What I missed by not walking the factory floor

I once advised a client for months without setting foot on their production floor. I got it wrong.

I worked from reports, numbers, and calls. I thought I understood their operation. I did not.

When I finally walked the floor, I saw the real constraint in ten minutes. It was in no report.

What the floor tells you that a report does not

↳ The bottleneck the team has stopped mentioning, because they have lived with it for years.

↳ The workaround nobody wrote down, that quietly sets the real lead time.

↳ The part that jams the line on a bad day, and the operator who knows exactly why.

None of this reaches the dashboard. It reaches you on the floor, in a conversation, standing next to the machine.

Why this matters for account management

There is a fashion for running accounts from a screen. Dashboards, alerts, and check ins that run on a schedule.

Data has its place. But you cannot help a client you have not seen at work.

↳ A tool can tell you a delivery was late. It cannot tell you the press was down, and why.

You cannot guide a team in theory when you have not seen what they face in reality.

What I do now

I visit before I advise. I walk the floor, watch a shift, and ask the people who run it what gets in their way.

The strategy comes after that, not before. It is better for it every time.

When did you last stand on your most important customer’s floor?

If you are guiding a client or a team from a distance, the first conversation is free.