Yesterday I cut my grass in the rain. It wasn’t heavy rain. The precipitation had actually stopped for a couple of hours in the afternoon, so when I arrived home from the office, I quickly got out in the yard and was about halfway finished cutting before the drops started to fall again. But with the record rainfalls we’ve had this spring, this was one of the very few opportunities I’d had to mow in the past two weeks, and it had to get done.
“It had to get done.” That’s a subjective statement. None of my neighbors cut their grass that day, not even those whose grass was longer than mine. I’m certainly not obsessed with the appearance of my lawn, but I want it to look nice. Of greater importance to me was that I didn’t want to deal later with the difficulty of mowing (and cleaning up) extremely long, wet grass. Either way, I made a decision, however difficult, to take on one short-term challenge to head off potential issues and experience a better long-term reward.
People make decisions to act on problems every day. Sometimes the decisions are made for the sake of efficiency. Sometimes they’re made for the sake of quality or cost. But unfortunately, too often the decisions are avoided altogether because of the short-term convenience, falling back instead, on the adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I would have been a lot more comfortable on the rainy day taking care of some indoor chores. I didn’t really want to mow the lawn. I knew it was going to take some extra effort. But I also knew that by waiting it would require even more effort. I viewed the big picture of what needed to be done and what was involved in accomplishing the tasks at hand and made a decision for what would best serve my overall interests. Relatively speaking, it was a minor decision, but it could be compared to business decisions that are far more important.
This issue of Process Cleaning takes an in-depth look at some of the choices available for cleaning in aerospace applications and the path some companies took to determine their best options.
The story on page 22 looks at the challenges of cleaning high strength honeycomb components used in aircraft tail assemblies and wings.
On page 32, you’ll see details of the trials one manufacturer ran to compare two different cleaning agents in two systems that were under consideration as upgrades to their existing line. The decision this company made to upgrade its equipment resulted in substantial process savings.
Another manufacturer of precision castings was in search of a suitable alternative to TCE for use prior to a fluorescent penetrant inspection process (see page 37). After extensive testing, the company proved to be able to obtain better cleaning results in its existing equipment with a binary azeotrope of n-propyl bromide and isopropyl alcohol that also meets environmental, health and safety requirements.
These companies realize that results require effort, and they took the proper steps to find the best solutions to their problems. The easy way may have been enough to get by; it may have been acceptable. But they wanted to know the best way, so they took the time to research their options, and they implemented the solution that would help them provide the highest quality products.
Fortunately, the only research required to guide me in my grass cutting decision was a quick look at the weather forecast. But avoiding excuses and proceeding to get the job done is the important message. Now if I can just find a way to squeeze in a round of golf between the raindrops.
