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Maggie Benson’s Journey: Setting the Stage for Continuous Improvement

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of columns about Maggie Benson, a fictional character, to demonstrate continuous improvement and education in SMT assembly.

As she looked out of her office window at Acme Corporation’s electronics assembly facility in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, Maggie Benson could just barely make out the first snowfall on Mount Manadnock. She was in a bit of a celebratory mood, as she had just been promoted to senior engineer—way ahead of her peers. She and her boyfriend, John, both attributed their success to being students at Ivy University in Hanover, NH. It wasn’t just Ivy U; it was the teaching and mentoring of Professor Patty Coleman and, to some extent, Professor Coleman’s mentor, “The Professor.” As Maggie was contemplating these pleasant thoughts, she was startled by the phone ringing.

“Hello, this is Maggie Benson, how may I help you?”

“Hey, Magpie, it’s your Gramps.”

Maggie hated it when her grandad called her “Magpie,” but she knew it was said with affection.

“Gramps, what’s up?”

“Nothing much; it’s just that Grandma and I want to give you and your loser boyfriend our company,” Granddad replied.

“Gramps, it’s not April Fool’s Day!” Maggie chuckled.  

She also knew her grandfather had great affection and respect for her boyfriend, John.

“We are serious, Sweetie. We want to retire, and we think you and John could really improve Benson Electronics,” he said.

“But Gramps, we can’t afford to buy you out,” Maggie replied.

“Grandma and I want to give it to you. We love the people at the company and want them to have a bright future. In addition, we think you two can improve the company and bring it into the 21^st century. Oh, and the $2 million in the company’s bank account is yours, too.”

Maggie was stunned. What a gift!

“Gramps, let me talk to John and see what he thinks.”

She called John and they both agreed they should take a half-day vacation to ponder this offer.

After a couple of hours of chatting, they agreed that they should take the offer. They believed they could do much to improve BE (Benson Electronics). However, they also both agreed that only one of them should take a leave of absence from Acme, in case things didn’t work out.

They sketched out a continuous improvement plan, starting with the receipt of the order to the shipping of the assemblies. In trying to help Maggie’s grandfather in the past, they already knew that the up time on the two lines was less than 15%, and first pass yield was in the low 90% range. That said, continuous improvement on the lines would likely involve more than five major projects. They both knew that the solder paste being used had poor transfer efficiency and poor response-to-pause. They also knew that there was no organized data collection of first pass yield fails; the boards just went to rework if defective. They had both chuckled a few months ago when they found out that no one at the company knew what a Pareto chart was. So, they were confident that they could make many improvements to the company’s processes.

There were business processes, too. In some cases, it took a week to respond to an order with a quote. They were less confident to address some of these issues.

“Hey,” John said. “Remember Frank Emory? He is getting his MBA at Ivy U and needs a business project to graduate. I’ll see if I can recruit him to help us streamline the business processes.”

They continued to discuss the challenges and worked out a high-level plan on several sheets of paper.

Finally, they both said in unison, “Let’s do it!”

Maggie looked pensive for a moment, “We’re forgetting something.”

“What’s that?” John replied.

“You proposed last night, and I accepted. We should tell our parents and grandparents,” Maggie teased as she punched him in the shoulder.

“Yeah, right, let’s start with your mom,” John sheepishly replied.

Will Maggie and John’s continuous improvement plans be able to bring BE into the 21^st century?

How will their families accept the future wedding?

Stay tuned for the next episode. And to read the prequel to this story, “The Adventures of Patty and the Professor,” click here.

This column originally appeared in the May 2021 issue of SMT007 Magazine.

Illustration of Maggie Benson by Sophie Morvan.