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Greetings!
Welcome to Sustaining Edge Solutions E-
Newsletter
Our newsletters provide guidance on
operational and quality systems ISO 9001, AS9100,
ISO/TS 16949, ISO 27001, ISO 13485, ISO 14001, and
others.
This includes internal auditing techniques and
process improvement methods Lean Enterprise, Six
Sigma, and other topics of interest
to our readers.
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Lean Daily Management |
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Jim is the GM at a $65 million / 225 employees,
electronics manufacturing firm in the Southwest (let
us call it JR manufacturing). In a recent meeting Jim
described everyday life at work.
“At JR
Manufacturing, time flies for everyone. The moment I
walk in every morning, people come to me with
different issues, ask my opinion on how to solve them
and you have no idea what kind of issues are waiting
for you daily. This is what makes it interesting and
exciting. I am a hands-on kind of manager and I do get
involved with everyday issues and my people
appreciate that.”
Sounds familiar?
In fact, this situation, where the senior
and mid-level managers spend majority of their time
to put out fires, prevails in more than 90% of the firms
in the US. This is “normal” to many in those
circumstances.
Let’s take a look at the significant downsides to
this style of management.
a) Jim’s
recommendations mostly came from prior experience
with little in-depth analysis of the current issue or data
to back up his decisions. As a result, the managers
and shop floor associates don’t
bother to find a solution to the issue. They were used
to seeing all the decisions coming from Jim. Jim
needed to develop new customers and start a new
product line. However, he was so busy with everyday
issues; the growth of the business was
suffering.
b) No one developed skills for root
cause and problem solving; everything depends on
Jim and two of his supervisors (the benefit of thorough
root cause analysis, documentation and
communication to standardize did not exist). How
effective can a hands-on kind of manager be in this
working environment?
c) All major key
performance
issues (such as customer quality issues and on-time
delivery) are published at the end of the month and
corrective actions are discussed at that time. Vital
metrics are now lagging indicators, and could be
changed to leading indicators if JR Manufacturing
used Lean Daily Management and Problem Solving
Techniques.
Lean Daily Management involves looking
at issues on all key performance indicators from the
day before, finding the root cause and putting in
countermeasures. Issues from the day before are
fresh in the minds of all involved and investigation of
the problem will be much easier. Management of
the issues and root cause analysis takes place where
the issues occur.
Let’s look at an example of
a visual dash-board display of performance
indicators that helps managers to understand
the “state of the union,” in a timely manner.
BDC Manufacturing (not a true company-Note: these
methods can also be applied in a service
environment) has implemented lean daily
management to monitor safety, quality, delivery and
cost (SQDC, as commonly called in a Lean
organization). At every department (engineering,
manufacturing, sales) you would find a 5 ft x 8 ft board
that displays the results of 5 key performance
indicators – the goals and month-to-date performance,
results from the day before, pareto of issues, root
causes and corrective actions to each issues, year-to-
date performance. Each sheet is color coded. Green,
means the goals are met and red means goals are
not met.
Graphs on daily key performance indicators (KPI’s)
charts are prepared with green and red marker pens.
As a manager looking at this dash-board, it is clear
he/she should spend the time on the most critical
issue and try to understand what the root causes are.
The visual dash-boards give a prioritization of issues
to the management in a 15-second glance.
When the expectations are established by
management and employees are expecting questions
such as “why did this happened and what are you
doing about it,” they will take ownership of the issues
and find the solutions. The management is there only
to counsel and make sure this process works. The
senior management now can focus their attention to
strategic issues such as business growth and
customer relationship.
An important note, the
biggest start-up mistakes to good lean daily
management is, a) putting the blame on people, b)
people talking about irrelevant issues and prolonging
the meeting and c) the managers proposing
solutions. It all takes training and discipline.
Next month, in our June issue we will
discuss some good examples of solving problems at
the department level. Article written by Mathew
Nadakal,
a Senior Consultant of our company. Contact Mathew
with questions and for any lean daily management
assistance.
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ISO 27003:2010 ISMS Security Techniques |
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ISO 27003:2010 focuses on the critical aspects
needed for successful design and implementation of
an Information Security Management System (ISMS) in
accordance with ISO 27001:2005. The new
standard gives advice that will be useful for all types of
security-conscious groups, regardless of their size,
complexity, and associated risks.
It describes the process of ISMS specification and
design from inception to the production of
implementation plans. It also
describes the process of obtaining management
approval to implement an ISMS, defines a project to
implement an ISMS, and provides
guidance on how to plan the ISMS project, resulting in
a final ISMS project implementation plan.
Implementing an ISMS provides assurance that risks
to information assets are continuously maintained
within acceptable information security bounds as
defined by the organization and its stakeholders.
ISO 27003:2010 is intended to be used in
conjunction with ISO 27001:2005 and ISO
27002:2005. It is not intended to modify and/or reduce
the requirements specified in either standard.
You can order ISO 27003:2010 at the ANSI Standards
Store.
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Cutting Customer Service Affects Employees |
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Of the many actions taken by companies in the past
few years to bulk up the bottom line and fight the
recession, cutting internal and external customer
service could cause the most damage.
The
results are according to a new ASQ (American Society
for Quality) and Metrus Group national survey on how
a number of recession-survival tactics impacted
employees. The respondents rated the seriousness
the various actions had on the three core “people
equity” factors of employee alignment, engagement
and capabilities to meet customer expectations.
Those companies that kept the focus on employees
outperformed those that did not.
Process Improvement Has Positive
Impact. People equity was positively impacted by
those companies that improved processes to fight the
recession. The article states, “Companies that used
this tactic reported a strong positive impact on
alignment and engagement, and a moderate positive
impact on capabilities. This tactic likely maintains
consistency with prerecession goals. Therefore,
looking within the organization to collaboratively make
improvements and reduce costs actually increases
alignment.”
The survey of 2,100 U.S.
companies turned up several surprises:
1. Unexpectedly, the most damaging strategy
was
not layoffs.While layoffs are undoubtedly
traumatic
for those let go and those who remain, survey
respondents said that they had only a moderately
negative impact on engagement, alignment and
employees’ sense of capabilities.
2.
Pay
cuts, pay freezes and reductions in benefits
also had a moderate negative impact on employee
engagement, which came as no surprise, but
these cuts had no significant impact on alignment or
capabilities.
3. Mandatory furloughs also had no impact on
alignment and capabilities, but unlike other
methods of reducing compensation, they had no affect
on engagement. Perhaps that is because unlike the
other actions, a furlough may be viewed as somewhat
more equitable: You do not get paid, but neither are
you required to work.
4. The tactic that
had the greatest negative impact on employees was
reduced service to customers.Whether
customers are internal or external, putting employees
in the position of providing poorer service lowers
engagement. There is also an inherent alignment
conflict when a company’s stated values emphasize
service, but company actions undercut those values.
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In the News |
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Shingo Award Recipients Announced.
Organizations from the United States, Mexico, United
Kingdom, and India will receive honors for their
achievements at the 22nd Annual Shingo Prize
Awards Ceremony on May 20. The Shingo Prize is
recognized as the premier international award for
operational excellence and serves as an
organizational road map for vision and strategy
alignment, employee empowerment, continuous
improvement, innovation and development, quality,
and sustainable results.
Award recipients will
receive their honors at the international Shingo Prize Conference to
be held in Salt Lake City, May 17-21.
Airline Performance Improves. For the
second
consecutive year, the performance of the nation’s
leading carriers improved, according to the 20th
annual national Airline Quality Rating (AQR). It was the
third best overall score in the 19 years researchers
have tracked the performance of airlines.
Released during a news conference at the
National Press Club, the rankings show that of the 17
carriers rated in 2008 and 2009, all but Alaska Airlines
had improved AQR scores for 2009. The industry
improved in three of the four major elements of the
AQR: on-time performance, baggage handling, and
customer complaints. Denied boarding is the only
element where the performance declined.
View the 2010 numerical ranking
of the nation’s leading 18 airlines, according to
the AQR.
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The FDA’s Position on GMP |
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Where does the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) stand on good manufacturing practices (GMP),
the set of regulations that govern manufacture and
testing of medical devices and other medical products
like pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and food? And
what of the universal device identification?
Good manufacturing practices are, in general, a
quality system that follows certain basic principles.
These principles govern the manufacturing process,
including the control and evaluation of process
changes; the drafting of documentation, including
instructions and procedures; the training of operators;
the records of manufacture and distribution; and the
handling of recall and complaint.
According to
information from the FDA, “The current good
manufacturing practices requirements set forth in the
quality system (QS) regulation require that domestic
or foreign manufacturers have a quality system for the
design and production of medical devices intended for
commercial distribution in the United States.”
However, the FDA information goes on to say that QS
regulations are an “umbrella” covering any number of
devices “from simple surgical hand tools to very
complex computerized axial tomography scanners.”
The FDA acknowledges that it’s not practical for
regulations to specify details, but only to
require “general objectives such as the use of trained
employees, design reviews, design validation,
calibrated equipment, process controls, etc.”
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