This is Deming’s 12th point – another great idea that can improve the work environment in any organization! Start with a few questions and see what emerges… Question: Is management REALLY listening? Or are people feeling like no one’s responding? Management Question: Can people improve their own processes? Question: Can people inspect their own work? […]
Promote Pride in People Read More »
John Seddon, Vanguard Consulting, released a great book called ‘Freedom From Command and Control’. There are plenty of great ideas in there, and I enjoy sharing them with you! Seddon started applying the ‘Toyota Production System’ to the service industry back in the 90s. You’ll find his insights very helpful. Systems Thinking is what he
A New Twist on PDCA Read More »
John Seddon, Vanguard Consulting, published a book in 2005 called “Freedom from Command and Control”. Definitely worth reading if you’re interested in tapping the vast potential of any workforce. One of his interesting ideas is ‘Learn to see, learn to lead’ and it made complete sense to me. What a leaders learn from looking at
Learn to ‘See’… Learn to ‘Lead’ Read More »
If your process improvement project has stalled, perhaps Management could give it a boost…if they’re on board! The first key is to make sure they understand the context of the project and how it fits into current circumstances. If a project looks like it’s ‘out in left field’ it will be hard to get support
Five Tips to Get Management Buy-in Read More »
You’ll notice in ISO 9001:2015 that clause 6.2.2 requires action plans for Quality Objectives. Yikes! Here’s the good news: these plans will help. Design your Action Plans to help you reach your targets – hitting targets will help you improve your Management System. You’ll see that the requirements include: What are we going to do
Four Keys to Action Plans Read More »
Too many well-intentioned improvement projects end up in the weeds. How does this happen? Too much focus on the process and not enough focus on the goal. Unless that process is really causing people grief they won’t be all that interested in it. If you can relate improving the process to relieving some kind of
Two Keys to Process Improvement Read More »
Waiting until the end of your production cycle to do inspections is a recipe for disaster. By then, it’s too late. You have time and money invested by this point and it’s important to get a return on your investment. It makes more business sense to build checks in along the way. Better yet, design
Stop depending on final inspections! Read More »
Most of us like variety, but not everyone likes change. What I’ve discovered over the years is that if I decide that it’s going to be different, I call it variety. If you tell me that it’s going to be different, I call it change! In order to improve and keep our organizations vibrant, we have to
The Challenge of Change! Read More »
The short answer is, of course, “Never!”. Unless we have a proprietary solution to a global problem and no competitors, we always need to be fine tuning our processes to survive in a world of razor thin margins. And we’re not just talking about improving processes to make more profit. If we make the working
When can we stop improving? Read More »
Errors or non-conformances cost us big time, but most organizations don’t realize it. Not only are there hard costs, but there are many hidden costs that add up to reduced profits – logging the issue, containing it, deciding on a cause, implementing a solution, checking it for effectiveness and reviewing risk management to see if
Errors? Who Cares?!? Read More »
