Next-Gen Quality in Manufacturing: Engineering the Future of Quality Systems

Transcript

[00:00:59] Josh Santo: Our guest today approaches quality the way most people only talk about it as something that lives in every person, every process in every decision, not just in a single department. Born and raised in India and educated at Penn State University. He brings a global lens to the world of manufacturing quality shaped as much by lived experience as by engineering discipline.

[00:01:22] Josh Santo: His career spans auto catalyst manufacturing, chemical processing, and advanced materials where he’s built and implemented quality systems grounded in ISO 9,001 and IATF 16949 standards, continuously improved through Lean Six Sigma methodology. He is an active voice in the quality community. A member of the American Society for Quality, a published author in ASQs Outlook Magazine and Quality Progress, and a sought after speaker at conferences, including the Lean and Six Sigma World Conference and the Quality Show where he was recently honored with the Quality Rookie of the Year Award.

[00:02:02] Josh Santo: Currently a quality assurance and systems engineer at Johnson Matthey. A global leader in sustainable technologies. He’s focused on the intersection of quality data and human-centered design. As manufacturing moves deeper into the era of industry 4.0 and beyond. Please welcome to the show, Sainyam Arora. 

[00:02:22] Josh Santo: Sainyam, thanks for being here.

[00:02:23] Sainyam Arora: Thank you for having me, Josh.

[00:02:25] Josh Santo: Yeah, of course. Really excited we’re able to make this happen. I know we’ve been talking a little over a month or so now. I had some time off. You had some time off, and then both of us had end of quarters, end of fiscal years. A lot going on, but glad we’re able to make it work.

[00:02:40] Sainyam Arora: I’m glad I’m able to have this conversation with you today because wrapping up all the end of the year is just the perfect timing to, start something new.

[00:02:48] Josh Santo: Absolutely. we are talking today about quality, about mindsets, about technology and more, but before we get into any of that great stuff, we’re gonna start, like we always start, which is understanding a little bit more about what it’s like to live a day in the life in our guest’s shoes. So please talk to us about.

[00:03:09] What a day in the life as a quality assurance and systems engineer looks like for you.

[00:03:16] Sainyam Arora: I think if you ask a lot of quality assurance engineers or systems engineers or even manufacturing engineers. They may either start a one of two, one, they have a very structured day or two. They completely go ad hoc on, and let their day take themselves.

[00:03:30] Sainyam Arora: For me, I try to divide two big domains of my day. So I start off by looking at my emails, checking in anything that, has been caught up on production. Any operational issues, any quality concerns? Within manufacturing, more often than not, there are shift work and, you know. People are kind of all across the realm and they’re looking at data all the time.

[00:03:51] Sainyam Arora: I keep getting emails, throughout the day. And so that’s one of my first few tasks. The second thing is addressing all the operation concerns and attending tier meetings, updating with the data in terms of quality KPIs, looking at cost of approval quality, if I’m involved in any kind of meetings, whether that be in terms of being involved in a corrective and preventative action, meeting or a root cause analysis.

[00:04:14] Sainyam Arora: I’m part of those and then majority and bulk of my time go into quality assurance. So the second half of my domain in the day, I divide it in systems engineering. So that goes around in building systems, verifying their working, almost being the reliability engineer, if you will. I lead the quality, for a production line within my current role.

[00:04:36] Sainyam Arora: So there’s a lot of challenging tasks that pertain to supplier concerns, customer feedback, customer surveys. So it’s a very good and challenging place to be in terms of. Having that cross-functional knowledge and transferring knowledge for standards work. So I work with is 9,001 standards.

[00:04:53] Sainyam Arora: Trying to make sure that the quality management system is pertaining to that. But then the other hand of that being involved in operations. So my day’s kind of divided in those two big domains, but roughly about that.

[00:05:04] Josh Santo: And now you know, we’re talking about your. Role in the quality side of the business, and it looks like your career has been mostly quality focused. In fact, you have, you’ve your published author in ASQs, that’s the American Society for Quality Outlook Magazine and Quality Progress.

[00:05:21] Josh Santo: You recently were honored with the Quality Rookie of the Year Award, so you are a bit of a rising star in the quality world. How does that feel?

[00:05:33] Sainyam Arora: I appreciate you saying that. and one of the things that a lot of people have kind of asked me about is, did you always know you were gonna start in quality? And why did you start in quality? 

[00:05:42] Sainyam Arora: And to that, you know, it’s so funny because. I did my bachelor’s in chemical engineering and with a minor in engineering leadership and development.

[00:05:51] Sainyam Arora: Started my career off in, technical analytics. So I started working for an industry 4.0 company, looking at machine health data and reliability data. And that was my first ever lens and approach to quality because I was looking at the defects a machine could cause and how much, machine downtime can you know.

[00:06:11] Sainyam Arora: Cost and operations, which led me into the quality realm. And that also happened very coincidentally because the interviewer happened to be the quality manager and they. Saw something within my resume, within my profile that seemed more of a better fit within this industry. And once I started on the quality track, the rest is history.

[00:06:33] Sainyam Arora: So, trying to build off of what I’m trying to, achieve in my day-to-day career and my day-to-day job, but also be a part of the larger network, whether that is with a SQ, with quality magazine industry folks and professionals like you, because there’s so much more to be done. And you know, this is the beginning for my career,

[00:06:52] Josh Santo: So it sounds like it’s not just, an opportunity that you. fell into, but you have developed a bit of a passion for this undiscovered opportunity. What is it about quality that is tapping into that passion of yours?

[00:07:08] Sainyam Arora: Yeah. So for me, quality is about the mindset. And I know you highlighted this in the beginning a little bit. I didn’t realize until I fell into this profession, almost coincidentally, like I mentioned, that this has been a part of my life throughout. So growing up, my parents exposed me to manufacturing and my father was working within the manufacturing area and he was a trader, at the time selling the product.

[00:07:35] Sainyam Arora: He gave me a very big lens into. What a life cycle of a product looks like from raw material supply all the way to production, end of the production area and moving into the customer delivery and customer feedback. And that led me into believing that each and every area and each and every step has to have good quality, for the next one to be set up for success.

[00:07:58] Sainyam Arora: And funny enough, I kind of saw that pattern in my. Daily life outside of my work. So even if that meant making an avocado toast, for example, humor me here, but having an intent, towards doing something with high quality, with good quality ends up in being satisfied as the end user. And so it became about the mindset for me in my daily life and translated into my work.

[00:08:24] Sainyam Arora: Until I found out that this is a career that people make out of, I realized that this is something I’m already inherently good at. And I can develop so much more because this industry’s huge and, quality professionals are needed across the board, whether it’s product, services, any kind of industry.

[00:08:42] Sainyam Arora: And so it’s just an exciting time to be a part of this. Industry, and like I said, just the mindset of it, it makes an impact.

[00:08:50] Josh Santo: So to some degree you were already predisposed for, for quality. It’s in your blood, in that realm. It was part of your past. And I like how you described coming to your own conclusions of some. Well-known, quality philosophies as, you know, you were describing quality as being part of the process, not an afterthought, but baked in through out of it.

[00:09:12] Josh Santo: So you’re already coming to these conclusions. And so when you find this world that kind of reaffirms some of the things you’re like, oh, I’m not crazy. there’s other people out there

[00:09:22] Sainyam Arora: like me.

[00:09:23] Sainyam Arora: Yeah. You should have, you should have seen my face the first time I toured around a production facility. Where they were making auto catalyst parts and I just, at the end of each production cell, at the engine end of each area that they showed me in each work stream, my brain was just like, oh man, this makes sense.

[00:09:41] Sainyam Arora: Like it’s all connecting. And it, I felt like that I’m not the only one who’s crazy enough to think like that. There’s a whole world out there. So it really did make sense back then.

[00:09:50] Josh Santo: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, one, you, there’s one thing that you said that I wanted to follow up on, which, you know, you talked about needing more folks like that and quality, but it’s not just with those attributes. You are, someone from the next generation of workers as far as the workforce goes, and we need more people from.

[00:10:07] Josh Santo: Gen Z from gen Alpha, that’s coming up to, and we to harbor that sort of interest and peak that passion that you’re describing. I can relate to some of your comments. I, I haven’t had a direct career, in a manufacturing facility myself, but I’ve worked with hundreds of manufacturers and I’ve.

[00:10:26] Josh Santo: Definitely been to hundreds of different manufacturing plants, and that’s where I first discovered that love and that passion,and there was two things that I remember in particular that really called to me that I think a lot of manufacturing professionals can relate to. One was the rigorous focus on continuous improvement in my own personal life.

[00:10:47] Josh Santo: There’s always a way for me to be better at whatever topic it could be school, sports, always looking at, okay, what was I trying to do? How did that work? What were the things that I could have controlled that would’ve factored into a potential different outcome? And so when I was introduced to manufacturing, in learning that there’s a whole.

[00:11:07] Josh Santo: Department focused on continuous improvement as a dedication, not just that, but the industry kind of being, founded on this philosophy of Improving. And the more I learned about the Toyota Way and lean and all of those things, so I can certainly relate to that idea of whoa, other people think like this and this is how they’ve put those lessons into practice.

[00:11:31] Josh Santo: and the last thing I’ll say on the topic, it is just an insane, a sa insane feeling to walk into a factory and see one the hum, the almost hypnotic. Like the machines operating, the things working together, you can get lost in, in just that. But then it’s just a testament to what people are able to do when we come together and we put our minds to things.

[00:11:53] Josh Santo: And, and I’m always amazed when I step into a facility just to see like, oh my gosh, like people built this. this

[00:12:00] Sainyam Arora: Yeah. 

[00:12:01] Josh Santo: It’s just amazing. So I appreciate you sharing your passion, and I couldn’t resist the chance to share a little bit of my passion, in return.

[00:12:08] Sainyam Arora: that. Yeah.

[00:12:09] Josh Santo: So you’ve got a significant amount of experience in quality.

[00:12:13] Josh Santo:  you’re speaking at conferences, your work is getting published. I want to tap into some of your perspectives with regard to quality. So thinking about that experience in quality, what have you seen that you believe many manufacturers are getting wrong with regard to quality?

[00:12:30] Sainyam Arora: Yeah. And with regards to quality, that’s a good question. So I think one of the biggest things that, many manufacturers still get wrong to this date is that quality is a department or a function rather than something that’s embedded into the process, like you talked about a little bit, right?

[00:12:50] Sainyam Arora: Organizations still treat quality as a singular department over the culture. and you are looking at those buzzwords of compliance, policing, auditing that come up the minute quality comes up. It almost feels like that. Work stream exists to put you in place, rather than that work stream existing in your own mindset.

[00:13:12] Sainyam Arora: and you talked about, the kind of continuous improvement aspect of it, which I love that. I always say I think continuous improvement engineers are quality engineers in disguise and, it’s almost that and vice versa because. You have to have that growth mindset, in either of these roles and almost every role within manufacturing that pushes you to challenge the status quo, that pushes you to get out of that complacency.

[00:13:37] Sainyam Arora: and it really shows up in your processes, how they’re designed, how operators are trained, how leaders, review their performances, how quickly teams respond to, weak signals before they become larger defects. Quality is treated as an organization that is there to find defects rather than create systems where defects are harder to hide, 

[00:13:59] Sainyam Arora: so I think that’s what organizations do well, is they create such silos. and. Hierarchical structures that it’s really easy for quality to be just called as a department instead of a culture. and I think that’s where we have a lot of room to grow.

[00:14:16] Josh Santo: So this idea that quality is a siloed department, a siloed function focused on policing, on compliance, on auditing, on, on finding defects. If that is how you think about quality, you are not thinking about quality correctly. And to your point, quality is, really about that idea of continuous improvement, that idea of eliminating the possibility for the defects or the deviations or the non-conformances from even being possible to occur.

[00:14:49] Josh Santo: But so often, and I hear this from a lot of quality professionals, is that. You get stuck in this box of this police 

[00:14:57] Sainyam Arora: Yeah, 

[00:14:58] Josh Santo: us versus you type of situation. And

[00:15:02] Josh Santo: Do I think that’s a good thing for us to explore? Sainyam, with your experience, why, why do you think there is this gap between quality as what you’re describing, a culture, a mindset versus how so many people see it, which is quality as.

[00:15:20] Josh Santo: The police force, uh, department that, tries to find if I’m doing bad things, 

[00:15:25] Sainyam Arora: I think the gap exists because organizational structure makes it easy to localize responsibility, right? We have structure more than ever. We have organization more than ever in our world today, we’re trying to optimize every time.

[00:15:40] Sainyam Arora: and it’s a little counterintuitive, but if you think about it. The structure makes it easy to localize responsibility within an organization, and it feels very efficient to say, oh, quality should own quality operation, should own output. Engineering should own the design because it’s easier to pinpoint and localize that responsibility.

[00:16:01] Sainyam Arora: but when you really think about it, you mentioned it in your, in your experience a little bit, that manufacturing seems like. hum. There’s a hum to it. There’s a rhythm to it. And so in practice, if you look at it, manufacturing performance is all interconnected in a web. It shouldn’t be localized in responsibilities.

[00:16:18] Sainyam Arora: and defects are rarely created by just one department alone. It’s not just one department that contributes to a defect happening. there are so many, domino effects to why it can happen, right? So over time, organizations start treating quality as this. Policing gatekeeper, like you mentioned, rather than, a system and design principle.

[00:16:40] Sainyam Arora: And when that happens, people disengage from the ownership part of it and they say, that’s, quality’s problem. that’s the sentence that comes out because it’s easy to disengage from that ownership and blame it on that localized responsibility. So I think that’s where the gap is.

[00:16:55] Sainyam Arora: even though it’s counterintuitive that in that structure that we have, we don’t invite the. Ownership and curiosity and that accountability across the board. instead of, following it down to a singular department and saying, that’s Quality’s problem.

[00:17:11] Josh Santo: Yeah, that idea that it’s quality’s problem or maybe put another way, that’s your job. That’s not. job.

[00:17:19] Josh Santo: I think that’s such an interesting thing to call out that the gap is caused by this organ, the organizational structure that is found predominantly in just about every company. Not just manufacturing, but everywhere.

[00:17:33] Josh Santo: And how it, it has, taking your point a little bit further, it’s. Arisen out of necessity. We needed people who could focus on this set of tasks and who could be experts in these tasks. Because in order for us to be successful and accomplishing whatever goal, we need this team of experts that can do this thing.

[00:17:50] Josh Santo: But over the years, it’s essentially also led to the silos, right? Those guys specialize with those things. If you need this, go to them. I specialize in this thing. If you need this, come to me and it makes it easy to say. It’s not my responsibility, it’s not my scope. 

[00:18:07] Josh Santo: And that’s a tough thing to balance because on one hand with quality in particular, you want everyone to own quality

[00:18:18] Josh Santo: all of us should be working towards that goal of customer

[00:18:21] Sainyam Arora: High quality. Yeah.

[00:18:22] Josh Santo: and the customer expects quality as part of in order to achieve their satisfaction. Most of the times we all know we can have a customer or two that, their standards may, you can be, it can be, but I think that’s such a, that’s a tough topic to, to dig into this idea of something that’s arisen out of necessity actively contributing to a gap that is potentially holding people back.

[00:18:48] Sainyam Arora: I wanna add onto this a little bit. So I, I was almost a culprit to it. Until I had to realize on my own that that’s what was happening. So I started my career early on in a very structured, very mature, very organized production environment, manufacturing environment. and the automotive world is known for that.

[00:19:10] Sainyam Arora: we have so much of our. Data, so much of our systems thinking, Toyota way, there’s so much out there within automotive as an industry that it is very developed. 

[00:19:21] Sainyam Arora: And so over there it became easy to, even though you, you would collaborate on a large scale, it became easy to silo things down.

[00:19:29] Sainyam Arora: Um, it became easy to. Make boundaries between departments. It wasn’t until I moved into my next stroll within quality assurance and systems where I had to wear more than four hats at a time. I had to wear the hat of a continuous improvement engineer, quality engineer, um, leading person for any inspections and supplier concerns, leading person for any customer concerns.

[00:19:52] Sainyam Arora: It wasn’t until that that I realized that quality has to become a part of everybody’s. Day-to-day function, it has to become a part of everybody’s job in practical ways.It can be just sticking out in posters or quality policy or value statements. It really has to be enforced from top down and bottom, bottom up.

[00:20:12] Sainyam Arora: And that means that leaders need to ask better questions. Metrics need to reward better prevention rather than only focusing on the output. operators need visibility into the process and be, you know. Invited into that process and teams need to build that psychological safety so that it feels like that quality has to become a part of everybody’s function, if that makes sense.

[00:20:36] Sainyam Arora: You know, it’s a cultural shift and it doesn’t happen overnight. 

[00:20:38] Josh Santo: It is

[00:20:40] Ad Break: time for an ad break. Now, unlike other shows, our ads aren’t advertisements. Our ads are advice, quick tips and insights from your fellow manufacturing pros in the shop floor top floor community. Here’s one now.

[00:20:56] Sainyam Arora: Hi, my name is Sainyam Arora. I’m the quality assurance and systems engineer at Johnson Matthey. My advice is that quality isn’t about catching defects. It’s about. Building systems where defects can’t hide. So if you’re early in your career or learning a standard, or more importantly, learning what exists within this manufacturing realm, ask yourselves why they exist in the first place.

[00:21:22] Sainyam Arora: Don’t wait for permission to challenge how things are done. Challenge them respectfully but persistently. And don’t wait for a title to lead. The best quality professionals that I’ve met, and something I try to embody every day in myself. Isn’t to memorize a standard or a clause,but it’s to ask why one more time than everybody else.

[00:21:41] Sainyam Arora: So keep that in mind.

[00:21:43] Josh Santo: All right, quick pause before we jump back in. Like you here on the shop floor top floor Talk show, we believe in continuous improvement. You don’t wait for an annual audit to fix what’s broken. You make small adjustments every day to get better. And this show works the same way, but the only way to improve is if we hear from the people that are actually doing the work you.

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[00:22:30] Think of it as leaving a note for the next shift. Now we read every review and we use them and we genuinely appreciate you being a part of the shop floor top floor talk show community. Alright, now that’s all I had to say. Let’s get back to the conversation. I. 

[00:22:48] Josh Santo: I like how you broke down that there’s some practical ways of which this can be addressed. So if someone is listening to this conversation and they say, I can totally. empathize with that quality is seen as the police force. We wanna be seen as a partner. I like how you specifically called out that you have to engage them in quality in practical ways and some of the things you mentioned.

[00:23:11] Josh Santo: Leaders need to ask better questions. Metrics need to measure essentially the right stuff you need to involve. Operators and other folks into the conversation, and you need to make sure that it feels safe, that people can raise concerns or ideas without fear of repercussion or even just feeling dumb or stupid. 

[00:23:34] Sainyam Arora: Yeah.

[00:23:35] Josh Santo: When you say leaders need to ask better questions. What do you mean by that? What’s an example of a better question?

[00:23:42] Sainyam Arora: So I think more often than not leadership when they get to that point, they are more driven to understand the end solution. They’re more driven to understand the end output. When I say leaders need to ask better questions, I, what I mean is that they need to be invited into the process and ask. So let’s break it down as to what this impacts on a day-to-day basis to the operator.

[00:24:10] Sainyam Arora: Or let’s ask how this impacts or why this impacts the customer and getting people to care about it. So my firsthand experience in this was when I was working on a specific product as a quality engineer, and I was obviously the only one caring about that product. I had to make that mental cultural shift by inviting the operators into the process and showing them the background of it.

[00:24:37] Sainyam Arora: So showing them, Hey, if this product makes it to the customer and it’s a bad product, how much does it cost the company? What’s the cost of poor quality, the invisible cost of it, whether that is in terms of recalls, reputational impact, and making them care about it. Because I’m equipped to understand and be the quality individual because I have had enough training, I’ve had enough education to understand that.

[00:25:01] Sainyam Arora: But inviting people who might not be equipped to understand that into that process and making them care about it, but also involving them into the process as if they had the power to contribute, really made a big difference, into that cultural and mindset shift. And with leadership asking the right question, it can really feel like a collaborative.

[00:25:22] Sainyam Arora: Platform instead of a siloed, broken down, structured environment where people can instantly blame and say it’s quality’s job

[00:25:28] Josh Santo: Quick clarification question on that idea of leaders. What type of leaders are we talking about? are we talking about plant management? Are we talking about corporate leadership? What are your thoughts there?

[00:25:41] Sainyam Arora: So I think everything gets driven from the top down, in essence in most organizations. but my counterintuitive approach to it is that everything gets, impacted from bottom up. Even though it gets driven down from top down, it can, it gets impacted from bottom up. And in my perspective, when I talk about leadership, local level leadership as well as corporate level leadership because local leadership aligns themselves to the corporate goals.

[00:26:07] Sainyam Arora: And so within my experience when I’ve seen corporate lever leadership. Become an advocate and become an agent in the process of advocating for quality and safety within manufacturing, it gets pushed down to, the local level leadership, but then the impact really starts happening at the bottom level if done the right way.

[00:26:26] Sainyam Arora: So that’s, yeah, in essence, like plant managers, quality managers, but also corporate quality, in organizations can make a valuable impact in all of this.

[00:26:35] Josh Santo: I think leadership is such a great topic to explore. there’s a lot to it and it certainly is the make or break within any organization. On the planet, like bar none manufacturing or not leadership makes or breaks everything. The one of the top questions, or I guess maybe not questions, but topics that I have had the pleasure of discussing with other quality professionals, particularly at events like IAG, is this idea of how can quality.

[00:27:07] Josh Santo: Engage leadership in ways that leadership can understand it. It’s one of the things that has come up pretty consistently is the way in which. Quality measures success may not always translate to certain leadership and what is top of mind for them and what really is driving the need for them to get involved.

[00:27:30] Josh Santo: Sainyam, from your experience, how do you approach engaging leadership to help drive some of those changes that you and your team have identified?

[00:27:42] Sainyam Arora: That’s a great question. So, and it kind of goes back to a little bit about making people care about what you’re trying to achieve. and I’ll pick a very personal example for this. For example, if I want a. Acquaintance of mine to help me on a certain project, there has to be a little bit of an incentive for them to help me, right?

[00:28:02] Sainyam Arora:  Because it invites the process of collaborating. And so something that I’ve observed within leadership and how it can work with you at times is if they care about what you’re trying to achieve. And there’s this concept of common data language, right? Common language. So if I speak the language of quality to a leadership that may not know everything about it or may not care from a perspective about it, they won’t necessarily get fed into the process.

[00:28:33] Sainyam Arora: So there has to be a common relatability point that somehow te tethers us to it. and so in my experience, I’ve seen leadership be bought into. Uh, an idea or a change or some sort of an organizational, systemic, or even manufacturing level change. I’ve seen leadership’s buy and happen when there is a common point that tethers it, whether that is, if their goals are more aligned with getting more product and customer wins and more financial impact.

[00:29:01] Sainyam Arora: But qualities, goals are getting, less quarantine be stuck in your cages and more, customer satisfaction. There’s some level of, connection that both of those have. And it’s really starting off those conversations at that connection point, that brings in that incentive piece so that leadership knows that they have an incentive to buy into this, um, as well as the department that’s asking it.

[00:29:27] Sainyam Arora: or the individual that’s asking it knows the exact tether points, to make that impact.

[00:29:32] Josh Santo: I like that idea. We’ve gotta be speaking the common language. We gotta find the right point to tether it to. You have to some degree know your audience and it is essentially your responsibility to adapt the message, to make it resonate with whomever it is. And that can be a, that can be a lot.

[00:29:54] Josh Santo: that’s a lot of responsibility. And sometimes you’re just like, man, I gotta put in. More effort to get this thing that should be so obvious to everyone to everyone else,

[00:30:04] Sainyam Arora: Yeah.

[00:30:05] Josh Santo: But it is that individual responsibility. there’s a term that you keep using a lot, and I’m actually curious about your perspective on it.

[00:30:12] Josh Santo: You keep saying the word invite,

[00:30:15] Josh Santo: inviting others, inviting leadership. I’m curious about why you’re using the word invite in particular. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:30:24] Sainyam Arora: That’s a funny question because I recently came across my personality insights, developmental,form where I discovered my professional personal kind of ways of working, and I realized that I value being, invited into processes a lot more because. There’s something about being a part of that table.

[00:30:45] Sainyam Arora: There’s something about knowing that you can, have an input that may have an impact. and that can be in a conversation that can be major decision making. That can be in our conversation with manufacturing and quality. and so I make sure that if I’m working on a project that is. impacting production or impacting procurement or supply chain that I’m inviting those parties and stakeholders in, because it’s really them who have that tribal knowledge or that background case on it.

[00:31:16] Sainyam Arora: And what I’m trying to do is drive it from a system design, from a quality perspective, from a quality lens. so I keep using that term a lot, even in my day-to-day job because. I find that word to be very, warm and positively connotated. and I think that makes a huge impact in my day-to-day conversations with leadership and customers and, yeah.

[00:31:37] Josh Santo: It’s certainly collaborative ’cause you’re not going over there and dictating, You’re not going over there. You need to be involved. You need to be involved.

[00:31:46] Sainyam Arora: correct.

[00:31:47] Josh Santo: You’re coming in there. I got this goal, I got this problem. I could really use your help because you bring something that I can’t, that I don’t have, and I really need you right now.

[00:31:57] Josh Santo: And I think that that’s a much more team oriented approach. So I do love that you used that word invite and it was something I was curious to get your perspective on. one of the things that I think has to exist. Aside from process or maybe even. Discipline with regard to continuous improvement in quality is an element of curiosity.

[00:32:21] Josh Santo: In fact, you had said earlier, you brought up this idea of challenging the status quo, and I think that’s important. However, there’s a flip side to that. In some cases, you need people to just execute this thing this way because you’re under deadline and pressure to do it. On the other side there, there’s always an opportunity to.

[00:32:41] Josh Santo: To be better. To do better. So talk to us about the importance of nurturing curiosity and challenging how things are done today while balancing execution of standard processes.

[00:32:54] Sainyam Arora: Yeah, and that’s a great question. I can speak on this topic for hours. manufacturing, needs a good balance of that discipline and curiosity. So standard work, take for example, is essential because it creates consistency, repeatability, but the danger happens when standardization becomes, intellectual comple complacency, right?

[00:33:18] Sainyam Arora: Uh, when I am so used to following a process and I’m so used to standardizing a process that I become complacent with it, that’s when curiosity becomes shunned in a way. Um, and if people will stop asking why a process exists, if people stop asking whether a control still makes sense, um, or whether what they have been doing for three years,can be changed or not, then the system has become rigid.

[00:33:42] Sainyam Arora: And to me, curiosity and nurturing curiosity is directly fed into that continuous improvement and growth mindset, right? If you take in the aspect of I have done whatever I could and this is the best I could do, without really acknowledging the piece that there is. More that you can do and continuously improve on, whether that is in case of, you know, enhancing your production environment or deriving KPIs, it really makes sense in a way where curiosity is the cog behind the continuous improvement.

[00:34:15] Sainyam Arora: and it’s what turns a process from static documentation into living systems. If I’m not curious behind what I am working with in terms of a standardized process. then there is no motivation behind it. And usually you, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this with, being in production environments, but the best environments are usually the ones that, where people are like respectful of standards, but still feel invited to challenge assumptions and challenge the status quo and improve them.

[00:34:43] Sainyam Arora: I would love to play devil’s advocate in every conversation and room I’m in. if there are 10 people agreeing on something, I would love to be the person that says, well, I disagree. and challenge that because it’s really that challenging thought that drives us to us to do better, in any environment that we’re in, 

[00:35:01] Sainyam Arora: So to me that nurturing curiosity aspect is very important.

[00:35:05] Josh Santo: Well, I like how you, you brought in this idea like standard work. This consistency, this repeatability could also, if unchecked, become complacency and complacency could ultimately kill. Any sort of curiosity and what you’re talking about is this, this importance of nurturing curiosity, but how do you actually nurture curiosity for the purposes of learning and growth?

[00:35:32] Josh Santo: What’s your experience been for that?

[00:35:33] Sainyam Arora: So I’ve had a two part experience to this. I’ve had experience where I have been, rightfully told that this is me challenging and pushing the boundaries. More than I need to. and, that aspect leads into being also encourag about nurturing curiosity. So having agency helps a lot. My, in my current role, my manager respects that I have a lot of bubbling energy and I bring in curiosity into whatever I do, because that’s what really shifts the angle in the room and lets everybody do one step better.

[00:36:09] Sainyam Arora: I’m, I am always the person in the room asking why more than anybody is. and the reason behind that is because I was encouraged early on to ask questions and never judge for it. Like you mentioned, he sometimes it’s okay to be dumb. It’s okay to sometimes ask the why, more times than required because it’s in those uncomfortable areas and situations that you discover something very impactful or powerful.

[00:36:34] Sainyam Arora: so to me, encouraging or. Nurturing curiosity begins with letting that space be for curiosity or creating that space for curiosity. Because in a world where we’re rewarding optimization, where we are rewarding, productivity, we don’t ask ourselves enough that it’s okay to ask questions.

[00:36:59] Sainyam Arora: It’s okay to not optimize for a second and ask the why behind it or understand the why behind it. so creating space for curiosity in this over optimized environment is the key to nurture really.

[00:37:11] Josh Santo: Creating space. You know, I, that concept has come up, uh, before with people that I’ve spoken with. Um, I read this book called People Solve Problems, and it’s by, an individual named Jamie Flinch ba. And one of the things that he argues is that in manufacturing you have to make the space for problem solving.

[00:37:32] Josh Santo: He was talking about problem solving, root cause analysis, things like that, and how not enough organizations are truly making and protecting the space to give their time, their team, the time to actually dig into things. These things you are, you’re. Mentioning a similar concept. The space has to be created and even protected to allow for people to ask the whatever questions that that come to mind.

[00:37:57] Josh Santo: And if they seem like dumb questions, well keep in mind that. Not everybody knows as much as you do about a certain topic. You were fresh eyes at one point in time. And the only way to really sort of drive alignment is essentially inviting that curiosity to use your term, invite the curiosity and allow it to exist now, ’cause that term space has come up before.

[00:38:24] Josh Santo: I’m curious about how you think about space. What does it mean to create space for curiosity?

[00:38:31] Sainyam Arora: And that’s a great question. So I love that you highlighted about normalizing having somebody with a fresh perspective. if you look into the auditing world, if I own a process and I audited it, that would be a conflict of interest, right? Because. I have interacted well too many times in the process. I have a bias towards it, and having somebody with a fresh perspective comes up with the idea of them challenging or asking those simple questions, leading to complex answers, and maybe even discovering something new.

[00:39:05] Sainyam Arora: So I think curiosity has to be normalized operationally. It, it cannot be just something we save you. Value teams, um, need, if teams need time or permission or language to ask question, a lot of that I’ve seen in my experience come from, you know, leadership behavior. And we go back to leadership again, because if a supervisor or your direct manager responds defensively every time somebody’s asking questions.

[00:39:33] Sainyam Arora: Or if they’re asking, inviting questions on, I was wondering why this is being done this way. then if they’re shunned down on it and that behavior doesn’t let them breathe, that curiosity disappears very quickly. And I try to nurture that part, by looking at people at the center of everything, the human centered piece of. Every process, every system that we have at the core of every function and every work stream that we have, there’s a human involved in it. so treat them with that, respect and open that space and invite them in that process. And if it’s okay. To ask them a question, ask them a question and ask them more times, ask what’s changed, ask what’s drifting, what seems normal, but should not be, and what trend is coming out or emerging.

[00:40:21] Josh Santo: And once start, once people start basically observing, the process with that lens, curiosity becomes more natural. it becomes everybody’s daily thinking, I had written a question down, but you, you kind of answered it proactively. I was gonna ask you what has to change to facilitate this shift? And I’m curious if you have a different answer to that question. ’cause what I heard you essentially say that to summarize it is leadership. Leadership has to own, create the space and model the behavior, and people need to see that this is how we operate, this is how we approach these topics.

[00:41:00] Josh Santo: This is a way that we do it so that we can. You know, foster this culture together, that’s gonna allow us to, to nurture this curiosity. but I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, so let me ask the question to you, and then if it’s leadership, great. But if it’s something else, great. What do you think has to change to facilitate this?

[00:41:19] Sainyam Arora: So in my opinion, beginning from that part, I don’t think there’s anything called a stupid question. There is no stupid question. There’s no such thing. It’s a, there’s just a question and every question should invite an answer. I do think leadership plays a piece to this, right? growing up I was never taught in my schools or my educational platforms or by my upbringing.

[00:41:43] Sainyam Arora: That if I ask a question that it’s not welcomed. and I was always encouraged in asking questions. I would rather ask questions and understand something, than jump to conclusions and assume something. And, and I think leadership and people overseeing a process or the system thinkers are responsible for modeling that behavior.

[00:42:02] Sainyam Arora: But, we also have to look into, there’s an inherent piece to this, which comes from within, not just leadership. So what I mean by that is, and I’ll give you a quick example. A lot of people have been using artificial intelligence to, use in our day-to-day functions and their day-to-day work streams, personal life, professional life.

[00:42:21] Sainyam Arora: I’ve been using a lot of artificial intelligence to ask me questions. and what that does to me is that invites curiosity in thinking about something from multiple angles. My human brain cannot think of every angle that exists so inherently. I’ve taken a proactive challenge to let curiosity be the center of everything.

[00:42:42] Sainyam Arora: let curiosity be the driving force behind my day-to-day work. and I’ve seen that creates very capable individuals, to execute high level complex tasks, right? And it kind of compliments with leadership in a way. So if there’s good leadership behavior and proactive inherited, nature of.

[00:43:03] Sainyam Arora: Having curiosity, they kind of work in tandem. and it really nurtures it together, if that makes sense.

[00:43:10] Josh Santo: Yeah, it does make sense. So couple of things coming into play there. So leadership, you also mentioned tools you gave. The specific example of AI and how that can facilitate or help augment, I would say curiosity. you also brought up the responsibility of the individual to be curious and to contribute their own curiosity to the conversations.

[00:43:31] Josh Santo: I’m reminded of, of a conversation I had with a leader of mine some time ago. and it’s this idea that actions and inform behavior, inform environment informs thought and thought informs action, and it creates That That wheel. and then combining that with,another lesson I learned from, actually, she, was on the show, Dr.

[00:43:55] Josh Santo: Rebecca Theaters. She said, it’s easier to act your way into, act yourself into a new way of thinking. Then think yourself into a new way of acting.

[00:44:07] Josh Santo: So essentially take the action first. So throw the question out there, right? You may, maybe you’re not too curious, but you do want to participate in this, in that individual responsibility is, throw the first question out there.

[00:44:23] Josh Santo: There’s not gonna be a stupid question. So put it out there. And those actions. Over time start to become a new way of thinking and unlock that as opposed to trying to become curious

[00:44:36] Sainyam Arora: Oh, I love that. I love that

[00:44:38] Josh Santo: Oh yeah.try to repeat that to myself whenever I’m taking on something new, whether that’s a hobby or habit or whatever the case is it’s just a reminder of you.

[00:44:49] Josh Santo: You’re gonna overthink it and thinking’s not gonna change what you do, so just do it.

[00:44:54] Sainyam Arora: just do it.

[00:44:55] Josh Santo: And just do it. Just do it Now I wanna come back. you brought up ai. AI is, we’re in the most hyped technology phase, I dunno, probably of our lifetimes. I say that now. Who knows what’s gonna happen in five years.

[00:45:08] Josh Santo: But I love that you brought up this example of using AI to facilitate curiosity. ’cause you called it out. I can’t think of everything, so I’m going to engage this tool to augment my own curiosity, but I wonder. Is there a potential flip side to that? How do you balance using something like AI to help you become more curious versus, losing that curiosity and becoming complacent through relying on ai?

[00:45:40] Sainyam Arora: That’s a great question. That’s a great question. I love that question. One of my older relatives asked me and mentioned to me, AI is bad. And it made me ponder that no tool is inherently good or bad, right? It’s the use of the tool that may be good or bad. So when we create, when AI was created, or it, worked its way through our evolution in technology, it was never created with the intent of it being a bad tool.

[00:46:09] Sainyam Arora: so I love that you bring up that there is a flip side to that piece of having curiosity and using AI to augment that. I think the flip side can go in a very different direction, where if AI is in a weak culture and used in the perspective of something negative or something, to cut corners, it can create passivity.

[00:46:32] Sainyam Arora: So what I mean by that is it. Brings people to stop thinking critically, accept outputs too quickly and even outsource their judgment. And there’s a word for it, right? There’s a term for it, which is, cognitive atrophy. When you continuously use a tool to outsource your thinking, it almost leaves your muscle memory.

[00:46:54] Sainyam Arora: It’s like I have a self-driving car that I’m driving for 60 years. Then one day it stops working and I’m supposed to drive a car. I’m probably not gonna remember how to drive a car after 60 years of work, being driven in a self-driving car. So that cognitive atrophy happens and it risks our own decline of being proactive, being curious.

[00:47:14]Sainyam Arora:  and I love how you bring up the flip side to it, because the opposite happens when it’s in a strong culture, right? AI can actually increase that curiosity. If you ask it and invite it into the collaborative process, it can help teams surface, problems that have been underlying for the longest time.

[00:47:33] Sainyam Arora: It can compare scenarios, it can think from more angles that a human brain can,and spend more time troubleshooting and asking better questions. so for me, it’s not the issue of whether AI is good or bad, it’s about how it’s being used. and so it’s interesting to see that kind of flip side of curiosity, that it can almost lead you into cognitive decline.

[00:47:56] Josh Santo: that’s a fair point. It is a tool and. Whatever you do with the tool is then what kind of earns the judgment of good or bad use of said tool. But,I think you drew a pretty clear scope in that response, which is, you’re essentially outsourcing, the kind of, this, how am I trying to put this?

[00:48:18] Josh Santo: You’re outsourcing elements of. This is gonna sound the wrong way, but just go with me on this topic. You’re outsourcing elements of the thought process where you have to, you’re going down one route and then you’re going down another route and you’re going down another route in order to come to a conclusion.

[00:48:37] Josh Santo: So you’re essentially, to some degree speeding up the time it takes to get to the right decision. If you’re using that correctly, what you are not doing, you’re not outsourcing the judgment because. The individual, the person, the human is the one that retains that judgment. But if you can leverage it to, to see the different things that you might, it might have taken you a lot longer in order to do that, but to your point, it could have been better, but continuous improvement, we will, we could workshop that, but. This idea, like with your judgment, with your curiosity, you use it or lose it, right? You’re your self-driving car example. If you’re not, you haven’t driven a car. Maybe it’s like riding a bike, you’ll find out in 60 years after you’re, used to it.

[00:49:25] Josh Santo: but let’s dig into AI just a little bit more, if we can. AI is very hyped right now. What do you think people are actually doing with AI in manufacturing?

[00:49:36] Sainyam Arora: Yeah, and there’s so much out there, right? AI is. Growing at an exponential rate. So it’s almost hard to keep a track of it. I’ve seen organizations offer certifications for AI and they’re great, but by the time you get that certificate, it’s almost already outdated because it’s moving at such light speed.

[00:49:55] Sainyam Arora: and so for me, I recently gave a panel discussion, at the quality show at the Max event, and we talked about AI being at work and how it really impacts manufacturing. How does it, how does AI seep into manufacturing? And I think with manufacturing, with Industry 4.0 and 5.0, now we’ve seen a pattern where we kind of jump ahead of ourselves a little bit.

[00:50:18] Sainyam Arora: This is a trend you’ll see in manufacturing, right? Uh, and we don’t ask ourselves the foundational questions. And that’s the thing with AI that’s happening here. So we have, let’s say, for example, a report that’s being generated on paper. Traceability record that’s being generated in Excel, a Power BI report that’s making a dashboard for an organization, A PLC system that was installed in 2018.

[00:50:45] Sainyam Arora: But AI is supposed to come into this environment, into this legacy environment and feed into all these fragmented and siloed systems. Now, that’s a difficult challenge to address, right? And so the right question, manufacturing. Needs to ask itself in this industry is how do I connect my fragmented systems or how do I prepare myself for when AI comes in to the shop floor? And what I mean by that is having common data language. So there is this concept of unified universal data model. So if there is an equipment that is called out in A-P-N-I-D or a mechanical design, but that equipment is being called something totally else by maintenance department and two different departments are collecting data on it.

[00:51:37] Sainyam Arora: when AI will come in, you’re feeding it garbage. So the confident output of that, that AI is very good at confidently in answering something super fast with. Is gonna be garbage. And that idea of garbage and garbage out really sticks here, which is that you have to work on integrating and interconnecting your data systems and having a unified data language across departments.

[00:52:02] Sainyam Arora: so that when we are ready for the workforce to be moving towards the direction of AI and having it involved in your shop floor, having it being involved in your predictive analytics. That it’s easier to feed that data in. And there’s a lot of academic research on this. there’s a lot more plants, and a lot more mature production, environments that are doing this.

[00:52:23] Josh Santo: but for the masses of the industry, we need to work on getting a collaborative, getting a common data language for the most part. I think that’s a great point to raise. AI offers so much potential, so much that hasn’t even been realized because it isn’t really,I shouldn’t say it isn’t. Manufacturing typically isn’t at a point where they can capitalize on getting the most out of such a tool for the reasons that you said.

[00:52:57] Josh Santo: One of the things that AI is going to require is data. And so one of the things you have to ask yourself is,are we at a point where we can get AI to access our data? So if you’re still using. Paper spreadsheets to track critical data points. You’re introducing potential errors. ’cause I’m sure you transcribe that into whatever system and that’s how it becomes digital.

[00:53:22]  Josh Santo: there can be, there’s a whole lot on just that act of, moving that data point to another place like manually and the errors that it can introduce. Not only that, but the time delays. But anyway, I like your point of. Look, AI offers so much potential and you’re probably not ready for it for these reasons.

[00:53:40]  Josh Santo: And even if you had these digital systems, a lot of companies struggle with exactly what you’re call calling out, which is this need for a unified data model. This data point in my CMMS correlates to this data point in my QMS, which, relates to this data point here and you really have to have that.

[00:54:01]  Josh Santo: Clear understanding for the sake of AI that this, these are the connections. In order to make sense of the data, you need that context. and I couldn’t help but remark that once again, you’re bringing up this idea of having a common language, which was. One of the first things we talked about in order to get different siloed organizations to break down that quality as a department and turn it into quality as a culture mindset.

[00:54:27]  Josh Santo: Was that common language? and I love how that’s just coming up again of even AI needs a common language. So maybe the entire takeaway of this episode is focus on that common language, that shared understanding. 

[00:54:41]  Josh Santo: wells we’re one last question for you before we wrap up. Love ending with this. I want to know what’s happening in the world of manufacturing that’s got you excited.

[00:54:52] Sainyam Arora: Oh man. There is so much. even talking about AI gets me very excited in manufacturing because, we’re at this confluent. Of space where there is industry knowledge progressing and eluting with time as we speak. we’re progressing with so much automation and technological advancement and for AI to come into this space right now and almost create this urgency and need to have that common language, and almost having everybody relate on it, right?

[00:55:22] Sainyam Arora: I’ve talked to multiple industry experts from different companies, and everybody has the same concern. and so there’s something special about humans at the end of the day relating to all this. When you mentioned the common language piece of it, I think it’s imperative that we have that common language, even though, we are all diverse and having diversity in the room, but having a common language to that really puts things into perspective and something that relates to that and gets me very excited for manufacturing in this space right now is.

[00:55:53] Sainyam Arora: The wave of generation that’s stepping into manufacturing, right? A lot of Gen Z professionals are going to be entering and are already entering this space. and we have a huge vacuum that is being created at the same time because a lot of experts in this industry with a lot of tribal knowledge are going to be leaving.

[00:56:13] Sainyam Arora: So we’re at this very interesting time in manufacturing, and challenging environments. More often than not push you to continuously improve. So that’s what really gets me riled up.

[00:56:25] Josh Santo: I love that I’m reminded of a quote from one of my most favorite songs. Destruction breeds a very rough road, but it also brings creation.

[00:56:35] Sainyam Arora: Absolutely. That’s a good one.

[00:56:38] Josh Santo: Red hot chili peppers californication everyone. with that, we covered a lot. for everything from quality as a mindset, as a culture, not as a department. The spirit of continuous improvement and how that lives within quality, the importance of inviting others, that diverse perspective, making it safe to be curious and leadership, really instilling and living by the behaviors debt.

[00:57:04] Josh Santo: The team should model so much great stuff. Sainyam. I can clearly see why you are on this upward trajectory in the quality world. I can’t wait to see what’s next from you. looking forward to watching your innovations come to light, as you continue. So thanks for joining us today.

[00:57:21] Sainyam Arora: Thank you for having me. It’s an honor. Thank you so much.