Strategy squared

Every business has processes – simply put they define what a business does and how it does it. Delivering $ to the bottom line cannot be achieved by sheer luck – efficient and targeted processes can help deliver customer value – maximize productivity ensuring staff no what to do and when to do it.

Ineffective processes can result in higher costs, longer lead times and poor customer value – so every business should ensure that it’s business processes are the best they can be – but where should they start? Here are 5 top tips to get you on the road to world class business processes.

1/ Document, document, document

Rule one – ensure what you do is documented – create an effective business management system that contains the business processes for your organization – group this by function and ensure each business processes has an owner/sponsor responsible for maintaining documentation. Make sure that the business processes are easily understood by the workforce and they know where to find them when needed. Remember without documented processes – staff will be unaware of what “rules” to follow and will be more likely to make up their own. Check out Business “Process Management Systems: Strategy and Implementation By James F. Chang” for a guide on how to create a system for your organization.

2/ Efficient and waste free

It goes without saying that processes should contain no unnecessary activity – start with the seven wastes and ensure that resources and activities should be minimized to reach the desired results. Just before you think your finished cast another critical eye looking for areas that add value and those that don’t.

3/ Standardize

Ensure that standard processes exist where possible – for example all too often in business purchasing processes remain variable – one such symptom of this is the humble requisition for which may look different for each department or may not get used at all. Standard processes done in the same way each time – drive efficiency and value – remember it should be easy to understand the current activity - and it should meet all stakeholder requirements to ensure compliance.

4/ Review controls

Don’t overburden your business with unnecessary bureaucracy – striking the right balance between risk and control can be difficult but aim to empower staff appropriately. Ensure that where sign offs or approvals are required that they don’t become a bottleneck and slow the process down unnecessarily

5/ Make processes complete

Think about every eventuality – too often processes are designed for displaying when everything goes right. The process will fall down, errors will occur make sure your processes cover this so staff know what to do when things fail.

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Enjoying your job can be a real struggle for many but having a bad boss can make the situation 100 times worse. Perhaps unsurprisingly research shows that a bad boss can have a huge impact on the workforce. Research by Florida State University describes a number of ways in which employees become disaffected with their manager. Issues range from failing to receive credit for their work through to being the target of negative comments with colleagues. Further research from Wayne State University in 2004 shows that this could be the tip of the iceberg with their study showing that 1 in 14 people had experienced aggression at the hands of their boss. The result of this? Employees can suffer from exhaustion, job tension, and even depression.

For many the answer is to vote with your feet and change jobs – while this may not be easy (or possible) it remains the most powerful option – alternatively make sure that you raise the problems with your HR department and even consider talking to your boss to discuss the problems – they might even listen!.

But what are the signs of a bad boss? - We’ve pulled together what we consider to be the 6 worst traits these are the ones that de-motivate, demoralize and encourage us to look elsewhere – here are our top 6 reasons to fire your boss!

1/ They rule by fear – OK this is rule one – if your boss shows any aggression or makes any threats – record evidence if possible - be sure to tell your HR dept and get out fast – they don’t deserve you.

2/ They don’t recognize your hard work and effort – you work late maybee even at weekends just to secure that big deal for your firm– when it comes off your boss doesn’t thank you – worse still they claim the credit – OK - dump ‘em – time to go!

3/ They target you with office politics – while we may all fall foul of the office gossip at some point in our careers – if it emanates from your boss then there’s trouble ahead! Even worse if your boss uses favoritism with your peers then you’ll struggle.

4/ They never take the blame - let’s face it there are times when things don’t go well at work – problems happen and the team need to get together as a unit to resolve them taking responsibility for mistakes – what you don’t need is your boss running a mile and blaming everyone but themselves.

5/ They fail to keep promises – “Of course you’ll get a raise” – “the promotion is as good as yours” –we’ve all heard these – make sure if your boss makes a promise he/she keeps them. If it’s important get it in writing!

6/ They don’t mentor – They are a boss for a reason – and one of those reasons is to get the best out of you – effective communication between you and your boss is key if it’s going to be a successful professional relationship. What’s their plan for success and how do they communicate it to you – make sure you know what the companies goals and what you need to do to help acheive them.

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In part one of our Reliability and Maintainability series we discussed how R&M helped lower business cost through improving equipment effectiveness - in part two we’ll look further at the topic

Whilst R&M activity is usually the responsibility of an organizations engineering department, R&M has far reaching repercussions. Many factors influence R&M from system design, quality of materials and operational environment. The result can influence (and require imput from) a broad range of function groups from procurement, design through to the end customer themselves. Benefits can be significantly increased from the holistic view of the enterprise rather than a single view of design or engineering.

However cost is not the only driver – reliability can be a driver of other business risks. Take for example manufacturing environments that employ just in time production principles, a major malfunction, where spares are not immediately available can shut down a production facility – preventative maintenance is therefore crucial – and it isn’t industry specific having significant impact across diverse sectors from defense, aerospace and automotive.

Successful R&M programs, inherent from design onwards, rely on good quality data which goes beyond the OEM handbook!). Usage, environment, configuration, MTBF and MTTR amongst others are all taken into account to help predict equipment reliability (and cost requirements). Data is important for two reasons – firstly it help predict performance and secondly it helps analyze current performance.

However with the data comes the associated problems of how to process it. R&M Modeling –the understanding of how equipment configuration and operational scenario’s or environments affect the equipment is increasingly commonplace and the support of R&M software has become integral in most cases. Commercially available tools are now available as an alternative to bespoke in house systems and consultancy services offering propriety tools and methodologies are also available.

Whilst R&M is nothing new, modern R&M has seen a closer coupling between end users, suppliers and manufacturers, sharing and collaborating over the R&M program and designing R&M in from product conception. Some sectors seem to have embraced this more than others, perhaps driven by long term value for money implications and the Military world have adopt R&M without question incorporating various standards to support the principles.( (for example the UK’s Royal Air Force (RAF) has various standards e.g. Def Stan 00-40,00-42) and has seen the significant OEM’s and manufacturers play an active role with the end customer in delivering benefits.

Surely then R&M is integral in meeting the needs of the modern customer, focusing on the whole product life cycle and equipment effectiveness. Tools and techniques seem to be developing at a rapid pace in particular the software tools that ensure standards compliancy and structure. With Globalization now upon us all, with customers and supply chains reaching across geographical boundaries R&M will also need to “go global” – collaboration throughout the supply chain is key success factor. Given this trend demand for R&M resources will continue to grow as business seek to leverage the benefits of the programs.

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With most if not all equipment, one certainty holds true, parts wear out, fatigue and age takes their toll and equipment breaks down. The associated through life costs can account for a significant percentage (upto and sometimes in excess of 40%.) of total acquisition cost. This understandably guarantees a degree of management focus.

Ensuring that equipment runs effectively and safely when required is therefore of critical importance. While the business impact is characterized by a degradation in service levels, time traps and increased maintenance costs the worst case scenario, as is typified by the aerospace sector, can see a failure resulting in casualty or death of the operator. Effective Reliability and maintainability programs are put in place to deliver improvements in all these areas and more, reducing support costs and forecasting equipment effectiveness and configuring equipment for long term reliability.

Reliability and maintainability (often abbreviated to R&M) are a pair of related activities (reliability analysis feeds into maintainability programs) and are a standard element of many organizations engineering departments. While maintainability centers around designing for minimal maintenance and associated costs reliability remains concerned with ensuring maximum equipment effectiveness.

As already highlighted the benefits of R&M are far reaching and can include both hard and soft results – the typical benefits associated with R&M programs include

• Improved asset performance
• Reduced risk of catastrophic incidents
• Removal of repetitive failure
• Lower maintenance costs
• Less downtime
• Increased competitiveness of the sales organization
• Improved customer satisfaction.

Perhaps the biggest benefit from R&M is the associated cost benefit. Equipment reliability has a significant impact on through life operational cost, system readiness, safety operational success and Logistics footprint. – research on the UK Ministry of Defence in 1990 showed that unreliability cost £1 Billion and that commitment to R&M could save around £500M.

Notably the aerospace industry has been behind advances in R&M and has seen significant benefits from it’s deployment – reducing aircraft crashes from 67 to 1 per million takeoffs and radically reducing equipment failure. R&M is now seen however in a multitude of industries – in 2006 – the Las Vegas Water district capitalized on a $300,000 reduction in life-cycle costs on pumping stations as a result of R&M initiatives.

Carry on to part two of our series on Reliability and Maintainability

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