So why have you come to this site – Continuous Improvement

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Business, Consulting, Continual improvement process, failure mode avoidance, Hoshin Kanri, Lean manufacturing, Management, Problem solving, Six Sigma

So this is my site. Nothing spectacular on the educational front, engineering and business studies, with a bit of maths and physics thrown in, but always interested in “stuff” and making “stuff” better.

I have always hated the idea of repetition. OK to do something once, or twice, but the only reason to do it more, is to learn more about it, to do it better.

Recently become really interested in Failure Mode Avoidance, and how, if applied totally, it can guide whole businesses to improved ways of working and higher profitability.

I really dig Hoshin Kanri (which is rarely used) to understand and drive corporate goals.

I also really love the strategic breakdown from corporate goals into the business strategy, and then understanding what is important to the business and how to generate plans for continuous improvement.

I believe (well I do until something better comes along) the tools of Hoshin Kanri link to the tools of Failure Mode avoidance. Understanding the high level business functions and the benefits of understanding the functional decomposition of these business functions, all the way to the individuals all contributing to the higher goal.

I contribute to Problem Solving sites, but I recognise that the single most important aspect of effective problem solving is the culture and behaviours of the environment that wants to resolve issues.

I am surprised that there appears to be so little going on, on a transactional project (data processing) within medium and large engineering businesses. Think of the overhead, and lack of focus on cost of processing data and the benefits of improving those processes. WOW.

I am a certified 6-sigma Black Belt, but I think beyond that. And not really that into stats other than as a tool to communicate.

I love training people, and continue to develop my own material.

I want to get better.

Moving on – why do we do it?

Firstly, let me be absolutely clear, I have NEVER moved on for any significant increase in benefits. Maybe I have never felt I’m worth any more than someone is prepared to pay me, or rewards they offer me – perhaps that is demand vs supply. So what makes me want to look elsewhere?

The answer is that I want to make a difference. This takes me back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. So I realized, that I want to have an impact on where I have put effort in. I have found I derive little pleasure from repetitive tasks (either manual or mental). Once comfortable with the task, surely the next stage is to want to improve it, make it slicker, more efficient. Once that is in place, and locked in, then we go back and challenge the task again.

What I have found is that tasks – processes if you will – should be driven by a business need. And I REALLY mean NEED here. I have found that a business, is much like a thing-you-buy. It has to do “something” (deliver some form of return or benefit), and it is made up of a number of systems and sub-systems and components, all working together to achieve the end goal. So a business should be created in the same way a thing-you-buy is. Once the end goal is clear, the systems defined, and their specific functions, can easily be created to deliver. And this goes all the way down to the components (You and Me).

I suppose the clever part, is realizing this, and using the process and tools of the thing-you-buy creation (Design for 6-Sigma / Failure Mode Avoidance etc) to create and determine how to run your business. As such, everything that happens can be defined in simple terms and the whole structure of the business, and the way it works, can become aligned behind its reason-for-being. Simple right?

Smaller businesses are, by nature, quick and responsive. This is probably a function of their need to react to small changes in conditions to maintain their ability to deliver. It becomes harder to generate and deploy longer term strategies, as the influence of external factors has a major impact on the business. This is typically less so with larger organizations. They are, typically, harder to turn around, however, the returns and benefits can be much greater.

So, inevitably, business evolves, as do people. Sometimes, there comes a point in time (and space), where a realization occurs that where that business (right now) is not aligned to your/my understanding of how you/I can make a difference. That is not a “fault”, in anyway, of the business, or the individual. It is simply, that these things are not aligned, right now. Time to move on, part amicably, and wish each other well for the future.

Best wishes to the good ship Prodrive, and all who sail in her.

Ambiguous Visual Controls

Tags

failure mode avoidance, Problem solving

I get these blogs from the Gemba Panta Rei site.

I particularly liked this one, as the author (Jon Miller), systematically de-composes a relatively simple event of a hotel (un-named) instructing a guest on how to use the shower facilities.

It all sounds so simple, and yet the effort that has gone into the instruction note, and the controls, have all been soundly proven as ineffective. You can probably see how the persons establishing the control instructions and (more importantly) the caution note have arrived at their conclusion/product, however, it is really easy to see, how it does not deliver its purpose/function.

We can probably think of other good examples, so why is this task poorly performed?

Let me know your thoughts.

http://www.gembapantarei.com/2014/10/ambiguous_visual_controls_caution_possible_scaldin.html

The Measles Chart

Useful guidance – Thx

Excellence

A “measles chart” is the name used at my former workplace for a scatterplot. We called it a measles chart because it’s covered with spots. Scatterplot charts are typically used by academic types to display correlation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scatterplot

In productivity reporting, scatterplots can be used to display performance for two measures on a single chart, hopefully providing some insight into how individuals, teams, or some other category are doing overall, and grouping them into four quadrants. That’s why this sort of chart is also, and more commonly, called a quadrant chart. Take, for example, the chart Production vs. Reject Rate.

Each spot is an individual working in a factory. The Y axis shows the number of items produced, the X axis is the percentage of those items rejected by quality assurance. The red “crosshairs” are actually the X and Y axes, set to the average for the two measures. This is…

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KANO Modelling – why are we interested

Tags

Business, Effective Marketing Strategy, KANO Models, Management

I often wondered, as an engineer, why we were compelled to design the things we were. Why were the style guys always winning the battle of form over function? Why was the weight reduction less important than the way the car handled. It seemed to be a random thing (unless you considered it biased against my team and what we were working on delivering). Actually it wasn’t!

See this site I found as a good overview of the principles, where it started, and a good overview on the process / documentation / how to use it. How does the work from marketing become design criteria? It’s all here.

About the Kano Model

However, having discovered the KANO Models for recent projects, I can now see the attributes that the marketing guys get from customer workshops and studies of competitor vehicles. But now, I can also see the priorities these attributes are given by the people who are going to part with cash and buy these products.

So when we are in a battle (because it won’t be so much of a battle in the future), I can see the attributes that are important to the product. I can also see the priorities given, and what the strategy is to quantify the attributes. This now becomes a shorter meeting, and we are no longer based on “who shouts the loudest” or “who’s manager is higher up in the business”. We are able to make much clearer and precise progress based, as closely as we can get, on data.

I look forward to the first meeting where the handling guys are battling the weight down guys to see who takes priority. Will the customer really notice / pay for a sub 10 minute lap of the Nürburgring (Nordschleife) in their Ford Transit (although Sabine Schmitz got pretty close 10:08:49) or do they prefer the fact that it costs them £10k a year to run, because it’s lighter and uses less fuel. You (the customer) decide – in fact you already have. Although, “I suspect”, customers of the McLaren P1, might have a listed their priorities differently?????????

Capability Analysis for Positional Tolerances

This is mostly a request for help. Does anyone out there is internet land, know how to run capability analysis for 2D / 3D / even 4D where the requirements of the variables are interdependent.

An example of this is in the analysis of process capability Cpk / Ppk. Typically comparing 1 variable (process output) against a specification or tolerance. In the world of automotive this is used to verify the reliability / PPM by taking samples to predict the PPM of the remaining population. It appears we are familiar with dealing with this in a single X Y or Z dimension, but not so good when the hole position is specified using GD&T using 2 or more coordinates.

Worse with positional tolerance, is that the size of the feature you are measuring has an impact on how accurately it has to be positioned (eg if the hole is as small as can be allowed, it has to be positioned “just right” to still work).

If you know of anyone who might know, please forward my blog or contact details as I have already contacted a number of people. Mostly it seems possible / rarely used / unsure if necessary or not.

Thanks in advance

Training Pre-requisites

Tags

Capability studies, Consulting, Management, MS Excel, Six Sigma, Training delivery, Training needs

The work of improving things never stops. Whatever it is, it can always get better. Sometimes in measureables that were not what was expected.

Ran a training session today. Objective was, to enable the team to understand how to calculate and use, process capability. However, I hadn’t properly established the pre-requisites to include use of basic excel and formulae writing. My message was lost by doing an intensive Excel training session – even though I had actually considered this and actually written the required formulae (in long hand) into in the cell next to where the data had to go.

Dramtically overdelivered in excel training – Yey.

Grossly under delivered the intended content. Lesson for the future – define basic excel skills – Boo 

Note to self: Give the intended group a basic spreadsheet prior to excel based training, to calibrate skill in basic formulae writing and dragging formulae around………. Noted!

Note: I even ran a questionnaire prior to the training to baseline our current group’s understanding to improve training targetting. Missed that one though….. 😦

Be clear why, and give others the best chance to want to help you

Tags

APQP, business management, communication, Effective leadership, Management

In a customer meeting yesterday a group of engineers from a manufacturing facility proceeded to request a level of support that no-one in the room had expected. Their justification was “we’ve always done it this way”. ALL the engineers in the room were clear that they had “never done it that way”. Under an onslaught of interrogation, which cost the business a significant amount of time (= money), it was “discovered” that there was going to be a difference in the way the support was going to be processes – different facility was going to be used and a different system was going to be used to support. If this was made clear from the start, the whole meeting could have been avoided in a simple communication, and the team would have found ways to support. In the end we left feeling imposed on by people who were only trying to do a better job, extra costs were not planned for and now these costs and timing implications will mean late nights, late changes, difficult management discussions and cost. WHY OH WHY don’t we simply explain the situation well in advance and give the support team the best chance to help these people trying to improve what they are doing. RESULT they will get significantly worse support, but not for want of trying, and we will all feel bad about the whole thing. “FIGURES”

Business Processes – the responsibility to “sell” the process

Tags

APQP, PPAP, Training, Training delivery, Training needs

Just ran a training event today as an awareness for Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) and Production Part Approval Process (PPAP).

I am minded to think that it is us – the process owners – who are responsible for truly understanding why a process is in place, how it fits into the business plan and business need.

The trainees were pleased that I adopted that approach, so I would recommend that, as part of any training plan, and included in the training objectives, you should consider the why / benefit, and target it to the people in the event.

If you don’t make the “sell” (and check for understanding here) the training will NOT be robust / sustainable.

Happy trainings.

Why do we want to get better?

Tags

business management, Continual improvement process, jfstatman, Management, maslow's hierarchy of needs, Personal Change, Six Sigma

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

http://www.learning-theories.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html

(one of many sites on the subject)
This is a well trodden path of a theory.
I believe that the desire to do more / better is within us all, but not all have learned how to release it. I am not an expert, by any means, but I have learned to self assess. Recognition is one of the bolt on steps in 6-Sigma / (R)DMAIC.
Consider a previous blog on “gap analysis” – Professional Development by jfstatman.

http://jfstatman.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/professional-development-thoughts-shared-with-undergraduate-university-students/

If you have the desire, you will need to have a vision on where you want to get to, and make an honest assessment of where you are. Then you can make a plan to close the gap.

Design – What does this thing / process need to do?

A fundamental truth about designing is the need to understand what is expected of the design before you start to create. What does success look like?

This is as true for Businesses and Processes as it is for systems and components.

The Design of systems or components is a well trodden path (however, it is often, still, strewn with mistakes). Many make the mistake of starting with a similar something, or a previous iteration – assuming that the previous designer actually did this effectively, or that the expectations are actually the same as before (eg load cases / profitability assumption needs).

Make sure you have a FULL understanding of the design expectations, where this thing interfaces (Interfaces carry most risk) and where it fits in the world. If you understand what success looks like, then you will have given yourself the best chance.