Blog posts on process improvement

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• Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame

  Why did they make that error? Why did the process let them make that error? When you follow the why chain a couple more steps you can find root causes that will allow you to find a much more effective solution. You can then pilot (PDSA) an improvement strategy that doesn’t just amount to “Do a better job Joe” or “that is it Joe we are replacing you with Mary.” Neither of those strategies turns out to be very effective.

  But investigating a bit more to find a root cause can result in finding solutions that improve the performance of all the workers. 

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• Better and Different

  The answer, as I see it, is to be better and different (when necessary).

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  if you have to choose one, just being better will work most of the time. The problem is (using an example from Deming, page 9 New Economics) when, for example, carburetors are eliminated by innovation (fuel injectors) no matter how well you make them you are out of business.

  Often people mistake Deming’s ideas as only about being better. He stressed not only continual improvement (Kaizen, incremental improvement, SPC) but also innovation. He stressed innovation both in the normal sense of innovating new products for customers and also innovation in managing the organization.

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• Lean Beyond the Factory Floor

  Experts (in TQM, Deming’s idea’s, Six Sigma, BPR, Lean…) always stress the importance of involving not just others (when talking to management) but their (managers) work too. But fairly consistently management adopts improvement ideas mostly for others, not for their own work.   As organizations apply management improvement ideas on some portion of the work the talk of going beyond “factory floor” improvements becomes more common as improvements are seen where it is applied.

  Fast Cycle Change in Knowledge-Based Organizations by Ian Hau and Ford Calhoun, Jun 1997 is a good example of lean thinking, eliminating waste… outside the factory floor.

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• Companies in Need of Customer Focus

  My brother has suggested several times I should arrange for companies to pay me to point out their weaknesses (and suggest improvements). I wish I could get them to do so.

  Often 1 interaction with their customer service is enough to provide examples of several systemic weaknesses in how customers are treated.

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• Six Sigma and Process Drift

  Quality Quandaries: Six Sigma, Process Drift, Capability Indices, and Feedback Adjustment by George Box and Alberto Luceno. This article is for the more statistically inclined.

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  Feedback adjustment can be dangerous: tampering. In fact, I would say attempting it is likely to be tampering, unless those doing so are careful and knowledgeable. It might be wise to read Box and Luceno’s book on the topic – Statistical Control: By Monitoring and Feedback Adjustment if you are tempted to try.

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• Our Policy is to Stick Our Heads in the Sand

  The failure to adapt to a changing world (the internet is here to stay folks) is amazing. Most companies would benefit from just adapting to the changing world without elaborate innovation plans. Innovation is great, but challenging. Don’t ignore the possible improvements short of innovation.

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• CEO Flight Attendant

  This getting out and seeing work in action is exposed a great deal, including a lean management concept, Genchi Genbutsu – to go to see the problem in situ (not just reading a report about it).

  The success of many management practices is more a matter of how the practice is done than if it is done. Also the success depends on the rest of the management system. Practices cannot just be copied. But you can learn from what others find useful and figure out how that idea would work within your organization.

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• Expand the View of the System to Find Ways to Improve Results

  By expanding the system view and looking at the results of the entire system it is often possible to find improvements that are not possible by only looking at “your” system. These changes can sometimes be more challenging to accomplish as they may require convincing others to make changes.

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• How Toyota Management Develops a New Camry

  The importance taking what you learn to improve the system has been stressed for quite some time but still so often it is not done. The difference between inspecting to fix the product before you ship it and inspecting to improve your system is huge.

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• Cease Mass Inspection for Quality

  Deming believed in improving the process, and doing so using process measures (which often may involve sampling) to guide improvement efforts. He did not believe in using inspection to select out the bad products, which is what inspection largely was before Deming.

  More on Deming’s thought on Inspection...

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• Distorting the System or the Data is Easier Than Improving the System

  3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving the system is the most difficult.

  When people mistake the data proxy for the thing to improve they focus on improvement of how the data looks not of the system. That is the wrong strategy. The correct strategy is to focus on improving the system and as a way of verifying results you then look at measures. But you must always remember those measures are not the end they are an attempt to measure the end you are trying to achieve.

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• Toyota IT Overview

  IT solutions should support your processes not dictate them. I am a big fan of avoiding inflexible, proprietary (off the shelf) software. I am willing to spend money on in house developers to create customized IT solutions that support the business processes instead of IT solutions that dictate business processes.

  continue reading: Toyota IT Overview
• Thoughts on Hospital Management by Deming

  A physician cannot change the system. A head nurse cannot change the system. Meanwhile, who would know? To work harder will not solve the problem. The nurses couldn’t work any harder.

  continue reading: Thoughts on Hospital Management by Deming
• Going lean Brings Long-term Payoffs

  The early successes provide resources to invest in making large more fundamental changes to the organization. Those successes also help convince people these lean ideas have merit. Dilbert does a good job of illustrating how many workers feel about the latest words spoken by their management. Without visible success expecting employees to believe the new management practices is unwise.

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• Turning The PDSA Cycle Rapidly (Iteration)

  One point he made was that he often finds that organizations fail to properly “turn” the PDSA cycle (by running through it 5-15 times quickly and instead to one huge run through the PDSA cycle). One slow turn is much less effective then using it as intended to quickly test and adapt and test and adapt…

  In my experience people have difficulty articulating a theory to test (which limits the learning that can be gained). He offered a strategy to help with this: write down the key outcome that is desired. Then list the main drivers that impact that outcome. Then list design changes for each outcome to be tested with the PDSA cycle. 

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