Continuous Improvement and Retention in Engineering Create a Competitive Advantage for DCS Customers

All engineers, either through practice or education, possess similar knowledge of engineering principles and methods. We all use the same tools and techniques and apply them to the material handling system design challenge at hand. 

Yet the engineering teams of some systems integrators outperform those of others. Why? What accounts for the difference in outcomes for different engineering organizations? And what are the advantages of system integration as performed by the DCS engineering team over others?

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I believe it’s a combination of two things: a commitment to continuous improvement and to building a workplace culture that fosters retention through engagement. At DCS, we believe this across all departments within our company. But in this post, I’m going to focus on our engineering team. 

Continuous Improvement Comes from Experience

I believe that the engineers who deliver the best competitive advantages of system integration to customers are the ones who continuously improve their engineering judgment through experience over time. That is, the experience of successfully addressing the challenges of one project informs an engineer’s expertise and approach on the next project. 

Put another way: Experience informs judgment and allows an engineer to ask the right questions moving forward. That leads to the best ideas, processes, practices, and outcomes — all born from experience over time — that contribute to a customer’s competitive advantage.

High Retention Allows System Integration Engineers to Apply Experience

Working from the premise that engineering experience improves engineering judgment and creates a competitive engineering advantage, DCS recognizes that retention is imperative. For our customers to benefit from our engineers applying their learned experience over time, we need them to stick around. Therefore, DCS prioritizes a culture that supports both engagement and retention. Both are key to every team, but especially — in my opinion — to engineers.

The Practices Underpinning the DCS Engineering Team’s Success

In my view, all humans are created in the image of our Creator and we each have inherent value grounded in that image-bearing Truth. This belief forms the foundation of three keys to successful continuous improvement and retention for all teams — and certainly teams of engineers.

• Retention results from taking good care of people. That means recognizing that people are more than the work they do; they are not cogs plugged into a machine. While this may seem obvious, in my experience engineering leaders frequently treat their teams this way. They often assign unrealistic timelines and workloads and ask the engineers to work harder and longer to get the work done.How does this negatively impact retention? Consider a spring. When stretched, it will return to its original shape if allowed. But when a spring is subjected to repeated stretching with no release for a long enough period of time, it becomes deformed… permanently. Resilience in springs is about bounce back. It’s the same for people.>> At DCS, we recognize this. Our engineering leadership team spends a lot of time and energy focused on taking good care of our people. That means putting more time than most other organizations into managing our capacity to allow space for rest and recovery. To do this, we gauge our ability to take on new projects based on our current capacity and capabilities. We also responsibly grow our engineering team, as new projects and opportunities arise.
• Trusting intent is key to engagement. DCS has built a culture that trusts intent. This means that a critique of a design is motivated by a genuine desire to help others improve by sharing knowledge and insights — not an opportunity for an engineer to make themselves look good or show off how much they know.Trusting intent works both ways. Those who speak up and question don’t do so because they believe a design oversight resulted from incompetence or lack of care. The DCS culture accepts that humans are imperfectly human, and we all make mistakes. We also believe we make fewer mistakes when we have engineering judgment guided by experience and a culture that encourages the application and acceptance of that judgment to our work.>> At DCS, our engineering culture starts with trusting intent. The engineering leadership team expects and models this behavior and often reminds each other of its importance (we are not perfect, remember?). Trusting intent is critical to encouraging engagement in pursuit of continuous improvement.
• Leadership is a discipline just as engineering is a discipline. Developing strong engineering leaders whose focus is nurturing their people while continuing to hone their leadership skills is crucial. While I believe engineers should lead engineering teams, I also know that the best engineers aren’t necessarily the best engineering leaders. To create a competitive advantage for our customers, we need both.That’s why DCS has a strong team of engineering leaders who possess engineering judgment guided by experience, and who also have worked hard to develop and refine their leadership skills. Likewise, we have an advancement path for technical experts who are not inclined to lead people.>> The DCS engineering leadership team focuses on continuous improvement and development of our leadership skills. We are also extremely selective when placing people into leadership roles. And, most importantly, we want engineering leaders who lead from the motivation to take care of the people on their teams.

Practicing These Principles Leads to Great Results

Everyone at DCS benefits from the examples set by our ownership and leadership. Valuing people, creating a culture that encourages continuous improvement, and retention through engagement all very much align with their expectations. 

The numbers bear this out: The DCS engineering team’s engagement scores and retention rates are both industry leading. That has allowed us to build a team of highly capable, resilient engineers. And each continuously improves their engineering judgment through experience over time. The result? Our customers benefit from engineered material handling solutions that deliver the best competitive advantages of system integration.

Benefit from the Advantages of System Integration with DCS Engineering

Connect with us and experience the difference experienced systems integration engineers who are committed to their place of work can make for your company’s competitive advantage. 

AUTHOR:

Ben Moyer

Director of Engineering

benm@designedconveyor.com