newsletter archive.
(Previously published under the title Extreme Profits
under ISSN 1925-8941)
Just in time, continuing the improvement
We have all experienced the "just in case" syndrome: “Let's purchase a few extra file folders, just in case we need them next month. Let's order an extra toner cartridge, just in case the one we now have runs out of ink too soon. Let's buy an extra steak, just in case George decides to come for dinner.”
While it is so wrong and so wasteful, many businesses still run on the "just in case" model. Instead, they should be running in the opposite direction - using "just-in-time" (JIT).
For goodness sake, useful quality standards and tools
How good is your business? While we can get into regression analysis and other measures of goodness and goodness of fit to answer this question, a stable indicator of how well a business is performing is your customer. Loyal and satisfied customers generally provide evidence of a company's quality.
Finding the balance, building your scorecard
Efficient organizations are more than just well-tuned processes. They also focus on how and what value they deliver to their customers, shareholders and employees. In fact, organizational efficiency is a balanced performance in four areas: finances, customers, processes, and learning and growth.
Quality as a factor of excellence, acceptance of change
Because it is subjective, quality is not easy to define. This is a problem for business because while the organization thinks it is producing quality goods and services, its customers may think differently.
Take internal business processes, for example. Quality processes have short lead and cycle times and zero defects/errors. They are near perfect. However, just because the organization thinks it has turned out perfection does not make it so.
The 97 percent solution, braking waste
Edwards Deming, the father of the "quality movement," said that 97 percent of what happens to organizations is predictable and is caused by the "system," not the person. It is reasonable to presume, then, that an organization should be able to plan for and manage 97 percent of its operations.