Every Friday at 7 a.m., the managing director of Northstar Engineering swaps his blazer for overalls. For eight hours Arjun Mehta works alongside machinists, packers and quality inspectors — no entourage, no presentations.
The habit began in 2019 after a product recall that, he later learned, operators had flagged weeks earlier. The warning never climbed the hierarchy. “I realised the organisation had stopped listening,” he says.
Fewer layers, faster fixes
Since then, Northstar has removed two management layers and set up a rule that any worker can stop a line for a quality concern without seeking approval. Defects fell by 38 percent in two years.
The best ideas in this company were never in a boardroom. They were on the floor, waiting for someone to ask.
Arjun is careful not to romanticise the practice. “It is not about looking humble,” he says. “It is about data you cannot get from a dashboard.”
