Tim Nelson

The C130, also known as the Super Hercules, has been in production longer than any other aircraft, but it had a defect referred to as oil canning for the last 35 years. The aircraft’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, was a new client of Shainin® LLC.

View Video

Upon being assigned to solve this issue, decided to use a problem-solving methodology called Red X®. Discovered that the oil canning was caused by non-parallel surfaces joined together by bolts when the forward fuselage was mated to the rest of the plane. The non-parallel condition was an interaction caused by a quarter inch calculation error made when the plane was designed.

A non-disciplined investigation is shown in the left-hand column. It’s inconsistent and causes chaos. A disciplined investigation is shown in the right-hand column. The FACTUAL® process shown in this column is defined by Standard Work – everyone follows a consistent process that yields consistent results when solving complex technical problems. When a dyslexic faces a problem, they create a compensation strategy, which is a gift that can be further defined as a skill. A gift might be a good problem solver while a skill might use a specific methodology.

The vertical axis shows strain, and the horizontal axis shows build sequence. Blue represents the top strain gage locations and readings, while red represents the bottom strain gage locations and readings.

Blue and red strain gauges indicate the skin is in tension and compression respectively. As blue and red readings separate, blue gauges are pulling, and the red gauges are pushing. This put nonuniform stress on the skin and creates an oil can.

Once the error was discovered, a shim was used in the construction of all future planes and the problem was reduced to zero defects. Subsequently selected to lead a Red X® program on the F35 fighter aircraft, which arguably contains some of the most sophisticated technology known to man. Over the next seven years, 65 projects were completed that helped save $1 billion and certified 84 engineers in Red X®.

Professional background is rich in examples of coaching others in solving complex technical problems using the FACTUAL® (Focus, Approach, Converge, Test, Understand, Apply, Leverage) process as Standard Work.

The team that solves a complex technical problem is comprised of a Red X® coach, an executive sponsor, and a Subject Matter Expert (SME). The coach leads the strategy and investigation, then coaches the sponsor and SME. The sponsor knows the political environment and removes roadblocks to streamline the project, while the SME executes the strategy.

As a dyslexic individual, develop accommodations to execute successful projects. The Red X® team is an accommodation that ultimately became the standard for all Red X® projects around the world.

Every project goes through the four sequential processes shown in the diagram in the oneFiveFIFTY™ exponential staged deployment order. Acronyms define the process and its steps.

First, projects are selected using ALIGN. Second, improvement projects are conducted using a problem-solving methodology (Shainin®’s FACTUAL® process is shown). Next, how improvements were made are explained using DRIVE™. Finally, projects are exploited using AA2SS2®. The arrows on the left side of the process flow diagram show feedback from a process improving the process. The right arrow shows feedback for the system improving the system.

Throughout career, devoted a total of 26,600 hours coaching projects. The largest projects were always selected and coached by small teams, and the investigations were consistently effective using FACTUAL® as Standard Work. The projects involved a wide range or problems that were solved for a variety of mechanical products.

In 1933, Toyota’s Taiichi Ohno discovered the need for Standard Work, demonstrating that Standard Work drives consistency and is the baseline for improvement. Took this concept and expanded the definition in a process flow diagram defined by a meaningful acronym. FACTUAL® (Focus, Approach, Converge, Test, Understand, Apply, Leverage) is Standard Work that takes the concept beyond factory floor processes to produce consistent engineers. Then decided to apply Standard Work even further and tackle a dyslexic individual’s biggest problem – inconsistency.

Developed a comprehensive list of weaknesses and strengths and discovered that using an ingenious compensation strategy like FACTUAL® always resulted in consistency. At a higher level, problems could be transformed into gifts (skills), then into Standard Work for use by anyone. Both dyslexic and non-dyslexic individuals could follow a process defined by Standard Work.

The first column of the matrix is a generic expression of Standard Work. The acronyms shown in the second column are represented by meaningful names. Each letter in the acronym represents a step in the process. The meaning of each acronym step is shown in the third column. There are two types of Standard Work expressed in the fourth column – there is Foundational Standard Work and Deployable Standard Work.

All trademarks within the table represent Improving Parts. RECOVER and GIFTED represent Improving People.

Standard Work yields process consistency and serves as the baseline for improvement (Taiichi Ohno). A quality improvement system consisting of six processes defined by acronyms is shown in the center column below. The first column represents an input for each process, the second column defines the process, and the third column defines the output for each process. Note that the output for one process is the input for the next process.

RECOVER™ is a universal problem-solving approach that can be used to help people overcome life’s most challenging problems. The methodology can also be used to improve parts, processes, and services. In these situations, using RECOVER™ improves quality. By transforming problems into gifts and skills, gain the ability to solve the biggest technical problems and life’s greatest behavioral challenges.

The steps in the RECOVER™ process are shown in the first column. Steps are shown sequentially but are not always performed in sequential order. Steps can also be done in parallel. How a step was performed is shown in sequential order. The second column uses the methodology to overcome alcoholism or any other addiction. The third column demonstrates how RECOVER™ is used to gain improvement from bad parts, processes, and services.

As a dyslexic individual, possess unique qualities (such as a high level of creativity) that improve people, parts, and services. Consistently demonstrate that maximizing gifts and skills is far more effective than minimizing stigmas. The result is extraordinary versus ordinary.

After resolving a fuel pump noise for Delphi (the largest automotive supplier in the world with 171 manufacturing sites, 190,000 employees, 42 joint ventures, and 34 technical centers), offered the opportunity to speak about Rolling Top 5® during Shainin® LLC’s presentation to executives from Delphi’s largest division. The division President decided to move forward with the Top 5™ program.

The process began by developing a competency with individual projects. As the competency was developed, each executive was assigned a deck of projects, which became the Rolling Top 5® program for the executive’s use in managing and developing his staff for individual projects.

This cascade then continued until the competency was developed across and deep within the organization.

The image below displays Delphi’s customer base. Red X® was used in complex technical problems to help customers and suppliers implement quality improvements.

Ultimately, over 2,000 Delphi employees were certified in one of the three methodologies (Red X®, Six Sigma, and Robust Engineering), and some became certified experts in all three.

This Rolling Top 5® program was also used to coach engineers on Lockheed Martin’s F35 fighter jet – arguably the world’s most complex and sophisticated product. The F35 is stealth and therefore cannot be identified on radar. This capability protects the nation’s fighter pilots – the real “Top Guns.”

View Video

A large gas and electric lawn product manufacturer was experiencing starting problems with its gas leaf blowers. Blowers are developed on two lines – line one had a large amount of scrap, and line two had none. The blowers would not start because a component that should rotate freely was stuck.

Quickly determined that the scrap parts on the line with defects were caused by an angled hole in one of the two mating parts. When comparing line one to line two parts, identified an obvious difference. The bad line’s mating part was coated with black phosphate, and the good line parts were coated with gold dichromate. Black parts are rough, while gold parts are slippery and can overcome friction caused by angled holes. However, engineers argued there was no difference between the two since both met material specifications.

The four points in the visual below show whether a component is stuck or free. Three points are at a low scrap level. One point is at the high scrap level – the spike interaction. A spike interaction occurs when two independent causes come together and cause an event to occur. The holes are labeled as Best of the Best (BOB) and Worst of the Worst (WOW).

Demonstrated creativity when drawing the image for the leaf blower. Carl was a mathematical genius who was the chief statistician at GE. He worked on the atom bomb. The combination of the leaf blower image and Carl’s math resulted in a patent.

The image below has a vertical performance scale that goes from 0 (worst) to 1 (best). The horizontal axis goes from not being logical to being logical. The lines inside the graph form a triangle. The line parallel with the horizontal axis illustrates not being creative and the line that’s steep represents being creative. The only way to get a best value of 1 is to have a creative individual (Tim) and a logical counterpart (Carl).

Using Creative Logic™, solved the problem in just one day. The methodology demonstrates a synergistic effect – the result of combining the creativity and logic is greater than the sum of each individual parts. Performance is compromised until creativity and logic come together in a holistic way.