Concise Communications and High-Volume Plating

Succinct articulation of information on high volume, automatic and complex plating operations are essential as there are many moving parts. A great communicator is a good human and leader, who possesses cognitive empathy for their readers or followers and colleagues. He or she will also know the importance of the receiver’s absorption of the message.

There are three types of communications within a plating operation:

1. Operating procedures
2. Written informal operating instructions (i.e. emails and uncontrolled document displays)
3. Verbal delivery of information

Lengthy, convoluted, and incomplete procedures defeat the purpose of its creation and existence. One should not consider writing instructions as a piece of an article to show the skills of the author, rather must shift the emphasis on the readers.

Here are a few factors influencing communication:

• The knowledge delta between the author and the readers on a particular subject.
• Output consistency demand and reader(s) turnover.
• Verbose communication:
  • Eases error and rework and enhances dissatisfaction.
  • Encourages a selective reading and favorable interpretation of the message.

Before we look at the qualities of good communication, let us reminisce what two stalwarts of our times had said on this subject.

Nobel Laurette Herbert Simon once said, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”. 

Albert Einstein related the concise expression of thought to one’s understanding of the particular subject. He said, “if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.

From the readers’ perspective, ‘focus’ is an important habit, and one shall acquaint themselves on the (focusing) ability of mercurial John Maynard Keynes.

Now, dive deeper and answer the below questions:

1. Is concise expression alone enough?
2. Don’t people forget?
3. What is important to the author, and the reader is it always aligned?
4. Don’t our priorities change?
5. Doesn’t information retention power differ between people?

Here I propose a few characteristics of good communication and leave it in your able hands:

• Enhance empathy for the reader or the follower.
• Avoid halo effect - don’t assume and allow individual interpretation of information
• Ensure the information is orderly, complete and easy to understand.
• Be unambiguous about your openness to a timely revision of the procedure(s).
• Ensure the receiver understand and agree with the message.
• Customize information suitable to the receivers.
• Revise, revise, revise….

After these steps, make communications accessible (visible and visual) and periodically (and proactively) reiterate the information.

Finally, in a plating operation, the operating procedures must be complete, concise, and continuously revised to reflect the present requirements. Understanding the influence and effect of empathy and focus is imperative.

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