Lean Blog Interviews

The episode contains solid practitioner insights about quality systems, particularly around cost of poor quality, blameless investigations, and succession planning. However, there is substantial filler including lengthy personal anecdotes, promotional segments, and repetitive conversational padding that dilutes the insight density. Chad's core ideas about systems over heroes and building prevention rather than fighting fires are valuable but not exceptionally novel in lean circles.

“when it is, when companies see like, well, why are we shipping all these bad parts? It's because that's what you promote at the end of the day. You promote the output. Everyone's incentives or bonus structures are based on the product going out of the door.”

“what I really wanted to do is, you know, when we talk about we want to build a system that's not dependent on whoever comes in next. Right. I think as far as when it comes to integrity and uh, when it comes to wanting to. When it comes to having a passion for what you do, you hope that you build something that someone can come in and springboard off of”

Chad's thinking draws heavily from established lean and quality frameworks (5Y, fishbone, FMEA, capability studies, cost of poor quality). While his framing around 'systems not heroes' and emphasis on blameless investigation are sound, these are not novel concepts - they reflect Toyota thinking and Amy Edmondson's work on psychological safety that he explicitly cites. The book's narrative structure is fresher than the underlying ideas.

“we have the 5Y principles. We have all these principles. When we go into root cause investigation and brainstorming activities, it's a number of questions”

“I cite and mention Amy Edmondson's book, the Fearless Organization”

Chad Diggs is a legitimate practitioner with 20+ years hands-on quality experience at real manufacturers (St. Jude Medical, Boeing, Collins Aerospace, Honeywell customers). He has built actual quality systems and now advises mid-market manufacturers. He's neither a pure thought leader nor a career podcaster. However, he is not a C-suite executive or founder at massive scale, and his consulting work is relatively recent compared to his hands-on tenure, which slightly limits the 'been there at the top' factor.

“I am a, uh, practitioner. I had no formal training, so I came into this over 20 years ago as a quality inspector, the lowest level of quality inspectors”

“He leads a team of quality, uh, engineers supporting first article inspection reviews for customers including Boeing, Collins Aerospace and Honeywell”

Chad provides some concrete numbers (25% cost of poor quality loss, $30 million company loss, 12% failure rate example) and names real customers (Boeing, Collins Aerospace, Honeywell, St. Jude Medical). He discusses real tools (CMM programming, GD&T, FMEA, PFMEA, CAPA). However, much of the discussion is abstracted through the fictional character Christina's story rather than direct case examples. He lacks specific quantified outcomes from his own implementations, timelines, or ROI data from real projects he led.

“And it was about 25%. Uh, of what? Of the company's income. So they were losing a ton of money.”

“That's 30 million that the company was losing on bad quality. And plus the reputation impact, the loss of contracts.”

Mark asks solid opening questions and some thoughtful follow-ups, particularly around the book structure and the blameless investigation framework. However, the conversation largely follows a predictable interview script with minimal pushback or productive disagreement. Mark doesn't challenge Chad's claims, probe for counterexamples, or dig into tensions (e.g., how realistic is succession planning in high-turnover manufacturers, or how does this work in non-lean cultures?). The pacing is loose with long tangents that meander rather than sharpen thinking.

“But you've trained them not to. Yes, it's a systemic problem, it's a leadership problem.”

“Um, you know, I think this will help us segue into the book and the stories and the principles there.”