Saturday, August 30, 2014


Kaizen Events: Today’s Processes and Services Aren’t So Easily Changed in a Week

This is the last in my series of PIPs where I examine tools and techniques which were relevant and effective for process improvement in the past.  The business world where we earn our living has changed and some tools, such as Kaizen Events, can be very difficult to implement in many processes and services in organizations today.

A Kaizen (aka Rapid Improvement) Event is conceptually a very potent tool.  The idea is to gather a cross functional team for a tightly focused, short duration (such as a week) effort facilitated by a lean expert.  The team has full authority to tear apart a process or processes, develop solutions, and implement the changes during that timeframe.  Results are immediate.

For small, single-location, non-automated, non-regulated processes or services, this tool can still be very effective.  Unfortunately most organizations have few if any of those processes or services left.  Today we have globally structured, multiple-location, regulated, and automated processes or services which cannot be changed without a focus on impact to other areas or great difficulty.

Global supply chains and outsourced services leverage their resources across many customers and cannot quickly make the changes the team seeks.  Many others have significant automation and IT intensive tools for their processes or services where support groups need to investigate how to make those changes.  Other industries have government or certifying ‘best practices’ which you would be foolish to change without investigation and approval.

Kaizen Events are powerful under proper circumstances and by all means use them if you can implement the findings quickly.   It’s a challenge to do nowadays though.  The Japanese definition of Kaizen refers to incremental improvement which is how it has to work in many of our processes or services today.

 

Saturday, August 16, 2014


Benchmarking – A Very Powerful Tool Which Has Had Its Day in the Sun

In this PIP, I continue my series on various tools and techniques whose relevance and effectiveness are not as potent for process improvement as in the past.  I’m going to look at benchmarking and how a great concept became prevalent and over time lost its potency as a process improvement tool.

In the early 1990s, the concept of benchmarking swept through US businesses.  The idea was to personally see and examine an operation you would like to ‘learn from’ to improve your operation(s).  And in a number of cases, practitioners ‘thought outside the box’ and benchmarked similar operations in other industries.  Done right with proper preparation, selecting the right personnel to participate, and with the right follow up back at home, it worked wonders.  Many companies made massive improvements to their operations as a result.

Fast forward twenty years and the world of business has changed.  First of all any company which doesn’t already have efficient and effective operations is probably history by now.  The last economic downturn and global environment of today put them under.  Secondly many industries have standard practices to conform to various regulations.  You and your competitors have to comply with them or else.

Thirdly companies you’d like to benchmark are probably not even in your home country any longer.  Off shore and in a country with a different approach to visitors to their operations ends benchmarking them before you even start.

Finally like most quality tools, benchmarking does not provide long-term competitive advantage.  And if we shine a harsh light on all, most of them never really did.  It didn’t take everyone else very long to learn and adapt.  Now I will point out there is a world of difference between knowing and doing, and I know the latter is usually a minority.  But in the brutally competitive world of today, benchmarking is ‘so 1990s’ and just not the powerful tool it was then.

Saturday, August 2, 2014


Best Practices: They Usually Aren’t And Keep Them To Yourself

      With this PIP, I continue to examine various tools and techniques whose relevance and effectiveness are not as potent for process improvement as in the past.  I’m going to look at best practices and two aspects of them which you should question.

      First is best practices in many cases is an oxymoron.  Frequently they are just some practices someone with both extensive process knowledge and good technical writing skills put down on paper.  No one puts them to the test.  All too often large portions are pulled straight out of a vendor’s instruction or equipment manual.  They might just as well be etched in stone because no one questions them or shines the light of continuous process improvement on them either.

      Second is they are no longer exclusive.  In the past, industry followers looked to industry leaders to copy, steal, borrow, or pick your own term for absconding their best practices.  In the ultra-competitive, standardize everything world we work in they aren’t exclusive.  People move around and consultants hire on to various firms so both introduce them to the next organization they join.  Exclusivity is no longer there since everyone is probably doing the exact same thing, plus or minus about 5%.  We’re playing not follow the leader but follow the follower.

      So shine a strong light on your so called best practices and make sure they really are.  Question your process experts to ensure best practices are reviewed and kept up to date, especially with rapid changes in technology.  If your practices are exclusively the best, other organizations may look to benchmark your organization.  You might want to avoid unless you want your competitors to have that knowledge.  We’ll look at benchmarking in the next PIP.