We were looking through a client’s assembly photos when something caught our attention. An electronic component they regularly purchased sat inside a larger product. It arrived neatly painted and branded, but once fitted, nobody would ever see it.
The finish looked good. We just could not see what it was doing for the client. So we went back to the manufacturer and asked what could change if we removed the decorative painting and kept the labelling to what was required.
That opened a more useful conversation than asking for a discount. We were looking at work the factory could stop doing, rather than asking it to do the same work for less. The revised option brought the component price down by 12% and cut production lead time in half.
Only then did we take the finding to the client. They had not asked us to review the component, and there was no urgent problem to solve. We had noticed something, followed it through and found an improvement worth bringing to them.