Plug The Leaks In Your Cash Flow

Airline Silliness

2008-05-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

After a four hour flight from Philadelphia to Denver on United, we had to sit at the gate for 15 minutes waiting on someone who could move the jetway. People trying to make connections were worried.

If airlines are going to nickel and dime us to death with baggage fees and other silliness, they'd better get the rest of their service up to speed. Cross train people to work all aspects of flight operations. Never make tired travellers sit on a plane waiting on a jetway operator. That's just silly.

Neither the flight attendants or the pilots informed us of the status of the jetway operator. No one apologized for the inconvenience.

Charging for bags creates a burden on TSA and a problems on the aircraft because everyone is fighting for overhead bin space. While it may look like a boon to the bottom line, it just passes the cost onto other aspects of the operation. Planes are delayed for luggage. Security screening is slowed. Flights are missed. There are consequences to every action.

I know the price of gas has gone up, but even airline employees aren't thinking about the traveler.
Get a clue. Crappy service means no passengers.

Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma DeMYSTiFieD (McGraw Hill 2007) and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. Instead of training Black Belts and Green Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and plug the leaks in your cash flow.

Trying to convince your organization to use the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel?
We can help with 30-day trial CDs (includes $80 worth of Lean Six Sigma ebooks), PowerPoint presentations or Quick Reference Cards. To order for U.S. delivery at no charge, click here.
Or send me an email about what we can develop to meet your needs.

Sign up for our email courses:
Lean Six Sigma Demystified: mailto:six-sigma-ezine@aweber.com
QI Macros: mailto:qimacros@aweber.com
Software for Your Mind: mailto:knowware@aweber.com

mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste 3D
Denver, CO 80224

303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537

Six Sigma Golf - Hole in one on a par 4

2008-05-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

Jason Dumler, stepson of my friend Elaine Dumler, hit a hole in one on a par 4 at the Vista Ridge Golf Course in Erie, Colorado for the CBS news crew.

A hole in one on a par 3 is the dream of most golfers. It happens perhaps one in 10,000 times.
But a hole in one on a 370+ yard par 4?

Well, that's what Six Sigma Golf would feel like.
A hole in one on every par 3; an eagle on every par 4, and a double eagle on every par 5.

Watch the video: http://cbs4denver.com/sports/Jason.Dumler.vista.2.725308.html

Tradeshow SNAFU

2008-03-21T13:47:00.002-07:00

We recently exhibited at a tradeshow. We had to send our materials in advance and pay several hundred dollars to have them delivered to our booth. I got confirmations that all boxes had been received.

When I got to booth to set up...no boxes.
I spoke to the tradeshow organizers. They made a note and said that the advance delivery truck had been delayed.
I set up the booth and went to my hotel.

The next morning...still no boxes.
They asked who I talked to the day before.
Silly: It doesn't matter who I talked to; their system lost my boxes.

Three or four people later, one guy showed up and said they'd been delivered to the registration booth because they weren't in their system.

Here's the really silly part. We had to print labels and put them on our boxes with the booth number on it. When they arrived, the system had a glitch so they marked our boxes as UNKNOWN, even though our booth number was on the label they had us put on each box.
The UNK was written in marker. The label was on the side of all boxes. See below.

Here's my point: If you're going to make customers jump through hoops, make sure you use your own hoop.

Lean Banking

2008-03-21T13:47:00.001-07:00

I took my mother to open a CD at Washington Mutual.

She was transferring money from a WaMu account to the CD and adding a check from WaMu.

It took 45 minutes. That's ridiculous.

We had to fill out transfer and deposit slips.

The rep couldn't process the transaction at his desk. He had to go to one of the other terminals.

It was perhaps the slowest automated process I've ever seen.

And it's not just WaMu. I've had similar experiences at other banks.

The only place we've ever walked in and out in under 10 minutes is World Savings.

Here's my point, brick-and-mortar banking needs to wake up to the economies of speed.

Jay Arthur, the KnowWare Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits by plugging the leaks in their cash flow using Lean Six Sigma. Jay is the author of Lean Six Sigma Demystified, Six Sigma Simplified and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel.

Sign up for our email courses:
Lean Six Sigma Demystified: mailto:six-sigma-ezine@aweber.com

Lean Restrooms

2008-03-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

I rarely think about the role that architecture plays in Lean's principles about economy of movement until I find a radical departure.

As a man, when I go into a public restroom, I have two choices: urinal or toilet. Because urinals get higher traffic than toilets, the urinals are usually closer to the entrance than toilets.

Not so a Reagan International Airport in Washington D.C. I walked into one of the men's restrooms on the main concourse and was surprised to find first a half dozen toilets and then urinals all of the way at the back. Admittedly, I only had to walk an extra 20 feet or so to get past the toilets, but if you multiply that times hundreds of travelers per day times 365 days a year, it's the equivalent of walking from Washington DC to Ontario, Canada.

I've heard people say: "It's good exercise."
I say: If you want your employees to exercise, put in a gym.

Lean Principle: Unnecessary Walking is Waste.

I recently worked with an architectural firm that was bidding on the design and construction of two new rural hospitals. We spent a lot of time with Post-it notes trying many different configurations to minimize patient and clinician travel. We had to rethink many of the long held beliefs about hospital design and patient care. (P.S. They won the contract.)

Here's my point:
Redesign your workspaces to eliminate unnecessary movement.
It will save you time, money, mistakes and injuries.

Pain Shot Takes the Life of Denver Businesswoman

2008-03-08T06:35:00.000-08:00

According to the Rocky Mountain News, Leslie Fishbein, owner of Kacey Fine Furniture, had a massive heart attack after receiving "an injection to relieve pain" from her private physician.

The 1999 study, "To Err is Human", found that one person out of every 100 admitted to a hospital would die due to a medical mistake. This makes healthcare the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. There were 33 million admissions in 1999; you do the math.

The study also admits that most medical care occurs outside of the hospital and that preventable deaths were hard to track.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (www.ihi.org) has been working on finding and eliminating the root causes of preventable deaths in over 3,000 U.S. hospitals. Many protocols, some as simple as giving a heart attack victim an aspirin at arrival, are saving lives.

Isn't it time to extend that healthcare prescription to the non-hospital providers?

Some Banks Are Slower Than Others

2008-02-29T04:55:00.001-08:00

The other day, I took my mom to two different banks to open CDs.
Both bankers had to commute to a copier to photocopy our IDs.

At bank number one, the banker had to run a credit check in case I was a felon trying to extort money from an old woman I guess. He had to use a different computer across the room to run the check. It seemed like it took forever. Then he had to print out a 20-page CD certificate describing every known type of financial investment (overproduction). Even though this was a small bank in a grocery store, the printer was as far as possible from the banker's desk. He had to walk 30 feet each way to get our paperwork (unnecessary movement). Then he had to try to sell me a "free" credit card.
All in all it took about 45 minutes.

At bank number two, the banker entered our information. This was a branch bank, so he had to walk about 100 feet to make the deposit and about 30 feet to get the one-page certificate from a big laser printer (unnecessary movement), but we were in and out in under 10 minutes.

Why did both bankers have to type the information from our driver's licenses? There's a magnetic strip on the back of most IDs with all of the information. Why don't they just zip it through a reader that fills in the banking information?

Why is there only one big printer across the room instead of a small laser printer by each desk?
(This is a Lean principle: use more, smaller machines.)
Also, if it was a multifunction printer, they could use it to copy the driver's licenses as well.

If they were my banks, I'd redesign the workplace so that the banker never had to move from their desk to handle a customer transaction.

Here's my point: In business, the fast eat the slow.

Which bank do you think will get my business in the future?

Medical Mistakes - Brains and Babies

2007-11-29T07:12:00.000-08:00

Last week the news reported that Dennis Quaid's two newborns were given 1000 times the dose of blood thinners (probably grams instead of milligrams). Given today's technology, shouldn't it be impossible to dispense and administer an adult dose of medication for an infant?

This week, the Associated Press reported that Rhode Island Hospital had been fined $50,000 for the third case of wrong-side brain surgery in a single year. The last number I read for Colorado was 29 wrong site or wrong patient surgeries per year. Surgical mistakes, left ins and infections are an ongoing problem, but wrong site and wrong patient surgeries continue to plague healthcare. Shouldn't it be impossible? Isn't there a way to mistake-proof the process to eliminate them altogether?

In 1999, the report To Err is Human stated that 100,000 people die each year due to medical mistakes, making healthcare the eighth leading cause of death. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (ihi.org) initiated their 100,000 lives campaign a few years ago by instituting procedures and protocols to prevent many mistakes. Based on their analysis two years later, the effort had saved over 100,000 lives.

With the weekly reports of glaring medical errors like baby overdoses and wrong side brain surgery there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Home Run Root Cause

2007-10-28T12:31:00.001-07:00

Coors Field in Denver sits at 5,280 feet. When the park first opened,
there was an unusually high number of home runs in the park. Turns
out, it's so high and dry here that baseballs tend get harder which
leads to more home runs.

If dry was the root cause of home runs, then the countermeasure is
simple: humidity.

To equalize Coors field with other parks around the country, the
Rockies installed a humidor holding up to 4,800 baseballs. The
baseballs are kept at a constant temperature of 70 degrees and 50%
humidity to prevent shrinkage. These balls retain their size and
shape, making Coors field more like any other field.

And the home run percentage has fallen back in line with other parks.

Root cause analysis shows up in the most unusual places.

Jay Arthur, The KnowWare Man works with companies that want to fire
up their profits by plugging the leaks in their cash flow.
2253 S Oneida St, Ste 3D
Denver, CO 80224
303 756 9144
http://www.qimacros.com

Can Small Businesses Afford Lean Six Sigma?

2007-06-10T08:33:00.001-07:00

A business coach recently sent me this email. I've included my response.

Hi Jay,

I have a client who is a small businesspaint distributorauto body shops, some house paint, etc., ~ $2 million in annual volume. He's expressed an interest in lean six sigma at his company after reading a couple of books on the topic.

To boost profits, your client will want to reduce:

delay (typically 95% of total turnaround time) - Use Lean
defects (wrong paint, wrong time, wrong customer, wrong quantity, inaccurate invoices, etc.) - Use Six Sigma
deviation (off-color, inconsistency, etc.) - Use Six Sigma

My understanding of lean six sigma is that it can take a significant investment to make it work, and I've only heard of large(r) businesses implementing it.

If you do it the Jack Welch way, you can spend a fortune on Lean Six Sigma.
(A lot of businesses that start this way end up abandoning Lean Six Sigma because this approach dilutes the results.)

If you do it my way, you only invest in solving mission critical problems, not training all colors of belts.
The difference is focus.

Remember my 4-50 rule: 4% of the business is causing 50% of the delay, defects and deviation.
You only have to fix the 4% to make breakthrough improvements in speed, quality and profitability.

For small businesses we offer a Lean Six Sigma Do-it-yourself System: http://www.qimacros.com/sixsig290.html.
We also offer telephone and email coaching at $175/half hour.

How small a business have you worked with, and have you worked w/this industry or type of industry?

I use LSS on my small business.
One consultant I know helped her father run his muffler shop this way so that he could compete with Midas.
I've done it with credit unions, aluminum manufacturers, hospitals, Federal Reserve, telephony of all sizes.

They all have the same problems: delay, defects, and deviation which can be solved with a handful of tools and methods.

Your client can sign up for our free Lean Six Sigma Lessons on line at: http://www.qimacros.com/freestuff.html.

Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to fire up their profits by plugging the leaks in their cash flow using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of Lean Six Sigma DeMYSTiFieD (McGraw Hill 2007) and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. train Black Belts and Green Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and fix the leaks in your cash flow.

mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste D
Denver, CO 80224

303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537

Can Innovation and Six Sigma Coexist?

2006-11-25T07:12:00.000-08:00

Motorola, one of the champions of Six Sigma that got into trouble when it fell behind in the cell phone innovation race, has found a way to make innovation and Six Sigma coexist. With phones like the Razr, Motorola has recovered from a 15% market share to a 22% market share.

The efficiencies created by Six Sigma can free employees to do more innovation.

Innovation, by it's nature, is somewhat sloppy. Six Sigma can help ensure that the next big thing will be delivered in a flawless fashion and improved beyond the reach of copycat competitors.

Be an innovator and an improver. Don't settle for just one or the other. Do both.

Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to plug the leaks in their cash flow using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of the Lean Six Sigma Simplified System and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel. While most consultants tell you to train some Black Belts, Jay wants you to develop Money Belts--people who can find and fix the leaks in your cash flow.

mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste D
Denver, CO 80224

303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537

Mistake-proofing Drunk Drivers

2006-10-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

According to Businessweek's October 9th issue, Nissan and Toyota are developing sensors and software to detect when a driver is drunk and then disable the vehicle. After watching a drunk driver plow into a stalled lane of traffic on a local interstate recently, it seems like a heck of a good idea.

They haven't quite perfected it yet; erratic drivers can trigger the safety mechanism. Knowing Toyota and Nissan, I'm sure they'll figure it out.
That's mistake-proofing.
How do you change your processes, product or service to make it impossible for humans to cause an error, especially a potentially fatal one?

Lean Computers

2006-09-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

Sun Microsystems' "One Touch" supply chain accelerates the configuration and delivery of network servers. Instead of building a basic server at one of their suppliers and shipping it to Sun for final configuration, the customized server is shipped directly to the customer saving Sun an estimated $20 million.
Speed and Simplicity
It's all about speed and simplicity. One Touch has enabled Sun to deliver products on time 95% of the time vs 85%.
What are You Doing?
How can you reduce many touches to one touch?
How can you reduce delay and improve on time deliveries?

Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to plug the leaks in their cash flow using Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of the Lean Six Sigma Simplified System and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel.

mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste D
Denver, CO 80224

303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537

Costly Battery Recall at Dell

2006-08-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

Dell recalled 4.1 million batteries for laptops built between April Fool's Day 2004 and July 18, 2006. While known for their quality, it seems that crimping of metal strips in Sony's production of the Lithium batteries left tiny shards of metal in the battery that can cause it to short and overheat.

Estimated cost of this recall: $200-400 million. Ouch!

Kudos to Dell and Sony for admitting the problem and stepping up to its resolution.

While quality may not be totally free, as Phil Crosby once said, the cost of poor quality can be brutal.

What are you doing to plug the leaks in your cash flow?

Jay Arthur, the KnowWareâ Man, works with companies that want to plug the leaks in their cash flow. Jay specializes in Lean Six Sigma for Health Care and Information Systems applications: ordering, billing, purchasing, and payments. He is the author of Six Sigma Simplified and the QI Macros SPC Software for Excel.

mailto:knowwareman@mindspring.com
http://www.qimacros.com
2253 S. Oneida St, Ste D
Denver, CO 80224

303-756-9144 (888) 468-1537

Toyota Tops in Satisfaction Survey

2006-08-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday's Rocky Mountain News article by Tom Krisher reported that Toyota leads customer satisfaction in the automotive industry with a record score of 87 out of 100. One point back at 86 were:

Toyota Lexus
Honda
GM (Buick)

It's tight at the top, but overall rankings are up a point (which from a pure variability standpoint isn't much). Is it really a trend or just natural variation? Only time will tell.

IRS Software System Costs Taxpayers $321 Million

2006-07-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

The July 15th Rocky Mountain News article by Mary Dalrymple sites the failure of a software developer to deliver the new IRS tax refund fraud screening system as the reason for their inability to catch the estimated $200-300 million in tax fraud. The IRS has caught only 34% of the fraudulent claims caught the prior year.

While Computer Sciences Corporation was paid $21 million for the project, the IRS has asked them to stop work and restore the original program to operating status before 2007 tax returns are filed.

Why do companies continue to think it's easier to build a new but complex system from scratch than it is to upgrade an existing one that works? Murphy's law says that every complex system will be found to have evolved from a simple system that works. Trying to build a complex system from scratch is doomed to failure and you will have to start over with a simple system that works. The IRS already had a complex system that worked that had evolved from a simple system that worked.

The 4-50 Rule
I'll bet that only 4% of the code contained 50% of the defects and could be rewritten to eliminate the bugs. I'll also bet that only 4% of the code suffers 50% of the enhancements; this code could be rewritten to be table driven, instead of code driven, to maximize maintainability and flexibility. New systems sound sexy, but rarely do what they're supposed to do. Existing systems have so much embedded knowledge that it's almost impossible to capture all of the requirements such that you can build it.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
Any simple system will become more complex over time. The trick is to continuously simplify and streamline the simple system as it grows in complexity. That way, you'll never have to try and fail at replacing it.

Case Studies

2006-07-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

Lean http://curiouscat.net/library/leanthinking2.cfm
AFB http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123013979
Mil http://www.dod.mil/news/Nov2004/n11302004_2004113008.html
Toyota http://www.advancedmanufacturing.com/JanFeb06/coverstory.htm
http://www.superfactory.com/articles/smalley_tps_vs_lean.htm
Healthcare http://www.ihi.org/NR/rdonlyres/F4E4084A-6297-44DB-8A78-75008F6DA7A1/0/GoingLeaninHealthCareWhitePaper.pdf
Software http://www.poppendieck.com/pdfs/Lean_Software_Development.pdf
http://www.reed-electronics.com/eb-mag/article/CA6339520
http://www.leanadvisors.com/Lean/articles/edson.cfm
IT http://www.cio.com/archive/081503/sigma.html
Cell Design http://www.strategosinc.com/celldesign.htm

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
Theory of Constraints http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_constraints
Six Sigma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma

Six Sigma

Welfare Payment Errors Over $90 Million

2006-07-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

The July 3, 2006 Rocky Mountain News has an article on page 4 about improper welfare payments--overpayment, underpayment and fraud--adding up to $90 million handled incorrectly. And it's not the first time. The auditing department found that there have always been problems.

Medicaid $48 million (3% of payments-3 sigma)
Food Stamps $36 million (14% of payments-2 sigma). $15.7 million overpaid; $7.5 million underpaid. USDA estimates that Colorado could have saved $8.2 million and served 80,135 new clients.
Temporary aid $8 million (12% of payments-2 sigma)

Of course, all three welfare agencies questions the audit's findings.
Four years after Congress required states to track improper payments, neither the medicaid or needy family program had set up methods to track payments.

This is the sort of problem that can be easily tackled by Six Sigma's defect reduction efforts.

While automated tracking of these errors will take time to develop, a simple checksheet of errors could easily collect and analyze the types and causes of overpayments, underpayments and fraud for each of these three welfare programs. Then, root cause teams of welfare workers could identify the root causes and solutions to the most common kinds of problems (usually procedural) and reduce the error rates. And I can assure you that it wouldn't cost $8 million to find and fix most of these errors.

A Cold Day in Hotel Hell

2006-05-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent three days at the Hilton in Milwaukee attending the American Society for Quality's 60th Anniversary Conference. When I flew in, it was cold and rainy. I got right into my room, dropped my stuff, turned on the heat in the chilly room and made a dash for the exhibit hall to setup our booth.

When I got back from setting up, the room was still cold and cold air was blowing out of the vent. I called maintenance.

Fix it Fast!
They came promptly, fiddled with the cold water valve and got a trickle of heat flowing and proclaimed the heat fixed. When I woke up the next morning huddled under my blanket, it was cold again. Whatever they fixed, unfixed itself.

I reported the problem that morning before I went to the exhibit booth. That evening when I got back, it was still blowing cold air. So, I popped the cover off the vent and turned off the power. The fan died and within a half an hour the temperature in the room rose three degrees. Not warm, but not arctic either.

Three's a Charm
The next morning, I reported that neither of the two previous repair calls had solved my problem. When I came back from exhibiting that evening, there was a new thermostat on the wall and a refreshing warmth to the room.

The next morning, my bill for my stay was under the door, but there wasn't any discount for my frigid room. I didn't want to have to nag Hilton for some compensation, but I went to the front desk and asked the staff what they could do for me. They discounted the room by $30/night or a total of $90.

Repeat Repairs
Maybe this has happened to you or your customers: the first repair doesn't fix the problem, so you have to do it again. Here's what customers want:

Fix it right the first time!

If they'd have gotten it fixed the second time, you probably wouldn't be reading this.

Make it right!
If you can't fix it right the first time, then make it right.
Give customers something for their lost time and effort, but don't make them ask for it.
If Hilton's staff would have recognized that they'd inconvenienced me twice and given me $30/night off my hotel room, you probably wouldn't be reading this.

The thermostat cost me at least an hour of my time, when I should have been meeting with prospects. It cost me some mental energy that I should have devoted to prospects.

It cost Hilton three repair calls and three front desk calls and $90 in lost revenue. The total was probably several hundred dollars. Plus I'm telling you about my woes and I'm going to look for alternatives when I book my next hotel room. That means they've lost my future revenue as well.

Printer SNAFU

2006-04-26T04:48:00.000-07:00

The printer that wouldn't print was returned to OfficeMax. I requested a replacement. They told me it was out of stock and would be delivered as soon as it arrived.

Yesterday, FedEx Ground showed up with a printer, but it was a black-and-white Brother, not the HP Color Laserjet I'd ordered. "Wrong printer," I said when then FedEx guy asked for a signature.

So I'm sure OfficeMax has to pay for the freight out and back, plus the rework to get the right printer shipped and then pay the freight to send the right printer. Based on the weight of the printer, I'd guess that cost at $25 per trip.

You have to wonder how any OfficeMax employee could confuse an HP2840 Color Laserjet with a Brother 9900 laserjet (B/W). I'm sure they're in different parts of the warehouse.

You'd think there would be a way to mistake proof that process.

Businesses often try to rationalize these kinds of mistakes by saying that my experience was a rare exception. I disagree. If I can experience it at all that means it's systemic and deeply rooted in how they do business.

I can tell you that OfficeMax's customer service has improved, but their delivery still stinks. Sell your stock now. It's only a matter of time.

Printers Should Print, Shouldn't They?

2006-04-20T06:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I bought an HP 2840 Color Laser printer. At over $800, it was a hefty price tag. It also weighs a ton. They say it will start printing a color document in about 20 seconds and print four a minute.

So, after I got it all set up, I tried to print a color PDF using Adobe Acrobat. PDF documents are a universal standard. You'd think someone would have tried printing a color PDF on the HP 2840, wouldn't you?

I waited and I waited and I waited and finally I got a message: Document failed to print. On my old inkjet printer the document would start printing right away. So I wondered what was wrong.

I downloaded new print drivers from HP's website. (Why did they include the old ones with my printer?) Still no luck.

I went through the Troubleshooter process that had stupid stuff like: Turn your printer on and off to reset it. No Luck.

Finally, I opened up a chat session with someone named Mahesh who must be in Bangalore. After much discussion, he gave me a useful bit of advice:

In Acrobat, Click on File-Print and then click on the Advanced button and click the checkbox labeled Print as Image. It worked! But why isn't this bit of information in the user's guide or on the website? And why does this printer require exotic adjustments to print a simple PDF?

I'm a geek and I struggled for hours with what should have been a plug and play situation. OfficeMax has a 14 day return policy and I'm still thinking about exercising it, but I need more speed than the inkjets. Maybe I should try the Epson? or Canon?

Expected Levels of Quality
Customers have every right to expect your gizmo or gadget to do what every other similar gadget can do (e.g., print a PDF without a struggle). It's expected. Are you making too hard for customers and too easy for them to switch to a new vendor?

Printers should print, shouldn't they?

Restaurant Errors

2006-04-12T07:40:00.000-07:00

My wife took off work yesterday, so I took her to lunch at the Fresh Fish Company, a local restaurant. We arrived early and were the third couple seated.

She ordered the Fish and Chips and I ordered a Baked Cod Florentine (I like anything with spinach). Unlike many restaurant waiters, he actually wrote our order down on an order pad. So many of them just listen and then write it down or enter it later.

It took a surprisingly long time for our order to arrive, but when it did, the waiter served Shirley her Fish and Chips and as he placed a lovely filleted fish in front of me he said: "And here's your trout, sir."

I said: "It looks lovely, but I think I ordered the baked cod florentine."
He shook his head and said: "Yes, you did."
He picked up the trout and headed back to the kitchen.

I told Shirley to start eating because someone else was probably eating my cod, thinking it was trout.

About 10 minutes later, my cod arrived. It was great, but late. And unlike other restaurants, they didn't offer to take the meal off the check, give us a free dessert or coffee or anything.

Root Cause Analysis
It wouldn't bug me so much if this wasn't such a common occurrence in restaurants. How hard can it be to:
1. Get the order right.
(Did he write it down correctly? There's very few ways to confuse "cod" with "trout.")
2. Prepare the order correctly.
(Did the cook get it wrong?)
3. Deliver the correct order.
(Or did the cook set two orders side by side and the waiter picked up the wrong dish?)
4. If you make a mistake, fix it fast and make it right with the customer.
I'm guessing that because the second order took so long that it was never ordered correctly in the first place.

At least the bill was correct, although it didn't convey any apology for our inconvenience. I don't eat at this restaurant very often because, although the food is good, the rest of the process is error prone.

Your product ain't the product!
The product is the total customer experience. There may be nothing wrong with your product, but your service may stink. Incorrect orders, bills, or late delivery are all part of your product or service.

Find ways to mistake proof the whole chain of customer experience or customers will find someone who can.

Job Security

2006-04-11T06:46:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of press over the last few weeks about France's law to allow businesses to fire employees who have been with a company less than two years. Up until now, if you were hired in France you had a job for life no matter what kind of job you did (no wonder unemployment is over 10% nationally and over 22% for younger workers).

Today, France's leadership caved to youth and student demonstrations and revoked the new law.

France clearly doesn't understand, nor do unions in the U.S. that you are not entitled to a job. There is only one true job security: creating products and services that customers want and are willing to pay for over and over again. If you fail to:

create a quality product
provide a quality service
deliver on time
service the customer with affection
fix it fast and make it right for the customer if something goes wrong

it doesn't matter if your company guarantees lifetime job security or not. The marketplace will force your company (and you) out of business.

Everybody seems to want job security, but few people want to do what it takes to earn that security. Everybody seems to expect someone else to create job security. But it's everyone's job. It's your job.

Delighting and satisfying customers = job security

The only loyal customer is one that hasn't found a better supplier.

I feel sorry for France and its workers. Until they wake up and realize that job security is stifling innovation and productivity and quality, they are destined for worse unemployment and more unrest.

It's up to you. If you want job security, you've got to earn it every day, not just the day you were hired.

SAT Score SNAFU

2006-04-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

The April 10th People Magazine reported that Pearson Education Management miscalculated SAT test scores for 4,400 college applicants. Only after a few students coughed up $50 to have their tests manually graded did the error come to light. Scores were high by as much as 50 points and low by as much as 400! Sheldon Steinbach, general council for the American Council on Education said: "This has played havoc with this year's admission process."

The Costs
1. Rework at colleges to reassess rejected students.
2. Student's loss of scholarships and desired college admissions due to low scores.
3. Parental dissatisfaction and family conflict over scores.

Root Cause
Pearson blames the rain which caused test forms to expand causing highly calibrated machines to misread the results. If that's their best guess, then my SAT scores from 1969 are in doubt. Any chance it rained in the past or it might rain in the future during SAT testing?

Wrong Answer: Water is not a root cause. Just like the butterfly ballot, design of the test materials is at fault. The root cause is test forms that expand when subjected to moisture or miscalibrated readres. My guess is that there's some paper formulation that doesn't react significantly to moisture. Or there's some way to align the form so that the mechanical readers aren't confused.

If Florida Power and Light, which does business in arguably the wettest state in the U.S., can find ways to waterproof electrical connections to prevent power outages, then SAT tests can find a way to create better forms or smarter readers.

Mistakes like these are costing our children their future. Isn't it time to get wise about process improvement?

Secrets to Succeed at Six Sigma

2005-07-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

To succeed at Six Sigma, laser-focus every team you start. This means that leadership will want to work with an improvement expert to develop the first two elements of a successful improvement story:

1. Line graph showing defects (preferably in parts per million) or delay over a period of time. This answers the questions: "Where are the defects? Where are the delays?" See a sample line graph at http://www.qimacros.com/qiwizard/linegraph.html

2. Pareto chart(s) showing 1, 2, or 3 "big bars" that contribute 50-60% of the problem identified in the line graph. This answers the question "Where's the Mother Lode." See a sample pareto chart at http://www.qimacros.com/qiwizard/pareto.html

Use the 4-50 Rule: 4% of any business creates over half of the waste and rework. Find it and fix it.

3. Write a Good Problem Statement. Use the first big bar on the pareto chart to write your problem statement. A sample problem statement is: During the first 6 months of 2002, time code errors accounted for 47% of the incorrect paychecks, which was 2 times higher than the next highest contributor and resulted in 78 employee complaints.

4. Cost of Quality Analysis showing how much this portion of the Fix-it Factory costs and what the benefits will be. These four steps should take no more than 3-5 days using existing data. Each of these charts and worksheets are available in the QI Macros for Excel Six Sigma Software at http://www.qimacros.com/six-sigma-software.html or http://www.qimacros.com/spc-charts.html

Time: It rarely takes more than 2-3 days to analyze all of a company’s data and develop a master improvement story that identifies the 4% of the business causing over 50% of the waste and rework.

Download a 30 day evaluation copy of the QI Macros at http://www.qimacros.com/free-excel-templates.html or http://www.qimacros.com/free-excel-macros.html