FIG. A · METHOD SPECIFICATION
The problem
Every shop has documentation — quality manuals, procedures, work instructions. Most of it exists to pass an audit, not to teach anyone how to do the work. The real methods — the way your best estimator actually prices a tricky plate, the judgment calls your programmer makes before accepting a nest — live in people's heads. That's a problem when those people are stretched, on leave, or move on.
What I do
I come in, learn how your people actually work, and capture the methods that matter into plain-language documents your whole team can follow. Not compliance paperwork — practical, working references that a new starter can read on day one.
These aren't procedures that sit in a folder. They're recorded in a form that your team can follow and your software can run — so the repetitive checking happens automatically, every time, without anyone having to remember.
The methods get tested against real scenarios before you see them. If they don't produce the right result, I fix them and test again. What gets delivered is something that works — not a first draft.
Four principles
Your expertise, not mine.
I don't impose methods. I extract yours. My role is to recognise which knowledge is valuable, identify gaps, and structure it into something that sticks.
It compounds over time.
A one-off fix solves today's problem. A recorded method solves it every time it comes up again — and gets better with use.
Tested before it's delivered.
Every method gets run against real scenarios and measured. When a gap is found, it gets updated and re-tested.
The goal is independence.
The methods belong to your business. Plain language, no proprietary lock-in. When the engagement ends, the knowledge stays.
What the engagement looks like
30–45 minutes, free. I learn about your operation and we work out whether there's a fit.
On-site, free. We walk through your workflows together and identify the ones that matter most.
I take what we found and put together a clear picture: what's fixable, in what order, and what it would take.
The hands-on work. I extract the methods, test them, and hand over finished, working documentation.
Optional. Methods are living documents — I can come back to update them as your operation evolves.
Example
Your salesperson has just finished a 100-line quote. Customer comes back with a revision — quantity changes, thickness changes, a few items swapped out. The salesperson works through the revision, but not every change gets caught. Or worse — the customer sends through a PO based on an earlier version of the quote and doesn't mention the revision. Salesperson processes it as-is. Nobody picks it up until dispatch, or until the customer calls asking why they got the wrong parts.
Now multiply that across a full day. Your salesperson is cross-checking 20–30 purchase orders against the original quotes. Even if each one takes five minutes, that's hours of repetitive work — and the mental load adds up. The checks exist. But expecting someone to be 100% accurate from the first PO to the twenty-eighth isn't realistic. Capture that method properly and every PO gets checked the same way, every time — whether it's the first of the day or the last.