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Sustaining Edge Solutions, Inc. Newsletter |
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| Performance Improvement Solutions for Your Business Needs |
January 2010 |
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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 Six
Sigma, Lean Enterprise, and other topics of interest
to our readers.
We want your input for
2010! If
you have a topic of interest for a future newsletter,
please let us know.
Newsletter Sign-up
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2010 Manufacturing Outlook Survey |
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An American Society for Quality (ASQ) survey shows a
majority of manufacturers are optimistic about a small
economic uptick in 2010 at their organizations.
However, respondents believe further cost-cutting
measures will continue to be implemented.
The results show a majority of respondents
(64.7%) employed in the manufacturing sector predict
their organizations will experience some financial
recovery in 2010. More than 1,000 manufacturing
professionals around the world responded to the
online survey from Dec. 2-13, 2009.
Other events that respondents predict their
organizations will experience in 2010:
- 61.3 percent believe their organization will create
processes to reduce costs
- 44.8 percent expect a pay freeze
- 41.4 percent predict a hiring freeze at their
organizations
- 35.2 percent will have mandatory budget cuts
- 27.8 percent expect staff layoffs
- 24.7 percent anticipate reduced employee benefits
Respondents were also asked what one tip they
would give to manufacturers to ensure revenue growth
in 2010. The top four tips from respondents were:
- Continue to take part in continuous improvement
practices and increase use of quality processes
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Implement more lean processes
- Reduce costs
Let's focus on the four tips above and identify some
practical short term ideas we recommend to improve
your
business with a high return.
1. Connect
with the numbers.
Understand the breath
and depth of your company's profit and loss gaps. Get
the numbers for your entire company and focus on
each functional area. Shift your focus from projects to
metrics that identify the cost of poor quality
(COPQ).
Identify systems and processes that
would have an immediate revenue impact or cost of
poor quality prevention. Identify and drive projects that
deliver hard dollars and avoid getting caught-up in
productivity improvements that don't create real time
financial value to your bottom line.
2.
Improve Process Controls.
How well are
your current business processes documented? Do
your employees have the necessary process
information to know how processes generate
consistent quality products and services? Many
organizations have utilized documented operational
systems such as ISO 9001:2008 to create and
establish a foundation for documentation and process
controls. Your products and their complexity should
help define the level of detail that is
necessary.
Knowing process inputs, outputs,
resources, methods, and measures reduce operating
costs. Improvement tools such as process maps,
value stream maps, capacity analysis, and control
plans work well.
3. Focus on Your Customers.
Is your
cost cutting impacting your products and services
negatively? How often are you talking to your
customers and seeing how you can help them?
Remember, they are also feeling the pain of this
economy. Supplier and customer relationships are so
much more dependent in these times and you have to
make the effort to show real value.
Continue
to evaluate the data related to process performance
and customer satisfaction indices. Inform and
demonstrate to all your employees and customers
that the quality of our products and services are more
important than ever before.
Successful
companies pay very close attention, understand, align,
and measure the importance of dashboard or
scorecard data related to voice of the customer, voice
of the business, and voice of the process
measurement systems. Use this current economic
environment to establish specific dollar targets within
these systems to support process improvement. The
old adage "You can't improve what you can't measure"
is more relevant today than ever before.
4.
Get Back to the Basics.
Quality
improvement and reducing your costs of doing
business is all about methods, models, monitoring
and measurement. Using the right combination of
these at the right times, makes things better.
All industries have inherent process waste. Whether
you're a service or a manufacturing organization your
processes are not as good as they can be. Studies
have shown that process waste is typically 20 to 30%
in manufacturing and 40 to 50% in service
organizations. This is lost revenue to your business.
For many, Lean manufacturing is the set of "tools" that
assist in the identification and steady elimination of
waste.
Contact us for more information and
assistance on these methods to improving your
business with a high return.
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Holding Pattern for AS9100C Certification |
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An international council of aviation, space, and
defense quality leaders is expected to announce this
month the formal date when an estimated 10,000
AS9100 certificate holders may begin upgrading their
certifications to the latest edition of the industry-
specific quality requirements.
Revision "C" of
the standard was published earlier this year as
AS9100 in the Americas, JISQ9100 in Asia-Pacific and
EN9100 in Europe. However, a companion checklist
intended for third-party auditors and a Certification
Body Audit Days Table are not expected to be
released until early 2010.
The absence of the checklist and Audit Days Table
effectively puts thousands of certificate holders -
many of whom are contractually bound to achieve and
maintain certification to the standard by major
aerospace and defense customers - in a kind of
certification holding pattern. "We want to make sure
that we have a standardized evaluation of suppliers. In
addition to that, there needs to be guidance material
provided to certified auditors so that they understand
the intent of the changes to AS9100C," explains
Michael J. Dreikorn, a prominent expert on the
standard, who led Sustainable Success Alert's recent
webinar: Clearing the Tower with the New AS9100.
The new release also incorporates recent
changes to ISO 9001, which was updated in
November 2008, while introducing new requirements
for aviation, space and defense companies. The
common requirements represent the combined effort
of aviation, defense and space industry
manufacturers, suppliers, civil airworthiness
authorities, certification/registration bodies, as well as
related trade associations.
An anticipated 30-
month transition was originally expected to begin in
September 2009. However, the new timeframe
determined at the (IAQG) Council meeting last October
now starts in January 2010.
"I don't see any technical challenges," says
Dreikorn. "The biggest challenge is to insure that all of
the auditors out there worldwide understand the intent
of the changes to AS9100C. The standardization is the
challenge. You can inform a lot of people. You can
create a lot of training, but if the tool that you use to
train people isn't mature and isn't ready for delivery,
then the people aren't going to be calibrated
correctly."
Purchase the AS9100C Standard at
the SAE International Website.
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ISO 26000 Published as Draft Standard |
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The future international standard ISO 26000, which
refers to social responsibility has reached an
important milestone with its publication as a draft
international standard.
National member
bodies of the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) will be able to vote and
comment on the text from now until February 14,
2010. The standard is on course to be published in
late 2010.
ISO 26000 will provide
harmonized, globally relevant guidance on the
implementation and best practice in social
responsibility worldwide. Its introduction includes the
following key messages, stating that ISO 26000:
- Guidance on principles of social responsibility,
core subjects, issues, and responsible behavior
- Useful to small and large companies in private,
public, and nonprofit sectors
- Not intended for certification purposes or
regulatory use
- Use for beginners and more experienced to
address social responsibility
The guidance in ISO 26000 draws on best practice
developed by existing public and private sector
social responsibility initiatives.
For more
information visit
ISO SR Web Page.
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In the News |
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Free Outsourcing and Supply Chain Webinars
from ASQ. The American Society for Quality (ASQ)
is offering an opportunity to continue professional
growth with two new free on-demand webinars. The
webinars titled "Quality in Outsourcing" and "Improving
Supply Chain Management," are available for
downloading in the manufacturing section of the ASQ web
site.
Five U.S. Organizations Honored for Innovation
and Performance Excellence with the 2009 Baldrige
National Quality Award. Read the NIST
Press Release.
Holding Steady. The economic hardships
experienced around the globe dominated the
headlines this year, but quality professionals were
able to hold their own in a tough environment and saw
their average salary rise compared to last year. That's
just one of the observations you'll find in the 2009 QP
Salary Survey (PDF), the most comprehensive
report of its kind.
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