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"Competent (individuals) in every position, from top management to the humblest worker, know all that there is to know about their work except how to improve it. Help toward improvement can only come from outside knowledge." - W. Edwards Deming
March, 2011
By Douglas C. Wood
Do you have an ingenuity gap between technical and social ingenuity? You do if you have trouble answering questions on how you: identify goals, align activities, communicate goals to all levels, harness team talents, sustain activities, quickly change course, or learn from mistakes. Think about the questions above that you have the most trouble answering well and remember W. Edward Deming’s statement “This is not required. Survival is optional.”
You have many highly training and competent technical people. Can they process social information? They must if they are to plan with a team. Without efforts to make planning a part of daily activity, problems are created: unrealistic forecasts, rigid unchanging plans, too many goals giving inadequate focus, activities are not frequently reviewed, planning is done either without data or data is overanalyzed, and communication is inadequate.
So what does this cost you? Aiming for the wrong forecast can add $250,000 a year for a $10 million business. Poorly focused expensive technical staff can waste 10% of their time, $5000 per headcount. Lack of frequent activity review reduced engagement, reducing productivity another 10%. How long can you stand to lose 20% or more of your total salaried expense in waste?
You can make planning simple. By applying proven lean planning techniques you can make planning flow. Policy deployment to direct your organization is like a ship captain using a compass. Every day measurements are compared to known realities. Some of the tenets are to: focus on making critical improvements in each planning cycle, align efforts to fit together, allow flexibility when new data appears, communicate to and involve all team members.
In Lean policy deployment there are 6 main steps:
- Find the voice of the customer
- Do training in improvement techniques
- Capture goals and map them through the organization (CTQ flow down)
- Apply Lean tools
- Gap analysis (what are we missing?)
- Run Kaisen events (Then, start over again)
Applying these techniques well requires both knowledge and practice. If your planning process does not include these techniques, you are building in waste. This is knowledge waste, perhaps the most far- reaching waste of all. Can you afford it?
How to learn more
We offer a three hour webinar on Value Stream Mapping including an exercise and reporting template. You can find this instructor-led course here: DC Wood Course Registrations You may contact us for more information: mail: click here
Address: 13817 Bradshaw Suite B, Overland Park, KS 66221
Phone: (913) 669-4173
Fax: (913) 273-1611
http://www.dcwoodconsulting.com/