To be clear, flexibility can take many forms. If you can change die setups quickly without penalty to output or productivity, you're said to have machine flexibility. However, it may not be enough. Why? Because flexibility only counts if the customer is better served as a result. Being "machine" flexible can be negated by functional inflexibility. Functional inflexibility might come from a hierarchical organization structure that restricts information sharing between functional areas. The discipline of the organization overrides the flexibility to respond in one of the functions such as manufacturing.

It's 2 pm on a Friday when a call comes in to the Q/A manager's desk at the Atlanta terminal of a major freight company (annual revenues in the billions). It's a customer service representative who is transferring a call from a panicked customer, a member of the Birmingham Quilters Guild. She has been told that a package which had been scheduled for Thursday delivery would not be arriving until Monday. The problem is, the package contains special quilts that make up an international exhibit that are to be displayed at the guild's annual quilt show. The show will be over on Sunday, so a Monday delivery would do her no good. The quilts were originally misrouted by another terminal and have finally made it to Atlanta.

The customer offers to drive over from Birmingham to pick up the quilts but is told the trailer is sealed and no one is allowed to break the seal. However, realizing the trailer will be in Birmingham by 2 am the next morning, The Q/A manager puts the customer on hold and calls his counterpart in Birmingham. Even though there's no customer pickup allowed on Saturdays the Birmingham Q/A manager volunteers to call the customer as soon as the package arrives and is unloaded.

The relieved customer arrives at the Birmingham terminal at 6:45 am, pick ups the package containing the quilts and the show goes on without a hitch. On Monday, the terminal manager receives homemade cookies along with a thank you card. While not quite sure what he's done to deserve them, he notes that the cookies are his favorites and shares them with the Q/A manager who then fills him in on the story. Another success story and an example of flexibility; except that's not the way it happened.

In fact, on the fourth frustrating call to customer service Friday morning, the customer was told, "it will be delivered Monday. That's the best we can do." Finally, the customer got the representative to tell her the package was in Atlanta. She asked to speak to the terminal manager but was given the Q/A manager instead. When the customer said, "I'll come to Atlanta and pick the package up", the Q/A manager said that the trailer was sealed and the seal could not be broken. When the customer expressed amazement that the trailer was going to sit in Atlanta over the weekend, the Q/A manager revealed the trailer was in fact going to Birmingham that night. When pressed, the Q/A manager gave the customer the phone number of the terminal in Birmingham but didn't know the name of his counterpart in Birmingham.

A call to the Birmingham terminal manager led instead to the Q/A manager who, after hearing the problem, said it wasn't her fault and there was nothing she could do; Saturday pickups were not allowed, the people would have left by 8 am anyway. The customer said she knew the package was arriving at 2 am and would be glad to come before 8 am to get it. The Q/A manager repeated that no pickups were allowed on Saturday so the customer asked to speak to the terminal manager. Since the terminal manager was at lunch, the Q/A manager said she would give him the message.

The customer hung up, thought about her options and called her stock broker who gave her the name of the president of the freight company and a phone number for investor services since no other contact information was on the web site. Investor services didn't answer so she called back to the company's customer service asking to speak to the president of the freight company. After a delay the customer was transferred to headquarters. She finally was able to explain the problem to an assistant to the president. From there, things started to fall into place; the customer did pick up the package at 6:45 am and the show went off without a hitch.

The point of this story is that the higher one has to go in an organization to satisfy a customer, the less flexible that company is. In this particular case, this freight company has an express service with next day delivery. Despite that, the organization wasn't customer centered enough to empower people to help a panicked customer. Before you think of yourself as flexible, find out how well your people can help a customer without getting you involved.