BEI SENSORS

We’ve all had the experience one time or another of a less-than-perfect encounter with a product, person, or service.  Remember that store clerk who just couldn’t be bothered to come over to the register and ring you up?  How about the waiter who was less than enthusiastic about sending your undercooked meal back to the chef?  Or that recent backyard grill that you had to assemble without the critical special wrench that was supposed to be included?

You probably were a little frustrated, but really couldn’t (or didn’t) do anything about it.  Well, maybe you stiffed the waiter at least – but even that isn’t a very satisfying result.  You would have preferred to just have good service to begin with.  What you really want to have happen is to be able to give immediate, honest feedback and have it acted on, like right now, please!

Things are more straightforward in the world of industrial control.  Sensors become the eyes, ears and the nerves of a process constantly communicating back to a controller with an honest assessment of performance.  Temperatures that are too high get cooled, operations that are too slow get speeded up and processes that need to be synchronized, really are.  What could be simpler?

So I got to thinking, can we really apply the feedback rules of control systems to the living breathing world of humans?  I thought I might give it a try.  My first chance came when I sat down in front of a chatterbox at a recent theatre event.  Partway through the first few minutes of the performance I turned around and said, “Excuse me, but I was wondering if you might hold your voice down a bit while the musicians are playing?”  I smiled politely and then turned back around in my chair waiting for the huffy rejoinder.  None came and all was still.  At intermission as I stood up, the woman looked at me and said with a grin “That was the nicest way anyone has ever told me to shut up”  Score one for feedback.

I had a recent opportunity at work when the IT department had to reinstate my access to certain files because an “automatic” file manager had reset the access codes.  To be honest they did solve the immediate problem, however, just like a temperature controller that was still reading a wrong temperature, I suggested that they go the next step and actually set the attributes of the code so it didn’t happen again saving them (and me) a future repeat of the same email exchange. “Great idea!” came back the enthusiastic response.  Another triumph for feedback.

Now I’m emboldened to find other opportunities to try this feedback scheme.  I figure if I’m direct, polite and honest, I’ve got a chance to succeed.  At least I’m two for two so far.