Driving our car we all know the funny noise or the red lamp that suddenly appears. Some of us – me included – has experienced the huge cost of ignoring it. I had to put in a new motor in my old Toyota as I thought I could just drive 4 km more to make an important meeting with a red heat lamp!

As a manager in a production facility, you see red lights all the time. You observe them by yourselves, but most of the time you hear things from your colleagues or staff. The question is how you deal with all that information as it is mixed with noise and less important stuff.

You need to sort out the important and urgent red lamps and deal with them right away. If not, your list of important items become too long and you may not have the insight to prioritize them correctly, as they were all important enough to come on your priority list in the first place. If this is the case it is time to seek more help and continue to demonstrate a sense of urgency.

In several case studies of bad incidents in the Food and Nutrition industries the managers knew about the problems but did not deal with them in time, and they grew bigger. The last year Abbott infant case in USA included.