In this week’s blog, I am going to start a series where I refer to some of the more important quotes made by industry leaders and loop these back to points in the book for consideration by the readers.
The first will be something that one of the greatest leaders in quality management had to say, maybe not one of the most-used expressions, but nonetheless, very meaningful in the context that I want to use it in. The quote is from Deming. For those who need to Google him, a short extract is below:
“William Edwards Deming (1900-1993) is widely acknowledged as the leading management thinker in the field of quality. He was a statistician and business consultant whose methods helped hasten Japan's recovery after the Second World War and beyond.”
One of the quotes that he made that will be discussed is:
In my book, The Plant Manager, when going over manufacturing from my hands-on experience and discussing what needs to be applied, I recommend the readers go out find what will work for them at the end of the chapter.
To recap, there are many systems available, and not all are suitable for all industries. It’s not a one-fit-for-all. Each plant or operation would have to put together their own package to meet their specific needs and requirements.
One of the things that Deming says that I want to use as a lead-in to this blog is that quality is about people and not products. In the book, this is reinforced with a quote from Sir Richard Branson who maintains:
“If you look after the people, they will look after your customers.” Sir Richard Branson.
People is the common denominator in both of these experts’ advice.
A BAD SYSTEM WILL BEAT A GOOD PERSON EVERY TIME
What Deming is saying here is that the tools that are selected for the specific operations must be the correct ones and be used properly. Discipline must be enforced, and the systems used correctly and as designed over and over every single day.
I want to open with “Awareness.” I use this word throughout my book, and my definition can be found in the glossary. For those who have not bought the book and read it as yet, that definition is:
Awareness: Management and staff knowing what’s going on, firstly with respect to their immediate jobs; and secondly, moving up the line to see the bigger picture using the tools available covered in the book such as SIC, various meetings, KPI’s, forward planning, etc.
Let’s sit back and look at this briefly. There will be systems in place, they are working, people have been trained to use them, and now the question now is, are they achieving the expected or required results? Can they be improved, or do they need a review? If a review is required, is it possible to be done in house, or is support needed?
This is where the improvement consultants usually come in, sometimes selling something new or asked to improve the current systems. The latter being a reality as the operation management and staff usually get bogged down in everyday detail and chasing various outputs.Whoever comes in, there will have a specific flavour or direction that they move depending on the source of the consultancy’s base materials: TQM, Lean Manufacture, Six Sigma, Kaizen, etc.
Some international companies have developed their own systems over the years. The people who worked with these often moved on, either into consultancy or their own businesses, and use this homegrown material. This would be the best option as they know the specific business, have taken out all the deadwood, and you get a system that works for it is plant-specific. There is nothing more painful where a company, after very high-level talks, come down into a plant, and although they do not know or understand the specific business, within a few hours are making high-level productivity recommendations with guarantees.
With these options being available and presented, it’s usually the executive who will make the decision on who and what to use on the plants or operations. Upward leadership can help influence this decision, provided the plant team know what is being assessed – which, unfortunately, is not always the case.
Going back to what Deming said, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.” It is therefore up to the plant management team and staff to maximize the systems put in by weighing heavily the more productive systems and tapering off on those that, in this instance, add little or no leverage or value. There will always be one or two of these as it comes with the package, and somewhere down the line it was the hot number for one of the consultants, hence, it became part of the package.
For everything that is suggested or put in as an improvement of the current systems, the plant management needs to ask: is it applicable to this specific business, will add more value, and, if yes, to whom and how will it improve their productivity (output, reduction of waste with improved quality and costs), and finally, can it be integrated into the current systems? This is especially true in today’s high-tech and computerized systems used in manufacture.
Only once all the answers are a strong yes can the plant actually consider the change and implementation. And, if there is one no and the system turns out to be bad, it will hurt the people using it, adding negative value.
To close off this blog, I am putting in Deming’s 14 Obligations of Top Management that, while reading through these and looking for short intro to Deming, it felt good that most of these are touched on in my book.
And for a few insights on the position of the executive in relation to the plant and managerial issues that can emerge, check out last week's blog post on "The Iceberg of Ignorance".
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Until next week,
EJ