Success needs to know your current and desired positions

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This post is Part 3 of the series "Generalizing the Secret Ingredients for making any Process Improvement Project a Success Story". In the first part we reviewed a brief overview of the series. Please follow the previous posts to have a clearer view on the subject. Your comments, feedback and insights are welcomed.

EXPLORE THE SERIES: Part 1, Part 2

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DO NOT REINVENT THE WHEEL EACH TIME, FOR ONCE JUST PAINT THE BIG PICTURE

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Imagine a football game that has no goalposts, such a game will never end, similarly in one's life if there are no goals then one would never know where he or she is heading and the whole life will be wondering around without any cause.

If we take a look at the successful people's life we will find that such people are very much clear regarding their goals and objectives. Having a clearer picture and/or having idea of where one would be wanting to go has been under discussion since years. Likewise for every successful project its very important to know that what is the ultimate objective which is to be achieved, doing so will help in minimizing:

efforts;
waste of resources and;
the frequency of switching or emending the plans.

It is very important to paint the big picture which includes all your associated possible future plans so that in case you opt to work on anyone of them time-after-time, you do not reinvent the wheel, each step/project completed serves as the basis for the next associated project.

ANALYZE THE CURRENT SCENARIO AND PLAN FOR THE NEXT MOVE

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Each day we travel somewhere, lets take an example when we drive to our offices, while commuting if we experience traffic jams we switch to the best possible alternate route to reach our destination. Likewise before the commencement of any project we do an AS-IS and TO-BE or Gap analysis to assess the current situation and to highlight gaps between the current and the desired status. Doing so will:

first let us be on the course;
help us minimize distractions from the main objective;
saves future unprecedented events that can slow down the project;
enables us to save cost of RE-work, RE-engineering and RE-process which contributes to COPQ - Cost of Poor Quality;
also contributes in decreasing and/or eliminating wastes.

MINIMIZING AND/OR ELIMINATING THE UNDESIRED COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH UNPRECEDENTED EVENTS

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As in the previous associated post, the importance of chalking-out business process(es) were discussed, so at this time while highlighting the loop holes and/or identifying the possibilities of derailing from the proposed course towards reaching your destination can be plotted using the flowcharts. Evaluate each process step and asses if it is adding value to the process and/or system *.

* please also refer the non-value added activities and/or event(s) in this post under the heading "What is Waste?"

Eliminate anything and/or everything that does not add value. Remember that CoPQ is high:

A major part of invisible CoPQ is unrecognized in companies due to that they are neither measured, nor reported (Krishnan, 2006). Further, invisible costs are unrecognized due to that the costs are inadequately registered in the organization or not discovered at all (Dahlgaard et. al., 1992). As a consequence, management decisions are often based on the information of visible costs (Krishnan, 2006). The authors differently describe the amount of invisible CoPQ, where Gryna (1999) states that invisible CoPQ is three or four times of visible costs while Krishnan (2006) states that invisible CoPQ CAN BE AS HIGH AS THREE TO TEN TIMES VISIBLE COSTS.

Source: University of Technology, 2013, Marcus Thomasson, Johanna Wallin, Page 17

EVALUATE YOUR POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES BY KEEPING TRACK ON YOUR RESOURCES AND THE CONTRIBUTORS TO WASTE

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While working on the non-value added items it is important to keep a look on your resources. It is the resources which are combined with a certain mix and consumed to have the desired results. In case of a company resources includes:

management;
manpower;
material;
method;
money;
marketing;
machine and;
above all the most important time.

Combining and making the best use of the above stated resources will result in reaching the destination. The path on which one is heading is not smooth and is full of bumps so it is also recommended to look for such factors which can let the ride unpleasant. These factors are mainly characterized as waste.

WHAT IS WASTE?

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Before knowing the contributors of waste it is very necessary to understand the waste itself.

Waste is anything or everything which does not add value to the process and/or system.

The above statement can also be referred from:

Occurrence of waste could be due to the following events which might not be adding value to the process and/or system:

T – Transport – Moving people, products & information

I – Inventory – Storing parts, pieces, documentation ahead of requirements

M – Motion – Bending, turning, reaching, lifting

W – Waiting – For parts, information, instructions, equipment

O – Over production – Making more than is IMMEDIATELY required

O – Over processing – Tighter tolerances or higher grade materials than are necessary

D – Defects – Rework, scrap, incorrect documentation

S – Skills – Under utilizing capabilities, delegating tasks with inadequate training

Source: 8 Waste of Lean

THE PLAN: MAP YOUR COURSE OF ACTION

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Once you have identified/characterized your inputs in the light of the above stated aspects, you can now draw road map for your project. Still at this point in time you only have a bird's eye-view of your project. Do not forget to put expected timeline(s) against each step which contributes to the achievement of your objective(s)/goal(s). This will also let you gauge your progress.

The above commentary is just an initial sketch to the subject, to fine tune this initial piece of plan, keep reading the forthcoming posts.

Best of luck!

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Asif Pervez is the founder and life coach at QuBpro Research Institute. Asif is a Futurist, a Business Process and Supply Chain Management technocrat with strategic vision powered with 15+ years of accomplishment at driving savings, optimizing and improving process, operations, planning and instituting innovative solutions while focusing on quality and service. The experience, knowledge and trainings have equipped Asif with latest tools and techniques to have macroscopic as well as microscopic view of problems and to run high end process improvement programs and conduct successful information systems implementations.

The views expressed in this blog are based on the author's experience and do not reflect his current or past employers.

QuBpro Consultancy F.Z.E.

Wednesday, 1 July 2015