Surviving Downturn Through Quality

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SURVIVE THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN THROUGH QUALITY IMPROVEMENT Michael Weekes & Whataboutquality LLC St Petersburg – Tampa May 2009 American Society for Quality Chapter 1508

Transcript of Surviving Downturn Through Quality

Page 1: Surviving Downturn Through Quality

SURVIVETHE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

THROUGH QUALITY IMPROVEMENT

Michael Weekes & Whataboutquality LLC

St Petersburg – Tampa

May 2009

American Society for Quality

Chapter 1508

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The Agenda

Listen to the Voice of Your CustomerStrategic Direction – Got One?Map Out Your Key ProcessesLook For The CulpritsYou Can’t Improve What You Don’t MeasureWhat’s Behind My Issues?How Do I Tackle It?Prioritize the Critical FewEmployees are Stakeholders Too!So What’s In It For Us?Clean it Up!Proceduralize

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Listen to the Voice of Your Customer

What characteristics and attributes of your product or service mean the most to your customer?

You’re SURE of what your customer needs but are you sure of what THEY think they need? If you’re struggling, you probably don’t know.

Quality, Delivery, Price – ALL of these?

“Someone calling themselves the customersays they want something called service”

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Meet All Three Typesof Customer Requirements

• Spoken– Those they reveal upon request

• Satisfy to the extent they are present and vise-versa

• Unspoken– Expected

• Basic and often unmentioned• A required part of what delivering VALUE means• Complained about if NOT met

– Example: Getting out of your connecting airport

– Exciting• Exceed expectation• Harder to discover• Give them more than they could have imagined

– If you don’t they won’t complain– Example: a free drink, appetizer, sample

NOTE: If you deliver exciting, unexpected value you differentiate yourself from the competition and assure success.

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Strategic Direction

Convert your mission, vision and values into measurable, strategic objectives

Once you know where you want to be, how do you get there – what’s the GAME PLAN?

How do you know you’re getting there without measurable objectives, per year, per quarter, per month?

How do you know what ideas to act on if you don’t know how they align with your strategic plan?

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Examples

From:We will be the Premiere Entertainment venue in the Gulf

coast region.

To:We will increase the average number of seats sold per

performance from 1,273 by 30% by June 30th, 2009.

We will decrease the number of minutes it takes to receive and confirm a ticket order from 13.2 minutes to less than 8 minutes by the end of the season.

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Map Out Your Key Processes

Any organization delivers value and satisfies customers through it’s key processes

What are these and what activities make them up, who performs them and how do they relate to each other?

How does the relationship between departments, teams and individuals impact how well we deliver value?

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Examples

NOTE the cross-functional nature of the work flow and howdifferent departments depend on one another as suppliers

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Look for “The Culprits”

• Two types of culprits:– Waste

• Things that keep the flow from happening– Inventories

– Overproduction / Batching

– Defects / Errors

– Moves and Transportation

– Waiting

– Variation• Multiple ways for doing the work

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You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Measure

In any process, there are three critical characteristics:

• Quality• Delivery• Cost

• How well do you deliver a “quality” product or service to meet your customer’s needs?

• How often do you deliver on-time?• How much does it cost you to deliver these?

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What Makes Good Metrics?

• Verifiable – can be tested• Quantitative - numerical• Simple – easy to understand• Common Definition – everyone has same idea• Captures Performance – How is something being done?• Related to a standard• Allows and encourages comparison• Supports business strategy, objectives, direction• Translates customer needs into a measure

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Examples

• Quality– Missing items per room service order– Insufficient solder joints per circuit card– Insufficient knowledge of operator per call

• Delivery– Percentage of late room service orders– Percentage of late orders vs. due date– Missed completions on new home builds

• Cost– Labor per mortgage application processed– Material per package shipped

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What’s Behind Our Issues?

The Cause – Effect Relationship

Equipment

Policies

Procedures

People

NOTE: by People do not focus on the person as

Much as the role, skills and knowledge required.

I’m sureour people

are the problem!

NOT!

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Examples

• Problem: 7% of the drive-thru orders come with undercooked or burnt french fries.

– Cause: equipment – lack of temperature or time controls.

– Cause: process – failure to define the time and temperature for a standard batch.

– Solution: justify new equipment based on avoided errors; install and monitor.

– Solution: develop a visual aide to define the recipe (time/temp) and train personnel and certify demonstrated skill.

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Pareto - Prioritize the Critical FewSummary of Room Service Complaints (% of total)

Food Quality Late (> 20 min.) Lack of Other Variety

40%

30%

20%

10%

27%

14 %

24%

35%

NOTE one category represents more than a third of all problemstwo issues represent more than half of the problem

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Cause / Effect for Food QualityIssue - Room Service

PoorFood

Quality

PEOPLE

EQUIPMENT

POLICY

PROCEDURE

Don’t deliver untilThe Chef places the receiptwith the order

The emphasis onsatisfying the customerwas not understood by most of the personnel

No policy inplace for room service

The broiler was notcapable of meetingfood prep. requirements

NOTE: each cause is just an opportunity waiting to be acted on

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Employees are

Stakeholders Too!

We are all in business to make money, but if you make money at the cost of ignoring your employees, you’ll never be as lean as you need to be.

Employee involvement is the key to SUSTAINING improvement, making it an ongoing journey, not just an event or a slogan.

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The People Side of Improvement

Quality and Improvement:

• helps assure job security• clarifies job expectations• gives the employee a new reason to get up and

come to work• gives creative thinkers a new role at work and a

way to make a difference• differentiates the firm from the competition• provides focus and a systematic approach to

achieve more with the same people

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People & Quality of Life• We spend 40-60% of our life at work – so satisfaction

matters• Improvement efforts can be a perk – advancement opp.• Improvement efforts can build trust – boss & peers• Job Factors & Improvement

– Satisfaction – seeing results, being heard– Autonomy – puts work in the hands of process owners– Skills and knowledge growth– Esteem – you matter– Less Stress – more becomes known– Stability – making a difference

NOTE: History proves that only quality improvement efforts with extensive employee involvement Lead to sustained improvement

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Clean it Up!

Get Rid of the Waste!

Sort – define and remove non-essentials

Set – organize remaining items

Shine – clean, paint and polish

Standardize – label and color code

Sustain – keep it that way

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Procedurealize!

• Define the correct way to do everything

• Document it - Say what you do

• Train on it – make it dynamic and living• Certify through demonstrated performance

• Do what you say you do

• Monitor & Improve

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So What’s In It For Us?

The Business Case – the bang for the buck

• CEOs, Directors and Managers only understand the business aspect of quality improvement

• Quality improvement isn’t just something that’s nice to do; it’s critical to your survival. History shows us that by adapting, changing and improving we survive

• Improvement efforts are not EXTRA costs; they pay for themselves, many times over

• Improvement is a Lifetime Journey not an event!

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ConclusionTurn goals into objectives to get some sense of where we are and if

we are getting where we say we want to be.Set aside time to find out how we do the work we do, how well we’re

doing and what’s behind not doing it right.Map out key processes, activities and workflows to see the

opportunities.Measure performance to know where we are and if we’re getting there.Look at the causes behind the issues and take corrective action to

improve the process. Involve the employee along the way, to improve and sustain that

improvement, building an even more capable team.

We can survive through quality improvement and position ourselves for a competitive future that retains talent and draws new business to us

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Thank you!

Questions & Answers

EVERYTHING IS A

Michael Richard WeekesA WHATABOUTQUALITY BOOK

IMPROVEFRAMEWORK

MODEL WORKFLOW

PROCESS

EVERYTHING IS A

Michael Richard WeekesA WHATABOUTQUALITY BOOK

IMPROVEFRAMEWORK

MODEL WORKFLOW

PROCESS

Mike Weekes

President, Whataboutquality LLCOsprey, FL

(941) 356 9434Email:

[email protected] the web at:

http://www.whataboutquality.comBlogging at:

http://www.whataboutquality.wordpress.com/ISBN 9780615272443