In many manufacturing operations, measurements and goals for front-line teams are often disconnected from what customers actually care about. That’s a problem. When goals and metrics are aligned with customer expectations and competitive market conditions, they become meaningful. They’re no longer arbitrary productivity calculations from a bygone era—they’re context-rich tools that help teams understand why improvements matter.

But this approach requires something many companies struggle with: trust.

Transparency Builds Trust—and Performance

Take a custom job shop, for example. They bid work based on labor, materials, and a markup to cover SG&A and (hopefully) generate a bit of profit. So why not share the estimated labor hours directly with front-line leaders—and even all employees?

I’ve heard this objection more times than I’d like to admit:

“If we share the hours, they might take longer than they would have otherwise. If we don’t, maybe they’ll get it done faster.”

Oh boy. That’s a trust issue, plain and simple. You don’t have trust issues like that in your business, do you? I hope not!

If we agree that maximum transparency is the right path in most situations, then it’s worth stepping back and asking: Do your measurements and front-line goals actually align with customer needs? Businesses need goals and measures. But they must be authentic, clearly communicated, and directly tied to customer value.

Notes from the Field:

A few years ago, I worked with a $150M construction company in the natural gas industry. We started in their manufacturing facility, looking for ways to measure throughput and productivity—specifically focusing on cost. We partnered with the estimating team to understand how labor estimates were developed. Then we created a closed-loop feedback system with the manufacturing team. Here’s what we did:

• Estimated hours by item were broken down and shared with manufacturing teams.
• Team Leaders collaborated with experienced team members to gather their own projected hours, which sometimes differed from the original estimate.
• Daily huddles tracked actual hours against both estimated and projected hours.

This is where Gemba time—being present, listening, and learning—makes all the difference. We explained that the goal wasn’t to work at a feverish pace. It was to understand the realistic time required to consistently produce high-quality work. Coming in ahead or behind estimates wasn’t a failure—it was a learning opportunity.

This feedback loop helped us:

• Identify waste and fluctuation on the shop floor
• Improve estimating accuracy
• Become more competitive in the market

Scaling the Approach to Field Operations

After success in the manufacturing facility, we expanded the same approach to field construction teams. The work was more varied and complex—excavating one day, pulling cable the next—but the potential rewards were even greater. This is just one example of how tying front-line goals and measures to customer pricing can drive real results. And it’s not limited to construction or manufacturing. These principles apply across industries and pricing models.

Reality-Based Scheduling Matters

No matter how your company prices or performs today, one thing is certain:
Production schedules must be built on actual, demonstrated performance levels. Pie-in-the-sky plans lead to late orders, firefighting, and chaos.

And remember—these same concepts apply to Quality and Delivery metrics too.