Jun 16, 2010 | Management, OE, Operations
The variety of approaches to problem solving appear to form a continuum, that looks a bit like:
- The “workaround” where you find a way around the problem, hoping by magic it will go away.
- Further along the continuum we have some sort of score chart which logs the progress of the symptoms of the problem without actively looking for the cause.
- The next stage is an effort to solve the problem and put in some sort of remedial action,
- Then we have a continuous improvement project that seeks to identify problems and improvements on a continuous basis.
- Finally we have a Kaizen culture, where the standard is revised and improved on a continuous basis by those with the hands on responsibility for the process, with the active support of all around them in the organisation.
I often see the first step, usually the second, sometimes the third, very occasionally the fourth, but I have never seen a culture that actively feeds (rather than just supports) continuous improvement as a underlying value in the business.
Where do you fit?
Jun 15, 2010 | Management, Operations
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is one of disastrous proportions immediately, and into the long term as the environmental impacts become clearer.
However, there are other consequences not talked about yet, that of the impact it will have on the willingness of enterprises to undertake risk, the costs of insurance, and the impact of renewed regulatory zeal on the operations of enterprises in the pursuit of zero tolerance of risk.
The impact of any renewed regulatory zeal goes further. Last week, in a conversation with a local council officer about the absurd imposts before a simple enhancement of a public space in the local municipality could proceed was , “If there had been better regulations in the Gulf, the oil spill would not have happened, I am just trying to ensure nothing like that happens here”.
Hello…..wake up, the simile is nonsense, but perhaps it just provides another excuse to avoid the responsibility to do anything, together with the horrible possibility, from a public bodies perspective, that something they do, or condone, does not work out as planned, and somebody must be held to account, and it better not be them!.
Managing the balance between risk, reward, and the consequences of a failure just became much harder.
Jun 14, 2010 | Management, OE, Operations
I had lunch a few months ago with a client, just at the local club, nothing fancy, as we discussed the very challenging problems of operational flow through his plant. It was a buffet, simple, serve yourself, and as luck would have it, a couple of tour busses landed at about the same time we did, and the lines were awful.
Stay with me here!.
Somebody very smart realised the problem, and did two things.
First, they moved the tables a couple of feet from the wall, encroaching on the unused dance floor, so people could use both sides, doubled the speed,
Second, they broke the tables up, so the clearly entre type stuff was separated from the mains by a couple of feet, encouraging people to go once for entre, and back later for mains. Lines disappeared as if by magic!
The point: watching this happen, the penny dropped, and now my clients factory now looks markedly different to what it was, and cycle time has dropped, as has inventory, waste, and outside storage. What has increased is throughput, and the number of smiles on the staffs faces as they work in an environment much less cluttered, less driven by the urgent order being expedited, and much more productive.
Jun 10, 2010 | Customers, Management, Marketing
Most marketers equate success to more; more ads, more locations, more customers, more Sku’s, more appearances in the press, and so on.
However, the quest for “more” leaves a lot on the table, as it disregards the value of what you have.
Would you rather have an extra customer that delivers an extra $10,000, or an extra 10,000 from an existing customer?
In most circumstances, it will be the latter, because there are no acquisition costs, a deepened relationship with an exisiting customer that creates barriers to exit for them, and a more predictable operational and logistic chain that inevitably costs less than one set up, even if it is entirely routine, to service a new customer.
Share of wallet is a powerful driver of performance, as it implies that as you get more of a customers wallet, you become more engaged with their key processes, and become core to their efforts to add value in turn to their customers.
Being excellent with a few is usually a better approach than being average with a lot.
Jun 9, 2010 | Innovation, Management
How do you figure out the productivity of employees paid to think?
In the old days, productivity was measured by a range of quantitative measures, quantity, cost, conformance to standard, cycle times, and so on. Now, when the productivity is ideas, improvements, removal/adjustment of past practices, and the “joining of the dots” it is harder.
When there is a clearly available substitute, the market dictates the price, it costs $60 an hour to get your car serviced, but where there are no obvious substitutes, it is more a matter of what the market will bear. What is it worth to hear a competent musician play a cover? What would it be worth to hear the piece played by the originator?
Competent musicians are relatively common, those who can create something worth covering are rare, and are paid accordingly, and the time it took to create the piece plays no part in the calculation, it is all about the value created, and measuring that is a whole new ballgame.
