As FCSI Professional members, our consulting ethic is one of our driving points of alignment. It’s a given that our recommendations are intended to be the best solution for any given project on any given subject or issue, within any given budget. Our Allied members do everything possible to provide great options for us, supported with positive relationships including a host of educational opportunities to any of us as members. First, I want to celebrate this triad of relationship. How fortunate we are to be here, all in support of great solutions for our clients and our industry as a whole.
At the same time, for MAS consultants, it’s easy to get a bit lost in the shadow of design and specification. Certainly, MAS consultants work with ergonomic flow, budgets, efficiency, and more. Our role in these efficiencies will likely be more and more the case as AI and robotics evolve. That said, MAS consultants have a much larger role to play with influencing specification, than most of us typically acknowledge. This is where:
Most MAS consultants make what I call, a “soft spec.” From our myriad operations perspectives our soft spec is a recommendation of a piece of equipment or a brand name that we know can be counted on. As often as not, this soft spec comes from within a family of options that our design sisters and brothers know intimately. What can get lost at times is that MAS members know the relationship of the sales team or the design team, the delivery habits, systems, and processes as well as either design or allied. Then there’s the knowledge that hits operators in every segment. MAS experiences the life cycle performance of the equipment and the service back up; we know who to call and how each and all respond to that call.
The outcome? It’s important we in MAS keep learning, paying attention and stand tall in alignment of spec and performance as part of a very potent triad of pros focused on knowledge, application and ethic!
As a long time member, past officer and chair, I know from experience, it’s easy to get frustrated keeping up CEU’s year to year, attending clinics and more. That said, bravo to our Allied members for supporting our ongoing skill sets, all three, Allied, Design and MAS. Innovation is critical in the world all three of us inhabit.
Our RELATIONSHIP is important. Our whole is greater than the sum of our parts.
The relationship we have across the three professions is more integrated than isolated. All we need to do is acknowledge and allow this “triad” of skills to flourish. My point is easy to take for granted or even keep off the radar, but let’s not. As FCSI members, presumably the best of the best, we have real opportunities in an acknowledgement of blended skills, shared education, and true innovation. And, watch sales grow exponentially.
Rudy Miick FCSI is the founder and president of The Miick Companies, LLC.
Send your questions or comments to rudy@miick.com
