Archive for category: Filosophy

Management Musings 2.1

January 2, 2013/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

In bouncing around the internet this morning I found an article from Forbes contributor Mike Maddock on “Ten Resolutions Most Successful People Make and Keep.” It was interesting and particularly so when it came to the tenth resolution.

“#10 Plan vacations (now)

You have probably heard the saying, “Life is what happens when you are not paying attention.” Unfortunately for many of us, we let this become true. Do yourself a favor and plan your vacations for the next year today. I promise you that the days around your vacation will fill in nicely. I also promise you that you’ll have something to look forward to and the life that happens during your vacations will be precious.”

With the exception that I believe that “Life Is What Happens When You Are Planning Other Things,” it brought to mind an item in Peter Senge’s book “The Fifth Discipline” which I have tried to follow religiously since I read it in the 80’s.

He puts forward that when planning the activites of your work year you should plan your personal time before anything else. He suggests that if you don’t do that you won’t have any personal time. I found that to be true in the early years of starting our business. So I changed. From that point on I put on the schedule personal time and held it out of bounds for any other activity. It worked. I was more refreshed – I could think more clearly, my family liked me better – I was less of a bear to be around, and we ultimately became more successful. Try it you will like it.

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #37

December 31, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today

Abraham Lincoln

The death of the heart is the saddest thing that can happen to you

Chinese Proverb

Be a good listener, your ears will never get you in trouble

Frank Tyger

Never Forget

December 31, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

Before you can be of any value to anyone else….you must be of value to yourself.

Friday Filosophy #36

November 11, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

He who is to be a good ruler must have been ruled.

Aristotle

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Buddha

God gave burdens, also shoulders.

Yiddish proverb

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #35

November 3, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

Mark Twain

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use to being anything else.

Winston Churchill

What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.

Aristotle

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #34

October 20, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy.

Anonymous

Little things please little minds.

English Proverb

Adversity causes some men to break, and others to break records.

Unknown

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #33

October 12, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

Norman Peale

Love is the force that ignites the spirit and binds teams together.

Phil Jackson

I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.

Lou Holtz

The time is now.

Thought of the Day #12

October 9, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

In looking around the media and the education community and the unemployed in America these days I am astounded that the main stream media (MSM) are expounding on the needs that the current President has to get out the vote of the young as he did in 2008. I don’t think that is very smart.

The facts as I know them include the fact that over 54% of the graduates in 2012 do not have jobs. I look at new terms for the part time workers, the educated men and women who are working at jobs considerably below their skills sets. I don’t know why the current President would want that group of people to be voting in the same proportion as they did in 2008. Do they think they will continue to vote for the results that have been produced in job creation over the past three and a half years?

These people are smart, they have taken exams, and they know what good results look like and when they are not good. Who do you think they will vote for this time around? Hope and Change? Or Please Move Aside? This is not a good job on which you should have a do over is it? Clint Eastwood had it right when he said “when they don’t do the job you just got to let them go.”

Some facts to consider

Age 25 – 54 unemployment rate 7.1%
Age 18 – 25 unemployment rate 15.7%
The share of working age population that has a job in 2009 at the bottom of the recession was 58.2%
The share of working age population that has a job in September 2012 is 58.3% after the Obama jobs recovery.

This is not a record that the younger people will find comforting. They will not be voting for the current President. They have had about all they can stand of his hope and change. I am struck with the MSM and the wringing of their hands that the younger voters will not be turning out this election and that this will hurt the current President. Au contraire mes amis, if they vote in numbers they will in all likelihood be voting for Romney. And none too soon. The time is now.

CAS Filosophy v1.3

October 5, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

C.S. Lewis

I watched Titanic when I got back home from the hospital, and cried. I knew that my IQ had been damaged.”
Stephen King

And, to close, words to live by:

Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible!

Audrey Hepburn

The time is now.

WH Filosophy v1.5

October 5, 2012/in Filosophy/by learningwithoutscars

Thank you Bill.

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.

John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, British politician, poet, playwright and novelist

The time is now.

TESTIMONIALS

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The time is now.

December 1, 2013

Mastering Nonconforming Material Management for a Leaner, Meaner Business

Guest writer Sara Hanks offers practical tips on mastering nonconforming material management for a leader, meaner (but nicely!) business.

It is great to be back with another blog post. While the title might suggest that I’m advocating for a “meaner” business, I’m not encouraging cutthroat tactics. Instead, let’s explore how to master nonconforming material management and make your operation leaner and more efficient.

As an operations or quality leader, improving the nonconforming material management process is essential to reduce waste, enhance efficiency, and prevent recurring defects. We’ll delve into three practical steps to accomplish these goals and showcase an example from my personal work experience. Managing the nonconforming material process in a timely manner will avoid costly consequences.

Segregate and review defective parts daily.

Start with establishing a visible area to segregate the defective parts, as this will prevent the defective parts from being used in production or in your service center. Review the parts in the segregated area on a regular basis. Daily reviews are ideal to keep the parts top of mind.

While I was the quality engineer of an electric motor manufacturing company, there was an issue where a part failed due to an electrical issue during the final test. The motor was set aside to make room for production. A day or so later, another similar issue occurred, and a day or so after that an electrical issue occurred with a component that went into the motor. Eventually, we discovered the root cause of the issue – the wire that made the electrical parts that went into the motor had a defect. The defect could pass several tests and go undetected; piles of parts have accumulated. If we reviewed the issue regularly, the root cause would have been discovered sooner, saving a lot of rework costs.

Define ownership and measure cycle time.

There are four major steps to a nonconforming material management process: identify/segregate, disposition the fix, execute the disposition, and verify the completion. Each phase needs an owner. In the execution phase, different teams own the step based on the disposition. For example, scrapped parts or parts that need to be returned to the supplier are managed by materials, whereas parts that require rework should be managed by operations.

Once it is clear who owns which step, measure each step of the process. If the process is managed in an IT system, there are date stamps recorded as parts move through the process. These can be used to create the measurement system. Set goals for each step. If you are not sure what goal to set, try a 10% improvement over an established baseline, which can be determined by measuring the data for 8-12 weeks.

With the electric motor issue, the lack of ownership of each step extended the time to resolve the issue. The purchasing team was responsible to send the motor out to be torn down, however, the parts did not ship for several weeks after the root cause was identified because they weren’t held accountable. The accumulated defective parts sat in inventory – remember these are nearly finished goods, not supplied parts, so the inventory impact was significant. Additionally, the customer order was finite. We left the repairs to the last minute and used overtime to ship the parts on time. Measuring the process by the owner would have prevented the unnecessary cost.

Implement a Continuous Improvement Framework

My favorite continuous improvement framework is the DMAIC process, or Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. However, when it comes to continuous improvement for everyone in the organization, the DMAIC process may be too challenging to learn and adopt. A simpler, more accessible framework is the Plan-Do-Check-Act or PDCA framework. Here is a brief overview of the PDCA cycle:

Plan – identify a problem that needs solving or an opportunity for improvement. Analyze what can be done, establish a goal and identify the steps needed to accomplish the work.

Do – implement the plan, on a small scale if possible.

Check – evaluate the results.

Act – Standardize effective solutions or iterate back through the cycle.

Encourage everyone to participate in PDCA projects. Create a reward system to promote engagement. Rewards can be simple, such as recognition during an all-company meeting, or celebrating with a small party. Company swag is good, especially if employees can wear it during work hours. Buying a jacket or a hat for completing a project is extremely low cost compared to the savings of the project. This approach helps in addressing the root cause of defective parts, which will impact the cost of quality over time.

In the electric motor example, we did identify a corrective action project to prevent a recurrence. In the wire manufacturing process, a preventive maintenance schedule was created to replace components likely to wear on a regular basis. The small cost of changing a roller is minute compared to the larger expense of reworking the finished product. I cannot remember if we celebrated with a pizza party or not, but in hindsight, if we didn’t, we should have!

Take inspiration from my electric motor example, where timely root cause analysis could have saved money and contained the issue. Don’t let nonconforming materials pile up and obscure underlying problems. Instead, tackle them head-on with proactive measures that involve the ENTIRE team. By doing so, you can avoid missed deliveries due to quality issues and foster a culture of continuous improvement.

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