things was to handle any design changes; edit part and assembly drawings, bills
    via jemull
  • of materials, etc. Previously this was all handled by putting together a packet of actual paper documents that had to be shuffled from engineering to manufacturing, sometimes ping ponging back and forth if we were
    via jemull
  • doing something complicated that required input from various people within those departments. Eventually the company started to implement a software-driven procedure that was supposed to
    via jemull
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  • eliminate the stacks of paper that would sometimes get lost on someone's desk. The problem was that our bare bones staff didn't really have time to learn all of the ins and outs of the software, and refine the process to
    via jemull
  • be truly efficient. Basically it was left so that if an item was entered into an engineering change order, it was locked down so that no one could build one, but also a customer couldn't even order one, or any machine that this
    via jemull
  • item happened to be a component of until the change process was completed. Sometimes this could take weeks. I tried explaining several times that if we ever had to work on some item that is used in several of our
    via jemull
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  • products, this would bring everything to a screeching halt. My manager at the time understood this but could never get all of the people who needed to work on the software procedure to sit down and finalize everything.
    via jemull
  • Cheezburger Image 10510717696
    via Thirawatana Phaisalratana

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • One day I was tasked with changing the design of a hardware component that was used in EVERY machine we built. I told my manager that as soon as I started the process, no one in sales would be able to enter an order
    via jemull
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  • for any customers until the process would be completed. He shrugged and said "do it", knowing that I was right. Within 30 minutes of getting started, a salesman came to my desk asking why
    via jemull
  • he couldn't enter an order. I explained what was happening. He left, and soon after the VP of the company was at my desk asking what needed to be done. So I told him he needed to corral everyone needed to hash out how the
    via jemull
  • software was supposed to work properly instead of the half-assed "just lock everything down" deal they left off with. He immediately called in whoever was on that list. It took a few days as I recall, and the component in question was expedited to be approved within the week.
    via jemull
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  • To this day I use this story in interviews whenever I'm asked one of those questions, like "Give me an instance where you had to solve a major problem in the workplace".
    via jemull
  • Red_Cathy. Nicely played there, not your issue if they can't be bothered to set the system up properly.
    via Red_Cathy
  • rpaynepiano Manager was definitely on the MC train too. They'd clearly been getting stonewalled by upper about the training on the software. Perfect opportunity.
    via rpaynepiano
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  • DfWZrgYf⚫ Doesn't sound like you actually proactively fixed anything here. You just passively waited until the problem got the attention of the VP, who then assembled a team to address the issue.
    via DfWZrgYf
  • Tremenda-Carucha. The real issue here isn't just the software system, it's the lack of clear ownership and communication channels, so establishing a dedicated
    via Tremenda-Carucha
  • task force with defined roles could prevent similar bottlenecks in the future, and maybe consider implementing a tiered approval process that allows for urgent changes without locking down entire systems.
    via Tremenda-Carucha
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  • mykepagan This is not malicious compliance... This is Good Engineering, demonstrating a technical need via concrete example.
    via mykepagan
  • DapperLost I mean, props to the VP for being "OK, how do we solve this" and just doing it, instead of assigning blame and pushing the sh downhill.
    via DapperLost

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