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Management Improvement Carnival #23

Posted on November 17, 2007 by John Hunter

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

Assessing Results vs. Reflection by Mark Rosenthal – “Your plan for the year consisted of a designed experiment. ‘If we do these things, we expect this results.’ Then do that thing, and check that you actually did it. Compare your actual result with the expected result. Explain any difference. Learn.” – This process is key to improving, see my previous post: Predicting Improves Learning John
Leadership and Systems Thinking by George Reed – “Success in the contemporary operating environment requires different ways of thinking about problems and organizations…It is insufficient and often counterproductive for leaders merely to act as good cogs in the machine.”
“Heightened Vigilance” is Not Enough by Mark Graban – “Instead, we blame, we punish, and we say “be careful.” No wonder we have such problems. Being careful helps, but it is not enough.”
Top 10 Problems with Problem Statements by Jon Miller – “1. Assign a cause 2. Contain the solution 3. Are based on conjecture or belief rather than fact 4. Are too long”
Root Cause Customer Service by Kevin Meyer – “Why are customers calling? What is wrong with the design, quality, intuitiveness, or use of the product that creates problems? With few exceptions, having to answer a call from a customer is a band-aid on a problem.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Comments Off

3M Cuts Back on Six Sigma for Research and Development

Posted on November 14, 2007 by John Hunter

3M Shelves Six Sigma in R&D

For the past two years, 3M Corp. has been giving back freedom and decision-making to its researchers following four years of Six Sigma mania under former CEO and Chairman W. James McNerney Jr. Six Sigma is a data-driven methodology and associated toolset for eliminating process defects.
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Under McNerney’s successor, 3M CEO George Buckley has de-emphasized Six Sigma in R&D. At the same time, R&D spending in 2007 has been increased by 11 percent over 2006. “3M is a technology company so it’s essential that we keep investing in and creating new technology and product platforms
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“George is throttling back in the laboratory and in R&D. At the same time, he’s a very strong proponent of lean Six Sigma in manufacturing and our supply chain,” according to Wendling. “Six Sigma has a place, but more in what I’d call transactional activities as opposed to basic research and product development. The key is to selectively use what makes sense in R&D, but not let Six Sigma become the end. For instance, we use (Six Sigma) design of experiments routinely in basic research

My previous posts on the proper use of six sigma: Process Improvement and Innovation – Six Sigma Outdated? No. – 3M CEO on Six Sigma – Will Six Sigma Fix Bad Management? – New Rules for Management? – Quality and Innovation

Posted in Management, Six sigma | 2 Comments

Six Sigma for Erie County Government

Posted on November 12, 2007 by John Hunter

Chris Collins proposed bringing six sigma to Erie County government in his campaign for county executive. He won the election. From his web site:

In business, you satisfy your customers or you fail. But in Erie County government, if you fail taxpayers who are your customer, nothing happens. Under Chris Collins, that will change.

As County Executive, Chris Collins will reform county government to make sure it serves its customers: the taxpayers. He will implement new management techniques – Total Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, ISO, Six Sigma and more – to focus on making every government agency and worker more efficient and accountable. These are the same techniques he’s used to turn around failing companies.
Chris Collins will also choose a business management expert as Deputy County Executive – and then make their only duty to fight everyday to make sure taxpayers get the value we deserve for our tax dollar

Where did he pick up this interest in six sigma? He is the founder, owner, Chairman and CEO of Audubon Machinery:

Audubon is a Six Sigma quality company focused on Total Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, and Lean Manufacturing. The operations manager at Audubon is a Six Sigma Black Belt driving continuous improvement with a focus on customer service.

Audubon Machinery is one of the fastest growing companies in the United States and will be recognized on the INC 500 list this year as well as the new Business First list of the fastest growing companies in Western New York.

I wish him luck in bringing management improvement practices to Erie County.

Posted in Management, Public Sector, Six sigma | 1 Comment

Engineering Innovation for Manufacturing and the Economy

Posted on November 11, 2007 by John Hunter

Editorial: Engineering Innovation, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

They are the invisible heroes in business, the men and women who make innovation possible. They are people like Mary Ann Wright at Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, the former chief engineer for the Ford Escape hybrid who is leading a team bent on establishing world leadership in hybrid battery systems.

Or Werner Zobel, a Modine Manufacturing engineer working in Germany who hatched the idea for a new cooling system that the Racine-based company believes could be revolutionary. The system uses ultra-thin layers of aluminum to dissipate heat, a breakthrough that has potential for car and truck radiators and air conditioning condensers.

Intellectual candlepower will fire the regional economy, the Milwaukee 7 regional economic development group believes. Its strategic plan relies on innovation-driven manufacturers that are heavy with engineers. But across the region, those companies say they can’t recruit enough engineers, and they worry that shortages will worsen as baby boomers retire. Complicating the picture is a shortage of visas for foreign-born engineers and increased competition from rapidly developing economies in China and India for those students even when they complete their studies in the United States.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University and the Milwaukee School of Engineering are racing to fill the pipeline. Marquette and UWM are promising expansive new buildings and increased enrollment of both undergraduate and graduate students.

The USA continues to be by far the largest manufacturing in the world. And one important reason is the contributions provided by science and engineering (fed by strong science and engineering schools). In addition to other smart economic policies (The World Bank’s annual report on the easiest countries to do business in ranks the USA 3rd – after Singapore and New Zealand). Wisconsin manufacturing continues to get good discussion on various lean blogs for good reason(More Wisconsin Lean, Wisconsin Continues to Lead in Lean Government, History repeats itself). The success Wisconsin is enjoying is not due to one single factor but the efforts of many actors including companies, universities, government, the press… and groups like the Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Madison Quality Improvement Network (I have managed MAQIN’s web site since it was created – John Hunter).

Posted in Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing, Public Sector, Science, Systems thinking | Tagged Economics, engineering, Manufacturing, Wisconsin | 4 Comments

Good Customer Focus Idea for Banks

Posted on November 8, 2007 by John Hunter

Why Your Bank Needs a Free Coin-Counting Machine

But this overall strategy also included a Trojan horse, and that Trojan horse was the bank’s Penny Arcade. If you walk into most Commerce branches, you’ll see a machine or two that will count buckets of loose change. Unlike the Coinstar machines that you might find at supermarkets, Penny Arcades don’t take a cut of your change as a fee if you want plain cash in exchange for your coins. Instead, the arcade simply counts your coins and prints out a receipt you can take to the teller to get crisp bills.

And here’s the crazy part: The Penny Arcade is free for anyone, whether they have an account at Commerce or not. It seems like an act of corporate generosity–and, actually, it sort of is–but having Penny Arcades in a branch also benefits the bank, as I discovered when I went to use one about a month ago. In rapid succession, I noticed three things:

1. I was in the bank on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve never been in a bank on a Sunday afternoon, because no other bank I know of is open on a Sunday afternoon.
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3. I was on a line about seven people long. In addition to two tellers, there was a greeter at the entrance and a manager who walked around. About a minute into my wait on line, the manager directed the greeter to leave her post and open up a new teller window. Three minutes after that (and after about four more people joined the line) the manager himself opened up a new window.

The opportunities to improve are everywhere. It is a shame so many banks seem to focus on tricking customers into paying big fees. The idea of actually serving customer well and making a fair profit just doesn’t seem to be very common.

Posted in Customer focus, Management | Comments Off

Win a 2 day visit from Norman Bodek

Posted on November 7, 2007 by John Hunter

Shingo Sweepstakes: The grand prize is a 2 day visit of your organization by Norman Bodek, 2 Free admissions to the 20th Annual Shingo Prize, 5 copies of Dr. Shigeo Shingo’s latest book and more.

Posted in Lean thinking, Management | Comments Off

The Problem with Targets

Posted on November 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Targets can seriously damage your health by Simon Caulkin

Targets, claim their defenders, are simple, they provide focus, and they work. Yes, they do. Unfortunately, these are also their fatal flaws. The simplicity is a delusion. As Russ Ackoff put it: ‘The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers with simple problems are those with simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a simple part.’

To focus on the individual parts and ignore the whole always makes things function worse at a system-wide level. Thus, to meet financial and waiting-time targets, Maidstone drove up bed occupancy rates. But that compromised cleaning. At the system-wide level, the cost was making the hospital more dangerous to patients than staying at home.

And if enough pressure is applied, people will meet targets – even if they destroy the organisation in doing so. As quality guru W Edwards Deming put it: ‘What do “targets” accomplish? Nothing. Wrong: their accomplishment is negative.’

These are systemic faults, which is why such regimes can’t be refined by setting ‘better’ or fewer targets. Deming added: ‘Management by numerical goal is an attempt to manage without knowledge of what to do’. This is what makes it so attractive to bad managers. Unfortunately, in absolving them from the effort of thought, it is also junk management

Great insight on the problem of targets. Brian Joiner provides another reason why targets are harmful: there are “3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving the system is the most difficult.” And so most often targets results in distortion of the data (faulty data) or distortion of the system (meet target by shifting resources and effort from other parts of the system). Both of those actions are harmful to the system.

Posted in Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Systems thinking | Comments Off

“2007 has been a difficult year for Toyota”

Posted on November 5, 2007 by John Hunter

I find the quote “2007 has been a difficult year for Toyota” found in The Dings and Dents of Toyota a bit amusing. Toyota has had some problems as the article notes like product recalls and losing a handful of employees to Ford and Chrysler. They are about even with GM in worldwide sales and posted a profit of nearly $14 Billion (I believe maybe 20 companies have ever earned that much in any year) in the year ending March 2007 and continue to make huge profits this year (Toyota reported their best quarter ever in August). With difficulty like this who needs success 🙂

“Toyota’s short-term problems are exaggerated,” said James P. Womack, a manufacturing expert and co-author of The Machine That Changed the World… But Mr. Womack said he was concerned that Toyota might be losing its laserlike focus, just as it marked two important anniversaries this year: its 70th birthday as an automobile company, and its 50th year selling cars in the United States. “Toyota has to rethink its purpose in life,”

He is right that the problems are exaggerated. I agree that Toyota has to maintain a laser-like focus on improvement. I don’t agree that they need to rethink their purpose in life (I have a feeling that is taken out of context). They need to maintain and maybe even increase their commitment to their purpose in life.

In our post New Toyota CEO’s Views in 2005, we quote the new CEO, Katsuaki Watanabe:

We should never be satisfied with the current status. In each division, function, or region, we still have numerous problems to cope with. We need to identify each one of those tasks or problems and fully recognize them and pursue the causes. This needs to be done by all the people working for Toyota.

He was right then and that is true now.

Posted in Management, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 1 Comment

The Lazy Unreasonable Man

Posted on November 5, 2007 by John Hunter

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
– George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

That quote sprang to mind when I read the great post – In praise of the lazy employee

They want to know why it takes five signatures to get something approved when one should do. They want to know why the forecasting effort should take two weeks each month when a bit of rethinking could cut 50% out of the work and possibly get better answers. They want to know why they’re tied up in bureaucracy when simplifying work would leave them more time to attend to customers’ needs and to come up with creative new ways to make progress for the company. They’re lazy enough not to take “We’ve always done things that way” for an answer; they want to figure out how to do more with less. They want to make more contribution than the 80-hour-a-week employee supposedly does and to do it with far less stress and strain.
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As one demonstrably highly effective manager I knew has said (my paraphrase), “The effective people are those who put in a solid six hours a day working on the right things and then spend another couple of hours listening to people and to ideas; they typically are much more effective than those who work late into the evening.”

My view of myself places me in both of these camps (lazy and unreasonable). But, honestly, I have become more reasonable over time and while it makes me less difficult to put up with I think I am less effective (my performance appraisals are more positive so maybe I am wrong or maybe my opinion of performance appraisals is right).

Posted in Fun, Management, Psychology, quote, Systems thinking | 5 Comments

Design of Experiments in Operational Testing

Posted on November 3, 2007 by John Hunter

Edwards looks toward future of testing

We are fielding a Design of Experiments concept to ensure we conduct the right amount of testing — not too much or too little, but just right. We will field this approach in phases as we must train our people and put the right tools in place. However, it is already showing great promise.

In a recent Benefield Anechoic Facility test, the 412th Electronic Warfare Group used Design of Experiments methodology to cut a two-month program to three weeks. This schedule reduction translated directly into savings and helped reduce the concept-to-fielding cycle time while still ensuring the system was thoroughly tested. While building these capabilities is critical, the most critical piece of the puzzle is our people. We must continue to develop engineers, pilots, navigators, program managers and maintainers to test these systems and “find stuff so the warfighter doesn’t.”

It is hard to tell if they really are using Design of Experiments or just using the term but it seem possible they are really using it. As I have said a number of times it is a powerful and under-utilized tool for improvement. Related: Using Design of Experiments – design of experiments articles – posts on public sector management – Why Use Designed Factorial Experiments?

Posted in Design of Experiments, Management, Public Sector, Quality tools | Comments Off