Department of Defense Lean Six Sigma

Posted on June 5, 2008 by John Hunter

Gordon England, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, signed a directive establishing policy and assigning responsibilities to institutionalize the effort throughout DoD. See a webcast of his speech [the broken link was removed] on lean six sigma to a DoD conference on continuous process improvement.

Leading Business Transformation the “Lean” Way [the broken link was removed]

Since it began employing LSS, the Department of the Navy (DON) has completed 1,700 Black Belt/Green Belt projects and over 2,000 Kaizen events (i.e., action-oriented events designed to improve existing processes). Initial projects were designed to build confidence and gain momentum for success in high-impact core business value streams. The DON’s total of 3,399 trained LSS Green Belts exceeds the Secretary’s goal of 2,000 by the end of 2006, and of the 935 trained LSS Black Belts in the DON, 93 have attained American Society for Quality (ASQ) Black Belt certification.

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) joined with Raytheon to complete an LSS project, which ultimately saved $133.5M across the 2006 FYDP and $421M over the life of the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) Block II program. The integrated product team developed a three-tier approach to reducing weapon unit cost over a two-year period. Success of the JSOW program has led to development of a follow-on Block III weapon system.

The Marine Corps is applying LSS concepts, analytic techniques, and tools to improve the process for identifying, evaluating and acquiring critically needed warfighting equipment. Initial analysis focused on the evaluation stage, where improvements reduced the time required for this step by 35% – from 131 days to 85 days – and identified savings valued at $135K per year.

The first LSS initiative for Army aviation scheduled maintenance was deemed a success and signals a more efficient future for maintaining the Fort Rucker helicopter fleet. More than 32 days of scheduled maintenance were saved during the first LSS effort for Aviation Unit Maintenance involving UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter scheduled maintenance. The first helicopter inducted into the newly developed process was returned to flying status in just 18 days, which included a four-day break for the Fourth of July weekend. That is a 67% improvement in phase flow efficiency from the previous average time of more than 50 days of phase cycle maintenance for the UH-60.

See: online six sigma resources and lean manufacturing resources from the Curious Cat management improvement web site.

Related: Government Lean Six Sigma – Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site – Transformation Through Lean Six Sigma [the broken link was removed] – Army Business Transformation [the broken link was removed] – History Of Quality Management Online – More Lean Government – Army Lean Six Sigma
Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin by William G. Hunter, Jan O’Neill, and Carol Wallen, June 1986.

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Public Sector, Six sigma | Tagged , , , ,

Businesses Tell the IRS They Are Not American but Executives Stay in USA

Posted on June 4, 2008 by John Hunter

I have previously written about the ethically challenged companies that claim they are not American to avoid paying the taxes that they owe. For some reason the executives, often seem to stay in the USA though? It is sad that such behavior is tolerated.

10 Big Businesses That Have Moved Their Headquarters Abroad to Pay Less U.S. Taxes [the broken link was removed]

Halliburton: Houston-based Halliburton, which offers a broad array of oil-field technologies and services to upstream oil and gas customers worldwide, announced the opening of a corporate headquarters in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai on March 12, 2007. The company, which was once led by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, said that its relocation was part of a strategy that it announced in mid-2006 to concentrate its efforts in the Middle East in order to attract business.

Yes the same company taking billions in Pentagon no-bid contracts (Company Official Defends No-Bid Army Contract [the broken link has been removed] – Halliburton Contract Critic Loses Her Job – Halliburton’s Fleecing Ends — Or Does It? [the broken link was removed]).

And that isn’t all – read this on how they don’t pay social security or unemployment… taxes since they are not an American company when they hire American’s to work for the US government in Iraq. Top Iraq contractor skirts US taxes offshore [the broken link has been removed] – “Kellogg Brown & Root, the nation’s top Iraq war contractor and until last year a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., has avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare and Social Security taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in this tropical tax haven.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Economics | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Engineering Innovation

Posted on June 3, 2008 by John Hunter

(video link no longer works so it has been removed)

In the webcast Dean Kamen discusses his latest innovation: robotic arms for people (amazing stuff). Once again he is doing great stuff. It is great what engineers can do (many worked together to get the progress so far) when given the opportunity. We need many more such efforts.

The research was funded by DARPA. DARPA, for those that don’t know, also made reading this blog possible. They funded the development of the internet [the broken link was removed]. I was giving a talk, while I was working for the Office of Secretary of Defense Quality Management Office, on Using Quality to Develop an Internet Resource (back before blogs, but after the web, in 1999). I was trimming things as I spoke and cut the tidbit about DARPA and the internet because I figured everyone already knew that (and I had to trim as I was speaking). In discussions afterwards I found many didn’t know DARPA’s involvement.

Related: Better and Different – Water and Electricity for All – Google Innovation

Dean Kamen Lends a Hand, or Two (August 2007):

Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management | Tagged ,

Management Improvement Carnival #36

Posted on June 1, 2008 by John Hunter

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals.

  • Adopting Agile Processes by Eric Engelmann – “So scrum is about fixing the system. If you don’t write code, it might not be apparent what’s different about this, so I’ll pull out what I love about it…”
  • Generosity comes with international shipping by Andy – “I am the CEO at Timbuk2…and I wanted to say – thank you for the posting. and tell you I am very proud of the team here.

    1. They made this call on their own.
    2. They broke the rules that should be broken

  • The gemba of poverty by Karen Wilhelm – “But the idea wasn’t to give these things to those in need. It was to keep designing and trying until you had something that could be manufactured at a profit to meet a price point poor people could afford.”
  • Fire Fighting vs. Root Cause Problem Solving by Mark Graban – “The workaround does nothing to prevent the problem from occurring again — this ensures more wasted time and more potential problems in the future.”
  • Coffee cup kanban by Corey Ladas – “the cup is the kanban. The cup-ban doubles as an order form that can encode most combinations that a barista should expect.”
  • Teams and Improvement by John Dowd – “The lesson is that being aware of the existence of interactions and being attentive to their implications is a part of team management.”
  • Conference Calls, Kids, and SMED by Ron Pereira – “Why wait until the machine is stopped to get all the tools and supplies needed? Collect all the tools while the machine is running so you don’t waste time once the machine has stopped.”

    • Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged ,

Outsourcing To America

Posted on May 30, 2008 by John Hunter

Outsourcing To America [the broken link was removed]

Toyota began operating in North America in the mid-1980s. It currently operates seven automotive plants there, four of which are in the U.S. A fifth plant is under production in Mississippi. Toyota employs 40,000 manufacturing employees in North America.

In addition to the manufacture of cars and trucks, Toyota runs four unit factories in the U.S., where they produce such parts as engines, transmissions and wheels. Toyota also has a wholly owned subsidiary, Bodine Aluminum, an aluminum casting company, which operates three factories in Tennessee and Missouri.

BMW began operations in the U.S. in 1994, when it opened a plant in Spartanburg, S.C. “Some natural hedging was always a part of the long-term strategy, but also we have a corporate strategy of having production follow the market,” says Robert Hitt, BMW’s manager of public affairs. “Our original plan was to have about 2,000 workers here by the year 2000. We are now at 5,400 people here on the site.”
…
Besides the actual manufacturing of their cars and trucks, Toyota and BMW are using domestic suppliers to provide parts and services for their operations. BMW has over 200 suppliers in North America, 52 of which are located in South Carolina, and 41 of these are new companies started for the purpose of supplying the plant. In South Carolina alone, suppliers of BMW’s Spartanburg plant employ over 14,000 people.

Toyota uses roughly 500 major suppliers in North America. “We’ve always had the philosophy that we should build vehicles where they are sold, so it makes sense to have suppliers close to your manufacturing operations,” says Mike Goss, external affairs manager for Toyota’s engineering and manufacturing division in North America.

Foreign production in the U.S., however, is not limited to the automotive industry…. In fact, almost 1 million Americans get their paychecks from Mexican companies, says Ton Heijmen, senior adviser for outsourcing and offshoring for the Conference Board.

Related: Top 10 Manufacturing Countries 2006 – Moving Jobs to Silicon Valley from India – Global Manufacturing Jobs Data – Toyota in the United States of America Economy – China Outsourcing Manufacturing to USA

Posted in Economics, Lean thinking, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , ,

Paying New Employees to Quit

Posted on May 25, 2008 by John Hunter

[the video is no longer available]

Training new employees and then paying them to quit, sounds pretty bizarre; Zappos is not afraid of doing things differently. Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit – And You Should Too [Harvard broke the link so I removed it – they should pay those responsible (most likely an executive, technical people know better but bad management breaks things) for not maintaining urls to quit]:

Zappos sells shoes—lots of them—over the Internet. The company expects to generate sales of more than $1 billion this year, up from just $70 million five years ago…

Zappos has also mastered the art of telephone service – a black hole for most Internet retailers. Zappos publishes its 1-800 number on every single page of the site – and its smart and entertaining call-center employees are free to do whatever it takes to make you happy. There are no scripts, no time limits on calls, no robotic behavior, and plenty of legendary stories about Zappos and its customers.

This is a company that’s bursting with personality, to the point where a huge number of its 1,600 employees are power users of Twitter so that their friends, colleagues, and customers know what they’re up to at any moment in time. But here’s what’s really interesting. It’s a hard job, answering phones and talking to customers for hours at a time. So when Zappos hires new employees, it provides a four-week training period that immerses them in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. People get paid their full salary during this period.

About 10% of employees take them up on the offer.

Do any of you readers want to persuade Zappo’s to buy a couple airlines (Jet Blue and Southwest don’t seem to go where I need to go, too often) a cell phone company, an internet service provider and a credit card company? I could appreciate the good service in those areas 🙂 If I were them I would start with the credit card company – I really don’t understand why someone doesn’t provide good service in that area – with the huge profits it provides and competitors that treat customers like rubes to be fleeced. Airlines you have to be crazy to buy (so don’t try to convince them of that one first).

My friend, Sean Stickle [the broken link was removed], went to work for custom ink a few months ago. I don’t think they offer to pay new employees to leave but they are devoted to customer service and to not just saying customer service is important but focusing attention on delivering it. They publish “Uncensored Customer Reviews” on their home page. There are some companies that really do value customer service even while most companies do everything they can to provide horrible service.

Related: Respect for People – Understanding Psychology – Starbucks: Respect for Workers and Health Care – Company Culture – Enhancing Passion in Employees – Respect for Workers – Mistreated Customers Let the World Wide Web Know

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, Management, Respect, webcast | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Why is Customer Service So Bad?

Posted on May 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Why is it? I really don’t know. It drives me crazy though – having to put up with horrible service again and again. Is it possible that only a few people actually care about service? I know I care about it, but given the preference of business to continually provide horrible service it should be that you can just provide plan mediocre service and take their business. Yet these companies providing what seems likes worse and worse service somehow stay in business.

Related: Is Bad Service the Industry Standard? – Customers Get Dissed and Tell – Poor Customer Service from Discover Card

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Tagged | 7 Comments

Some Posts from May 2005

Posted on May 22, 2008 by John Hunter

Here are just a few posts from 3 years ago this month on the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog: A Traffic Congestion Non-Solution – Brain Joiner on Dr. Deming – Open Source Management Terms – Google: Good Service not Arbitrage – Annual Report by Warren Buffett

Posted in Management

Deming Auto Repair

Posted on May 20, 2008 by John Hunter

Here is an interesting example of an auto repair shop applying Deming’s ideas, AGCO Automotive in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

In this section we hope to present our business philosophy, through a series of articles written by president Louis Altazan. Our strategy of continual improvement is based on the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming and has been incredibly successful for us. There is nothing we enjoy more than discussing our methods and invite all questions and comments.

The site includes several interesting articles including, Motivating Our Staff:

Clients often ask how we motivate our staff members. The answer is simple, we don’t. We feel good people are already motivated, what they need is removal of the things that de-motivate them
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I also believe this is a far superior state with regard to production, quality, efficiency and human relations than the one that commonly exist in the incentive driven system. It requires management that trust people to do what is best, rather than rely on a system of punishment and reward. It requires management that trust its own ability to share vision and remove obstacles to joy in work. Management’s job shifts from a controller of reward to a leader of an inwardly motivated team of people.

Related: Deming Companies – Stop De-motivating Employees – Deming Management Thoughts – At Ford, Quality Was Our Motto in the 1980s
Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Well Managed Companies

Posted on May 18, 2008 by John Hunter

If a company is dependent on one (or more) people to perform then it is in danger. Processes should be in place that don’t risk the success of the company on the performance of a specific person. If your organization is dependent on a person start taking actions to place the success of the company in reliable processes instead of individual stars.

In many instances the start is as simple as starting to document processes using flowcharts. Another benefit of doing this is that you can then make sensible improvements. It is hard to make reliable improvement hen processes are not documented and instead remain the mysterious realm of individuals within the organization.

Do your outstanding people think their importance is in getting through another day through hard work and individual expertise. While those qualities are good most important to the success of the organization is improving the system not getting through one day. If those seen as the stars are not improving the system and processes then get them to work doing so. They might miss the feeling that the organization is dependent upon them. But it is more important that the organization not improve. And there contributions will still be worthwhile but the organization will be much stronger.

Performance dependent on specific individuals is not robust and not capable of continuous high quality performance.

Related: Bring Me Problems and Solutions if You Have Them – How to Improve – Management is Prediction

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Psychology | Tagged , | 3 Comments