May 16, 2011 | Management, Operations
Last week I attended a seminar run by www.Salesforce.com a very impressive dissertation on the capabilities they and their partners can bring to bear on the CRM challenges faced by all businesses. Obviously, the objective is to sign you up, and the challenge for non IT management is to understand the offer , stripping away the sales pitch, and understanding the value it can bring to your organisation.
Cloud computing is coming at us at a rapid rate, as the costs for installing an IT infrastructure drop, but the costs of maintaining that internal infrastructure increase. This is outsourcing of a capital item that is rapidly becoming commoditised.
When considering the options, there are a lot of opinions that will can be offered, usually from a perspective driven by commercial outcomes, but this discussion by two acknowledged experts is one that lays out a logic without an agenda, other than to acknowledge the reality of cloud computing.
May 1, 2011 | Collaboration, Lean, Management, Operations
Process improvement is all about slow adoption of the tiny opportunities that arrive, by any number of means, that together enable adaption of the system to the environment around it to improve performance.
My favorite metaphors usually come from the natural environment, where natural selection enables minute differences over time to become different species.
In organisations we do not have the time, so the process needs to be encouraged, speeded up a bit. Experience suggests there are a few pre-conditions for success:
- There is a willingness to make change, and that willingness is shared through all levels of an organization.
- There is a willingness, indeed pleasure in embracing mistakes, as it is by making mistakes and understanding why the mistake occurred, that we learn.
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There is a coherent plan, strategy, budget, whatever you choose to call it, that provides a framework for decision making, performance measurement, and allocation of responsibilities in a transparent, ordered and consistent manner.
Apr 28, 2011 | Lean, OE, Operations
“Gemba” is a Japanese term, literally “the real place” and is a term used extensively in lean management, meaning, in effect, go to where it happens and look to understand. This originally meant the manufacturing floor, but just as easily translates to anywhere real work happens.
So often I see people doing dumb things, not because they want to, but because that is the way the process was designed, usually by someone who had not done a “gemba walk” but who had relied on a model that seemed sensible for some reason, but bore little relationship to the way things worked in real life.
Most things I see that lead to problems are caused by self indulgence, ego, and isolation, not incompetence or lack of care, so next time, stop yourself, and do a “gemba walk” to see how the users will interact with and use whatever it is you are designing.
Mar 30, 2011 | Lean, Management, Operations
The clarion call for improvement, in everything from the minor shop floor activities to big picture strategic implementation is clear. We all need to do more with less, and this requires that we identify which bits of our current activities should be changed, redirected, or trashed.
In effect, there are three questions that should be answered:
- What are the underlying drivers or causes of problems?
- How can we build predictability of outcomes from any particular activity, and group of activities?
- How can we ensure the mistakes of yesterday are not repeated today?
These seemingly simple questions lie at the core of all improvement I initiatives.
Mar 28, 2011 | Lean, Operations
Another story about a US company going against the trend and “on-shoring” to shorten supply times, improve quality and certainty, and gain control over their operations.
Forward thinking companies in developed economies are starting to recognise that manufacturing is a foundation stone of innovation, that manufacturing really matters, despite the decades of being told it does not.
Previously, I have made the point that labor costs alone do not make the case for producing product off-shore, largely in China, and the message seems to be filtering through, as firms start to rethink and bring manufacturing home.
Labor costs are easily measured in the P&L, so can be cut, but time is not measured by traditional accounting, making cutting it a less obvious benefit to many, but if you ask a consumer when they want a product, the answer is usually “now”.
Besides, the bean-counters do not mind inventory, as it is in the books as an asset, not usually measured by cycle time, and the velocity of cash through a business. Not checking item level inventory and cash velocity through a business is like a doctor not taking your blood pressure and heart rate at in a check-up.
Mar 7, 2011 | Management, Operations
Throughout my experience one factor continues to be a foundation for success in pretty much everything I see. Keeping “it” simple, or “KISS” reduces complication and the potential for misunderstanding, turf protection, and unintended consequences, and is far better than mastering the detail. Avoid the detail in the first place, recognising the truth in Einsteins quip that “not all that can be counted, counts”.
IBM appears to be celebrating achieving a mastery of the detail, and I suspect geeks are seriously excited, but any encouragement to foster an environment that complicates, simply because we can, appears pretty dumb to me, as articulating detail is way different to understanding the drivers of the detail, and the shadowy links visible only human imagination can uncover.
