Improvement – The world is too small? or Is it?

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – November, 2020

Welcome to November 2020 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

For the year 2020, we have chosen the core subject of Revisiting Basic Quality Concepts w.r.t. the sustained success of the organization As of now we have visited

History of Quality in January 2020
The Sustained Success of Organization in February 2020
Organizational Context in March 2020
Understanding Needs and Expectations of the Interested Parties in April 2020
Risk Based Approach in May 2020
Opportunity Based Approach in June 2020
The Organizational Knowledge for the Sustained Success in July 2020
Competent people for the sustained organizational success in August 2020
Process Management for Sustained Success in September 2020
Performance Measurement for Sustained Success in October 2020

We take up Improvements for Sustained Success: A canvas of the improvement process to individual and collective mindsets as our next core concept this month–

Continuous Improvement requires a systemic dissatisfaction with the status quo, no matter how good the organization is perceived to be. Real change management is tangible, quantifiable, and critical to driving a sustainable adoption.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” – Maya Angelou.

There are six main reasons why organizations fail to sustain performance improvements[1]:

Winning. can distract an organization from the need to continuously improve.
Change in Leadership.
Impatience. The organization tires of its improvement effort and moves on before it can yield optimal results.
Reduction in Improvement Methods. Infrastructure isn’t maintained.
M&A Activity. forces an initiative’s postponement or derailment.
Global Macroeconomic Events. that it did not foresee or grossly underestimated.

“Creating constancy of purpose towards improving work, product and service levels is the basis of continual improvement.

“It is common to for leaders to speak of change in the same sentence with changing culture. But our own experience with culture change these past 5 years in the Henry Ford Production System across all laboratories of nearly 800 workers in Henry Ford Health System has taught us repeatedly that culture is a desirable but secondary outcome to changing structure and process that enables and expects employees to work differently.”[2]

As we scan through the vast variety of literature on sustained improvements, we see many common threads, like, involvement of people, integration of improvement initiatives into the overall change process, building the culture of improvement to measures of the improvement process over a longer time frame cycles of the changes in the context of the organization. There is also consensus that the improvement initiatives over the long terms should help build sustainable competitive advantage(s) for the business.

Here is very short list of some of the readings that I liked:

Unlocking the future with continuous improvement – Roxann Dawson, MSc, DipQ, CQP MCQI
Sustaining continuous improvement: Five leaders’ views
Keys to a sustainable transformation: A conversation with Seth Goldstrom

The detailed note on Improvements for Sustained Success can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlink.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

In the series the Organizational Culture, we have taken up Improving the organizational culture – The means and speed of the value creation will bring massive disruption. Therefore, the only question that any organizational culture improvement initiative should address is whether your company is going to cause it or fall victim to it.[3].

We now watch ASQ TV, wherein we refresh our viewpoints about:

PDCA for Improvement – The plan-do-check-act cycle, or PDCA, is a very popular tool that is used in many different sectors, in a wide variety of situations. Learn how to use-and better explain this powerful tool.

Before we take up Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems this month we have picked up one article, which is relevant to our subject, when viewed in the context of improvements for the sustained success –

“Good to Go” – The three most dangerous words in quality by Ian R Lazarus – As quality managers, it is not only important to understand the difference between “good enough” and great levels of quality, these must be quantified. Fortunately, we have many tools available to quantify the quality of our processes. Probably the most robust of these approaches is to establish the capability of the process. The meaning of the term “capability” is likely intuitive, but in Six Sigma vernacular it refers to a quantitative measure reflecting the probability that a process will meet customer specifications, expressed as a Sigma level. In fact, management has no right to complain about process performance without understanding capability on some level because after all, what is more important than meeting the customer’s expectations?

- - “The Voice of the Process,” in other words, the range of process performance today
  - “The Voice of the Customer,” in other words, the upper and lower specification limits that define acceptable levels of performance in the eye of the customer.

Once the concept of capability is understood, interventions such as error-proofing can be applied.[4]

And now we take up Jim Smith’s article that also links up the subject –

Recognition Power: Recognizing Efforts Supports Excellence : It is well accepted that when people feel appreciated and get recognized, they are more engaged, motivated, and productive.. However, more often not, it is also observed that too few organizations take advantage of this opportunity. Some organizations believe that adequate annual performs reviews and competitive compensation packages should be sufficient to enable the employee engagement. Some other organizations may see employee recognition as too difficult to manage and oversee, too hard to keep from becoming an entitlement or simply too costly. Organizations need to think of employee recognition as a strategic advantage. The five important principles that need be considered for the development of strategy for employee engagement are:

Choose a common strategy and deploy it uniformly across the organization.
Secure top management sponsorship that is fully understood and embraced by the top management in spirit.
Link organization’s values and strategic objectives with employee engagement strategy.
Create a culture which encourages participation across all levels, in a fair, transparent and proactive manner.
Allow for flexibility, for the form, content, and style, for natural differences for those giving and receiving recognition.

It is always vital to recognize that sustainable competitive advantage is delivered, and sustained, by the people who work for the organization.

I look forward to your views / comments / inputs to further enrich the subjects of Basics of Quality and Organizational Culture and their role in Creating and Maintaining Sustained Success.

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

[1] Six Paths to Sustained Results—Part I – Joseph A. DeFeo

[2] Creating, Structuring and Sustaining a Culture of Continuous Improvement in Healthcare

[3] Value creation in the future

[4] Voice of Process vs. Voice of Customer

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – April 2015

Welcome to April 2015 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

For the month, we cast our net to search for articles for “Improving measures of measurement of process”, so as to look at the process improvement in the deep nooks and corners. The result seems to be a mixed bag. However, we will take what is available and continue with a more defined journey in next few episodes as we. So, here are some exploratory articles on Improving measures of measurement of process.

Following a measurement journey – …It can be helpful to think of the measurement activities in an improvement project as a journey:

Source: Lloyd, R. Quality Health Care: a guide to developing and using indicators. Jones & Bartlett Publishers 2004

Measures – Measurement is a critical part of testing and implementing changes; measures tell a team whether the changes they are making actually lead to improvement. In improvement work, the team should use a balanced set of measures. Plot data for these measures over time using a run chart, a simple and effective way to determine whether the changes you are making are leading to improvement. For more information: See How to Improve: Establishing Measures

Types of Measures – Structure: Physical equipment and facilities Outcome Measures – The final product, results, Process Measures – How the system works, Balancing Measures– looking at a system from different directions/dimensions.

Measuring Healthcare Quality: An Overview of Quality Measures briefly looks at what are the types of quality measures , how quality measure are developed, where do data on …quality come from, how are the quality measures used, what’s next in quality measurement.

Using benchmarking measurement to improve performance over time – Participation in external benchmarking activities is not….. the ultimate goal. It is the use of data derived from benchmarking to initiate and sustain performance improvement over time.

This paper has placed very relevant quotes as the sidebar, which subtly but equally definitively enhances the message of the article. We have placed them here below:

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort.” – John Ruskin

“The goal is to transform data into information and information into insight.” – Carly Fiorina

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

“Data do not speak for themselves – they need context, and they need skeptical evaluation.” -– Allen Wilcox

“It is the mark of a truly intelligent person to be moved by statistics.” – George Bernard Shaw

“If you think that statistics has nothing to say about what you do or how you could do it better, then you are either wrong or in need of a more interesting job.” – Stephen Senn

“In the middle of a difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein

We will continue with present subject in its more definitive aspects in the next few episodes.

In the meanwhile, in the second part, we have Suresh Lulla’s Blog, from among the Influential Voices Blogroll Alumni. Here are the previous posts on this blog:

• Managing for Quality

• Problem Solving in 4 Steps – 2

• Problem Solving in 4 Steps

• Who Pays for Bad Quality? Is there a Solution?

• Supplier Solutions. MADE IN INDIA

We turn to our regular sections now:

Bill Troy, ASQ CEO has presented the first of the three part blog series ‘A Leader’s Roadmap to a Culture of Quality: Building on Forbes Insights-ASQ Leadership Research: Part 2 of 3’. Roy Lawton – author of the book Creating a Customer-Centered Culture: Leadership in Quality, Innovation and Speed – proposes to provide the missing and necessary specifics for successful action. In the Part One last month, he spelt out how to successfully address point #1 – All employees must apply the four key elements of any strategy for building a quality culture. (Page 8: Boeing’s Ken Shead). In Part Two here, he spells out how to successfully address point #2 – CLOSELY UNDERSTAND CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS, on the road to cultural transformation.

Bill Troy also critically discussed how to Encourage The Next Generation of STEM Professionals. Julia McIntosh, ASQ communications , in her follow through ‘March Roundup: What To Do About STEM Education?’ has summed up a wide ranging views of the fellow ASQ Influential Voices bloggers.

We then move over to ASQ TV Episodes: Quality and Forensics – In this episode, we will see how quality plays an important role in forensic community and how forensic techniques were used to resolve a construction dispute. We will (also) learn how to create a Correction Action Request and we talk to one of the stars of the hit television show, CSI.

Linked videos:

• Forensic Technique Reveal Conclusive Evidence

• The How and Why of Auditing

o Corrective Action Request

Our ASQ’s Influential Voice for the month is – Chad Walters

Chad Walters is a lean consultant with Lean Blitz Consulting out of Augusta, Georgia, and blogs about Lean applications in sports organizations at the Lean Blitz Consulting blog. He has been practicing lean and continuous improvement for more than eight years. He is a Six Sigma Black Belt certified by ASQ and received his MBA from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and B.S. in chemical engineering from Tri-State University in Angola, Indiana.

Over and above his views as ASQ Influential Voice, here are some other posts on Chad Walter’s blog:

§ Presentation on the Designated Hitter and Root Cause Analysis

§ Should the Buffalo Bills Play Sunday Despite The Driving Ban?

§ Did Eric Hosmer’s First Base Slide Cost The Royals?

§ LinkedIn Post: Business Strategy and Clothes Dryers

He certainly loves to dig more into how sports can better utilize quality.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our Improvement journey ………….

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs–March 2015 edition

Welcome to March 2015 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

For the month, I chose to search articles for “Improving the manufacturing performance”. As can be expected, the available choice was so simply far too much to handle in one episode of our blog carnival. So, I have selected some of the representative articles:

5 Ways to Boost Your Line’s Performance — Right Now … John Mills

1. Reward trainers. First, model the behaviour you want. Then, train your floor managers to implement best practices quickly.

2. Reward small failures. Productivity is a process so treat it like one. Allow staff to team up and try small experiments for boosting output, setting aside rewards for both victories and failures knowing that anything that moves the floor closer to achieving permanent gains is a win.

3. Reward efficiency. Don’t obsess over output at the expense of everything else. Structure rewards that allow employees to “bank” and use time saved via productivity enhancements as vacation or sick time.

4. Reward partnerships. More isn’t always better when it comes to developing and refining a manufacturing process, but there will always be appropriate moments to bring in outside experts.

5. Reward outcomes. Finally, remember the endgame. Identify tangible, measurable goals before embarking on any productivity-boosting campaign. Assign leaders to implement the plan and then get prepared to reward achievements.

Keys to Improving Manufacturing Efficiency

In this paper, Apriso shows how to achieve enterprise-wide supply chain visibility, manufacturing synchronization, and control over efficiency through an integrated solution that directly addresses manufacturing competence.

A Diagnostic Tree for Improving Production Line Performance – Wallace J. Hopp • Seyed M. R. Iravani • Biying Shou

Improving performance of production systems is a critical but often unstructured activity. To help managers convert ad hoc or trial & error improvement efforts into efficient and systematic reviews, we develop a diagnostic tree which decomposes a performance improvement objective into successively more concrete sub-objectives and finally into potential improvement strategies. Based on principles from the Operations Management literature, this tree is structured to enable a non-specialist to better understand the links between corrective actions and performance. It also provides an important foundation for a principles-based knowledge management system that couples the decision tree with a search engine for locating relevant documents within an intranet.

Proven Principles for Improving Manufacturing Performance – Paul Dennis, Tom Knight

Plant managers can obtain major improvements in manufacturing performance by rising above the jargon and implementing two proven guiding principles that have stood the test of time : benchmarking and elimination of waste, particularly redusction in inventory and long cycle-times. The performance improvements should maintain profit margin and provide competitive advantage. Managers should also make a diagnosis first, before prescribing the appropriate improvement technique.

How big data can improve manufacturing by Eric Auschitzky, Markus Hammer, and Agesan Rajagopaul

(Wherever a huge amount of data is being generated[ even when not on all of them on digital media]) Manufacturers (by) taking advantage of advanced analytics can reduce process flaws, saving time and money

Jeff Dorman: Improving Performance

Jeff Dorman examines the roles of leaders, managers and employees, as well as team functionality as crucial elements for organizational success..

Designing performance measures – a structured approach – Andy Neely, Huw Richards, John Mills, Ken Platts and Mike Bourne

(A well-researched article. If one starts hitting the Tables, then you get a very good feel of what can be more relevant to one’s given situation.)

Improving Analysis of Key Performance Measures at Four Middle-Sized Manufacturing Companies – Moving Focus from What Has Happened to What to Do – Marcus Danielsson & Johan Holgard

The purpose of this thesis can be formulated in three research questions: How did the companies change their attitudes and behaviour as a result of understanding variation? How should a method to understand variation be implemented?, What aspects are important to consider when undertaking an implementation process?

28 Manufacturing Metrics that Actually Matter (The Ones We Rely On) – Mark Davidson

The MESA (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) organization has sponsored research over the past years to help the manufacturing marketplace identify the most important metrics, and help decision makers understand metrics improvements and their relationships to metrics programs and the use of software solutions. As part of the most recent metrics survey, 28 manufacturing metrics were identified as being the most utilized by discrete, process, and hybrid/batch manufacturers.

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

Measurement is the first step in improvement. But while measuring is the process of quantification, its effect is to stimulate positive action……Performance measures can be grouped into two basic types: those that relate to results (outputs or outcomes such as competitiveness or financial performance) and those that focus on the determinants of the results (inputs such as quality, flexibility, resource utilization, and innovation). This suggests that performance measurement frameworks can be built around the concepts of results and determinants.

Performance Factory – a new approach of performance assessment for the Factory of the Future

A new measurement and assessment framework, called Performance Factory (PerFact) and its current implementation state, is presented in this work. In addition, the Virtual Factory Framework Project (VFF) is presented. VFF is in line with the concept of the Factory of the Future and envisions the development of a Virtual Factory in order to support and improve the real factory. This in turn allows and promotes the application of PerFact by selectively assessing the real performance or the performance of planning scenarios.

In the second part, we have Innovate on Purpose from among the Influential Voices Blogroll Alumni. Here are the previous posts on this blog:

We turn to our regular sections now:

Bill Troy, ASQ CEO has presented the first of the three part blog series ‘A Leader’s Roadmap to a Culture of Quality: Building on Forbes Insights-ASQ Leadership Research’. Roy Lawton – author of the book Creating a Customer-Centered Culture: Leadership in Quality, Innovation and Speed – proposes to provide the missing and necessary specifics for successful action. Part One in this blog series spells out how to successfully address point #1 – All employees must apply the four key elements of any strategy for building a quality culture. (Page 8: Boeing’s Ken Shead).

Julia McIntosh, ASQ communications , in her ‘February Roundup: Is Quality “Global”?’ notes what ASQ’s bloggers had to say – “quality going global”—should it and does it? If so, how is quality knowledge best shared worldwide?

And then move over to ASQ TV Episodes: A New Look at Risk Management – Learn about the role of risk in the ISO 9001: 2015 revision, assess the root causes of risk via a fishbone diagram, discover a risk management formula, and learn how the toy company LEGO successfully manages risk.

Our ASQ’s Influential Voice for the month is – Anshuman Tiwari

Anshuman Tiwari is a quality expert with experience as an industrial engineer, quality consultant, and program manager in industries ranging from textiles to financial services. Based in Bengaluru, India, he blogs at Quality—The Unfair Advantage, wherein he includes reviews, articles, views, news, jobs, etc. on quality.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our Improvement journey ………….

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – February 2015 edition

Welcome to February 2015 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have chosen to visit Institute for Healthcare Improvement, envisioning “Improving Health and Healthcare Worldwide”. We would especially focus on Resources thereat, which offers tools, change ideas, measures to guide improvement, IHI white papers, audio and video, improvement stories, and more.

IHI uses the Model for Improvement as the framework to guide improvement work. The Model for Improvement,* developed by Associates in Process Improvement, is a simple, yet powerful tool for accelerating improvement. This model is not meant to replace change models that organizations may already be using, but rather to accelerate improvement.

We also get to learn about the fundamentals of the Model for Improvement and testing changes on a small scale using Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles.

We will also have a look at some of the videos here:

Dr. Mike Evans Video: An Illustrated Look at Quality Improvement in Health Care

In the video, Evans starts with a simple question: Why should you care about quality improvement? He presents a brief history of QI (including a “Mount Rushmore” of improvers), then touches on system design, the Model for Improvement, and the familiar challenge, “What can you do by next Tuesday?” — all in less than nine minutes!

Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (Part 1) and (Part 2)

Robert Lloyd, the Director of Performance Improvement at IHI, uses his trusty whiteboard to dissect the science of improvement. In short videos, he breaks down everything from Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge, to the PDSA cycle, to run charts.

The Model for Improvement (Part 1) and (Part 2)

The Model for Improvement was developed by Associates in Process Improvement.

In the second part, we have NDCBlogger from among the Influential Voices Blogroll Alumni.

This is the blog of Deborah Mackin, the author of The Team-Building Tool Kit series and founder of New Directions Consulting. She has a background in quality manufacturing and production, as well as organizational excellence

We have selected two of the articles from the blog so as to open a peep-in window to the blog:

• A Manufacturing Floor Operator’s Experience with High Performance Teams and What It’s Meant To Him – Matthew Harrington

While looking for this video on YT, we happily land upon:

TEDxBelfast – Ken Thompson – The Habits of High Performing Teams
How to Build and Lead High Performance Teams – Dave Grundy

• Why Change When Things Have Been Successful in the Past?

“We are not making a change to a Team concept because we are doing something wrong. In fact, our success is due to the great work we have done to this point. We are a leader in the field. We want to maintain that leadership and to do so we need to move forward with how we do business.”

We turn to our regular sections now:

Bill Troy, ASQ CEO picks up the thread for the round of discussion, “Why Should Quality “Go Global”?, from the visits paid to the HQ by ASQ’s representatives from global offices in India, Mexico, and China, and partner organization in Brazil, Quali.

Paul O’Neill, a quality thought leader, 2013 Juran Medalist, and former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, chairman and CEO of Alcoa from 1987 to 1999, where he retired as chairman at the end of 2000, is now immersed in taking the principles of quality and using them to fix the enormous problems the U.S. faces in healthcare. As an acknowledged expert in healthcare economics, he uses the same quality principles he espoused and enforced at Alcoa to help healthcare executives and providers cut waste and increase effectiveness and safety.

The key take-aways from the discussions have been presented @ Finding Inspiration form Quality Leaders.

First, when he went to Alcoa, he surprised everyone by what he made his top priority. It was not increasing shareholder value, capturing market share, or increasing profits. It was worker safety. Because, as Secretary O’Neill explains, your people are the most precious asset you have. When they are injured, you don’t have just an interruption in the work, you have real human suffering. No profit is worth that.

The second take away that resonates, as much as the first, is simply to treat everyone with dignity and respect.

The third point sounds simple, but its implications are unforgiving and pervasive. It is that your aim must be to be the best in the world at everything you do. This is a radical departure from what most of us think of as improvement. It does not say be better than last year or be better than the guy down the street. It says you must drive to be the best in the world and he meant exactly that. This, in more details , means to figure out theoretical perfection, measure yourself against that standard, and then figure out how to get there. You then start systematically eliminating everything that is keeping you from attaining that theoretical level of perfection, keep measuring, and don’t stop until you get there. (My) guess is that’s where even a leader as good as Paul O’Neill will lose a lot of potential followers. If you really mean it, this part is very, very tough. But, as Secretary O’Neill told me, it is also a lot of fun! ……….. We indeed intend to find out.

Julia McIntosh, ASQ communications , in her January Roundup: Quality Inspirations notes that – A quality role model could be anyone from a guru to a mentor to a person who is not “in quality” at all, but still embodies quality principles- Family, Professional Mentors or Icons and Beyond. The round up sums feedback from a cross-section of ASQ Influential Voices bloggers.

And then move over to ASQ TV Episodes: New To Quality – discover seven quality tools and Quality Body of Knowledge ^®

Our ASQ’s Influential Voice for the month is – Manu Vora

ASQ Fellow Manu Vora is chairman and president of Business Excellence, Inc. He is an expert in organizational excellence and the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. He blogs at Thoughts on Quality, wherein he puts across his views, thoughts and experiences in relation to the monthly topic for discussion @ASQ Influential Voice forum..

We have picked up one article – A Clear Vision – to illustrate the content on the blog.

The Oxford Dictionaries defines vision as “The ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom”. Why do organizations need vision? The vision provides a purpose, direction, and focus to take an organization to a next height. It is essentially a dream of the future. …the vision statement should be memorable, short, and uplifting (not several paragraphs put together by outside consultants which become ‘Words on the Wall (WOW)’). ‘ … The article supplements this with few excellent examples of Vision statements from the US Baldrige Performance Excellence Award winners in various domains.

Here is a bonus read from ASQ: Top 8 Books Every Quality Professional Should Read