Lean Government. Even to the seasoned Lean practitioner, this idea sounds far-fetched. Governments are traditionally seen as the epitome of bureaucracy and red tape, incomprehensible forms and endless queues. But there are workable Lean strategies for governments seeking to reduce waste. Eight are outlined here.…
Your staff members complain about having too much work, the proportion of people on short-term sick-leave is consistently above average and the turnover rate is disturbingly high. However, comparing takt time and processing time does not show to any obvious issue. So, what is the problem?…
When I joined General Electric Capital many years ago, I asked them why they would hire an engineer with no prior banking knowledge. The answer was quite a pleasant surprise: “We have enough people who understand banking. Unfortunately, we do not have those with a process mind-set.”
Now I know, banking is a productivity gold mine.…
There are always excuses for not doing things. Can we instead try to find reasons for doing things such as being on time? Our co-workers would thank us for it. Remember, behaviour is contagious. Is yours worth catching?…
When was the last time you reprimanded someone for a job not done perfectly. I guess you can remember easily. And, when did you tell someone that she did an excellent job? If you have issues answering the second question whereas the first one comes to you easily, I suggest you go on reading.
No one makes mistakes on purpose
So, you have no problem in finding people who are not as good as you are? This is a very common phenomenon amongst us, the managers, that is contributed to many factors.
Factor one: Sometimes, we think the way we do things is the best way and we refuse to accept considering other ways. The bad news is: we may have given up learning. We are not open for suggestions any more. No matter whether we are 30 or 60 years old, the world changes. The day we have given up looking for new developments and accepting some of them, we have started falling behind – at least in our leadership qualities.
Factor two: Often, we find that our team members are not as brilliant as we are. Isn’t it fair then to consider that we may have failed in our staff development responsibilities? And, if we stubbornly conclude they cannot be developed? Wouldn’t this mean, we may have recruited the wrong staff in the first place? And our succession planning must be in a bad shape, too.
Factor three: From time to time, we reprimand people who obviously make mistakes. Fair enough. Still, is there a small, teeny, tiny chance that we have not communicated our expectations clearly? Have we moulded them into policies and procedures so that we don’t need to repeat them every day again and again? Most importantly: if errors happen, our processes allow them to happen, right? Then, our processes are not Poka Yoke.
We don’t have team members who spend their time thinking how they can mess up our organisation and make us unhappy, do we? From time to time, it may look like that but it is usually not the case. Most of them do their best. They most likely try to anticipate the one thing they can do we may finally like – and we prompt with a smile.
The truth is, that our organisation, especially our processes, be it for recruitment, for performance management and for all other business activities are not good enough for delivering what we want. This is basically our responsibility.
Changing the way processes run is easier than trying to engineer our colleagues. Moreover, transforming a “people issue” into a “process problem” puts people at ease.
With Poka Yoke, we would find
No one delivers defective parts, wrong information or even typos in emails intentionally. It is usually our processes that allow and sometimes even enforce mistakes to happen. If we were able to help our staff in improving and simplifying our processes, they would do their job in good quality. Investing some trust usually pays back. Trust me!
The best processes are simple, robust and Poka Yoke.
Especially in service organisations, productivity is usually quite low due to a lack of efficiency caused by a missing focus on the process.
We often accept Rework as Normal Part of the Process.…
“We need to increase productivity!” What sounds very reasonable on a country scale could be damaging on a company level.
Now, after nearly two years of recession the economy is back on track, i.e. companies of all sectors sell more. This is good news, isn’t it? It brings our productivity to new heights, meeting and even surpassing the levels we had seen before the recession. Stop! This is not really good news. This is expected news. Every company – well managed or not – will be able to show these figures. The question is: have companies used the time of low productivity to expand the productivity potential in preparation for the future?
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Productivity measures the ratio of output quantity over input quantity. Increase of productivity means growing the output quantity faster than the input quantity. Output quantity can stand for anything from number of products made over number of customers served to number of donors treated or number of work passes produced. Input is usually summarising all resources needed to do this from raw material over equipment to man hours.
How is productivity increase possible?
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Besides business and functional know-how, a successful leader must have competencies in leading change and improving, designing and managing processes. A Six Sigma program helps prepare leaders by providing on-the-job training through project work.
A recent survey by iSixSigma Magazine of more than 1,300 business professionals whose companies are using Six Sigma revealed that leadership development programs which involve Six Sigma training are six times more likely to be called “highly successful” than those without. Many of these leadership development programs involve a Black Belt track for future leaders. Thus, the obvious question is, What skills and know-how do Six Sigma professionals acquire that gives them an edge as leaders?
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New undertakings or experiences are always challenging at first. This is no different when Schenker Singapore (Pte) Ltd, a transportation & logistics company, decides to embark on something new like Lean Six Sigma. It might seem to be even more demanding at the outset since the number of 3rd party logistics providers rising to this challenge is very limited. Best practices in this industry are not widely spread and hard to come by.
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Everyone, undoubtedly, has had the unenviable honour of experiencing ‘bureaucratic government processes.’ Be it applying for your first ID or passport, to initially obtaining a driving license and the inevitable dealings with the tax man.
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An Australian construction equipment rental & leasing firm had decided to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning system in 12 months. During this 12 month period there was an expectation that all front-end services including Sales, Customer Service, Receivables, Payables, would be re-designed to achieve streamlining and simplification prior to ERP implementation.
Operations spanned 18 cities across Australia with many more small ‘re-sellers’ located in the Australian interior or ‘outback’ as it is locally known. Compounding a normal organisational and operational setup was the fact that this firm grew a substantial portion of its business through the acquisition route thus effectively incorporating myriad systems and practices. There were 5 Receivables systems, 4 Payables systems and a decentralized customer service database (more than 200 input platforms) which needed to be tied together to make the ERP implementation work.
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After a Lean programme for inventory was instituted the production facility struggled with getting a good product mix out to the finished goods inventory due to relatively long change-over times for cutting dies. Steel tool (final product) cutting dies need to be replaced after every 4 Kanban batch runs of 225 pieces each.
This frequent changeover, occurring once every hour of work is necessary to maintain and re-sharpen the cutting die’s cutting edges. Current changeover time for the cutting die was approximately 60 minutes and included the use of a single 10 ton forklift though the die weight was 5 tons. Nearly 50% of a working day was ‘wasted’ on changeovers not including the impact of the ‘inability’ to achieve a high vol-ume of product mix for agility to meet with product demand requirements of a Lean pro-gramme.
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Globalisation and instant access to information, products and services continue to change the way our customers conduct business.
Today’s competitive environment leaves no room for error. We must delight our customers and relentlessly look for new ways to exceed their expectations. This is why Six Sigma Quality has become a part of our culture. Jack Welch, GE
First, what it is not. It is not a secret society, a slogan or a cliche. Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps all kinds of companies focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services.
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OurBank is an American international bank with 50 branches in Germany and approximately 300 employees working either in the headquarter office or in one of the branches.
In 2003, the senior management of OurBank decided to adopt and implement Six Sigma as their business management tool across all business units in the Europe region.
According to the OurBank business strategy, the car loan business was identified as one of the business priorities in the next 12 months. The strategy was to significantly grow the car loan business market share within the region in two years time, by 100% in the first year, and by another 70% in the second year.
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