Orgnaization in the Industrial Environment

Over the summer I worked at a plastic company. The company both fabricates and distributes plastic. One of the first things I noticed when I first began working was how unorganized the workshop was. There seemed to be no specific method for keeping track of things. It took a significant amount of time to get raw material from the inventory because it was so unorganized.Most of us know that time is money, and in this case this company was losing money. The company believes that the most important thing they have to offer is delivering a quality product on time. I find it hard to believe that this company always lives up to that standard. In order to put out the right amount of parts, raw material needs to be cut on whatever machine is necessary to get the job done. If there is a lot of machine down time there is a lot of money being lost. In this case there is a significant amount of time lost while the operator is looking for raw material. I decided I would make an effort to improve this wasted time by creating a labeling system on the shelves that hold the raw material. I set up the shelves so that all of the raw material was grouped together based on both the type of plastic and the dimensions of it. Doing this simple little job made it much easier for the operator to find their material.

There was another issue that I also helped solve while working for the same company. In order to get material to customers, it is either shipped or picked up by the customer. Every time the customer picked up material, they charged the company $100. Even if it was 20 minute round trip it cost $100. Customers come and go multiple times a day. This means that the company was spending hundreds of dollars a day in order to make sure the customers received their parts. To solve this problem we decided it would be a good idea to invest in a box truck that could be used to transport the raw material to customers. After a little bit of looking around we found a used truck for a good price. Although the company had to spend a lot of money on the truck, it only took a few months to make that money back. This was a win-win situation because now the company was not being charged for getting the material out, and instead charging the customers a delivery fee. The only thing we had to spend money on was gas and maintenance. Although it seemed like a gamble at first it turned out to be a great idea. The comapny went from spending money to turning a profit by getting rid of the delivery fee. When I was not working in the fabrication department, I was driving that box truck to and from customers. Charging the customers $100 dollars for a 15 minute drive seems rediculous, but the customers don't ask questions they just pay!!

The supply chain is like the life line of any big comapny. The supply chain includes everything from truck driving delivery fees, to the actual product being sold. There are many different elements in a supply chain and in this case one of them was costing the company a lot of money. The delivery fee was costing the company hundreds of dollars a week. The whole point is that the supply chain was improved by figuring out how to get customers their goods and supplies while getting rid of a delivery fee. Efficiency was improved by getting rid of extra steps in the supply chain.
Chris Powers

Quality Everywhere

I am currently taking IET 321 Quality Management at the University of Dayton. Most of the class has involved the learning about Quality Management principles and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. We have been participating in a semester long project with another company to help them meet the MBNQA criteria.

Two summers ago I worked at a company in the receiving department. The particular branch of the company I worked at had very poor performance. The poor performance was known by most employers, yet nothing was really done to improve the performance. This semester has helped me realize that the principles of quality management and the criteria of the MBNQA could of helped boost the company’s performance almost immediately and a great deal.

The company had a laundry list of problems, but a lot of them are addressed through MBNQA criteria and quality principles. Some of these include: leadership, strategic planning, action plan, communication with the workforce, metrics, etc..... Something that could have helped the branch a great deal is an employee award system. Employees were never motivated and they really did not care about the success of the company. An award system would have dramatically changed this and help motivate the employees. Performance measures, strategic plan, and action plan would also be needed so that employees and leaders could see where they need to be, how to get there, and whether or not they were where they need to be.

These are just two examples of many that could have helped the branch turn around their poor performance. The point of this story is that the principles of quality management can be used everywhere to help anyone or any company. A company doesn’t have to get the MBNQA to become successful, but if they use the criteria and principles they will surely become a better company.

Matt R

Company Growth Through Customer Focus

What is growth? Growth can be defined as the process of increasing in physical size. For years companies have focused on growth through sales, new-product launch, and advertising their product features against competitors. Companies have even gone as far as a reduction in headcount or eliminating incentive and/or benefit programs to ensure growth. With fierce competition and the drive to make products/services better and less expensive companies continue to drive down cost to keep customers buying from them vs. the competition. However, companies can only cut the product/service margins to a certain point.
With the growing number of large corporate retail chains and numerous online sources to buy the same product from at the same price, how do you keep customers coming back to buy from you? This idea can be applied to retail, service centers, healthcare, and the food industry.
The company I work for is aware of this challenge and has decided to switch gears and move their entire focus around the customer. They realize that prices can only drop so low therefore; they must find other ways to keep the competitive edge. The vision is to not only make the customer 100% satisfied with our products but more importantly, the service we offer. With the idea in mind that the more satisfied customers are with your service (including price of your products), the more likely they are to continue to do business with you.
The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Criteria puts a strong emphasis around customer focus. It brings light to something that for years many companies have ignored…the customer. Without customers a company cannot exist. Should companies put more of a focus around customers? Also, are customers willing to pay more for products or services from a company with a greater focus around customer satisfaction?

-K Janowiecki

Focus on Worst Practices!?!?

Throughout this semester we have been focusing extensively on the Malcolm Baldrige Quality award which awards companies that have best practices and maintain the highest quality.

There was an interesting article posted last week on from the Harvard Business Review titled “Why You Should Focus on ‘Worst Practices’” which really caught my attention. The overall view of the article was stated “If you want to be disruptive, don’t start with best practices. Try, instead, find your industry’s worst practices and take tiny steps – or better yet, giant leaps – towards bettering them.”

The article itself raises an interesting question of whether or not we should focus on the worst practices, instead of the best practices. Most companies tend to make statements or highlight their best practices to show how successful or forward thinking that the organization is. Umair believes that to become more successful a company must identify worst practices and then bettering them to form the basis of a disruptive competitive position.

Umair gives four great tips in identifying worst practices:

To find the worst practices in an organization the person must first, ask critics, whether they be competitors, upper management, or in a manufacturing environment, the operators that work on the floor and struggle with daily tasks due to the worst practices currently in place. He states “Your critics are worth about five hundred times their weight in management consultants, consultants, pundits, and assorted beancounters”, and I couldn’t agree more! From my experience when attacking an area in industry the people that work with the products and struggle with the way a line was set up or engineered are always the hardest critics, but they usually have very ingenious ideas to solve the problems.

The second way to find and identify worst practices is to spend a day in the trenches. Look at the process or problems that someone is experiencing, and experience it yourself. In theory a process might look great on paper, but to actually perform that process might be quite different when it comes to applying it to daily duties.

Third, is examine the past. Some processes at one time were best practices and became worst practices...what happened? Look at old files, talk to people who started the processes, look at what has changed to the process. For a best practice to become a worst practice, something must have changed for it to happen. Find the root cause to fully understand the problem and fix it. After it has been fixed, control it so it does not happen again. There is no reason to continue to reinvent the wheel...

Finally, he has a section titled “Diet on your own dog food”. This was by far the most interesting of the article due to the economic crisis that the world economy has experienced over the past few years. He states if “you make it, you use it – exclusively”. If everyone who made the products that they produced were forced to use them, would some of them be designed, processed, and manufactured differently?

Overall it’s a great article, and it does pose the question, focus on worst practices?

Your thoughts…

Quality Trash: Viewing Quality as more than a Final Good

During this past summer, I was working full time as an intern for a local Dayton company.  I was working long hours which required me to pack breakfast and lunch to my place of employment.  I would start my day off with yogurt and some granola.  One day during breakfast, I finished a package of BareNaked Granola and was about the throw the packaging away.  My place of employment was very supportive of recycling and had both a recycle and trash bin located in the break room.  I was about to throw the granola packaging away but first wanted to see if the bag was recyclable.  To my surprise, not only was the bag recyclable but it was part of a recycle program called Terracycle.

I saved the bag and decided that this was something worth looking into.  I wouldn't call myself an environmentalist but I do appreciate recycling and pay attention to my carbon footprint.  If debating between comparable items, I may make my final decision on the packaging material (compostable) or the reputation the company has.  I try to reduce the amount of plastic I use (water bottles) and am trying to bring my own bags to the grocery instead of collecting MORE plastic bags.  Needless to say, I researched more about this Terracycle program.  I found out that this BareNaked Granola teamed up with a recycling program that motivates and rewards teams and communities to recycle certain products. 

Here is how the program works: First, you join/make a team.  You then collect certain products like gum containers, juice box containers, tape dispensers, plastic Zip Lock bags and so on. There is an entire list of items that Terracycle accepts. Once your team reaches about 75 items, Terracycle will send your team a pre-paid shipping envelope in which you can send all the collected items to Terracycle.  Terracycle will then create and develop new products made from the used bags and wrappers.  As a group, you are not only rewarded for reducing the amount of waste in landfills but for each item you collect.  Based on the amount of products that you send in, your group will also be able to make a donation to a non-profit or school of its choice.  It's a win-win situation!  There's MORE: You can purchase items made from the used bags and wrappers you collected!  Items for sale include: jewelry, bags/totes, clipboards, picture frames, fertilizers and much more.

Terracycle was founded in 2001 by a 19 year old freshman and Princeton University.  The goal of this newly founded company is to eliminate the idea of waste by finding innovative and unique uses for disregarded items, aka - trash.   Since 2001, Terracycle has been very successful in accomplishing its goal.  Over 12.5 million people have joined the brigade which means that these people are making simple life decisions to eliminate the idea of waste.  Over 1.8 billion items have been collected through Terracycle and close to 1.5 million dollars have been donated to charities worldwide.  This company is a great example of how small, sustainable life decisions can result in a better place.  With the dedication and teamwork demonstrated through Terracycle, not only has the amount of trash been reduced but money has been donated to local charities. 

Terracycle is a very small step, but one in the right direction.  It is because of programs like Terracycle and devout members that participate in them that we can truly reduce the amount of waste we as Americans produce.  Programs such as this bring about awareness and gain interest in recycling.  I think this would be a terrific program to implement in schools and perhaps even at work.  Small containers could be placed next to vending machines to collect the wrappers from Starbursts, Skittles and so on.  I think this program would bring unity, empowerment and high spirits to a facility such as the one I worked at this summer.  Such a simple idea can have great rewards.  It's amazing how one idea can turn into such a reality and have such great results. 

So what does this have to do with quality? EVERYTHING! Terracycle is a great demonstration on how quality engages every facet of a product/company/service.  Brand, integrity, price, durability, material, ethics, history, packaging and so much more make up the definition of quality.  Customers have an endless selection when purchasing an item: that is, there are many options to choose from which makes quality even more important to make a product/company/service stand out.  Terracycle chose an ethically sound and responsible business plan, have a good cause and good reputation supporting their name.  Since my discovery of Terracycle, I have been more inclined to purchase products that can be recycled through Terracycle.  I find that my view of quality has grown to encompass the idea of stewardship and recycling.  

In conclusion, businesses should acknowledge and understand that not only are consumers looking at quality in the traditional sense of a final product, but also see quality in the sense of how the product was made and how it will be disposed of.  It is important for a company to deliver a well designed/durable/budget friendly product, all while keeping in mind the 'green' movement. 

 

 

Written By: Michelle Whelan

December Is For Cynics: IET Post Graduation, Pre Employment

To piggyback on the post “Why Do We Need To Know This Stuff” I too have been thinking about my future and my IET minor. I can think of many ways to apply Six Sigma, quality management, and other things I have learned to many engineering jobs, including those in my main major of Mechanical Engineering Tech. But when I graduate in December I wonder still "what am I going to use all this for?" Will I be applying Six Sigma projects on my mom’s cooking? Making sure snow shoveling is up to ISO standards? Examining Baldridge criteria on our Housing Community?

But thankfully for a month and a half,  I’ve found escape through my fraternity. I will be in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico working as an intern for the American Leadership Academy. While my family, brothers, and friends will be thigh deep in snow, I’ll be on the beach enjoying highs in the upper 70s, lower 80s.

But it won't be a vacation. I will be interning and helping with every little task to make sure the program runs effectively. One of the requirements is to issue surveys about speakers and the program at large. Can I use my IET skills to effectively wrangle the data into useable chunks? I sure can. I can use my Six Sigma training to find cause/effect situations, my training in various quality classes to do regression analysis and various charts. I can find out what speakers actually did well and which ones were just mediocre by removing outliers, people who always vote low, and other variables.

While IET might only seem to be applicable to manufacturing, plants, or service industries, I can applying it to a unique internship opportunity.

-J. Matt

Quality: Is it becoming assumed?

 Quality is something that is a given in almost all products and services. Quality is what makes or breaks a company. If you are not going to provide your customer with a quality product or service will you even have a customer at all?

I feel that in the eyes of the customer, quality is an assumed and rarely considered aspect of the product or service being purchased. When a consumer goes to purchase an item it is usually not noticed that a company is ISO certified or that there were Six Sigma Black Belts working on the project to create such item. For the most most part customers care if its faster, cheaper, better and in most cases the color they prefer when purchasing an item. I also feel that this assumed quality is not only implied by the customer but also by the managers and supervisors on a facility floor.

This may be a mistake. Quality is an aspect of design that requires a great deal of work and effort to implement it correctly and without fail. Due to this producing a quality product is not normally a cheap or easy process to implement. It can require a great deal of time and money and even the training and educating of employees. Yet it is a very important aspect of producing anything whether it be a simplistic product like a flashlight or a complex product like a car.

There is assumed quality in everything you see around you and this needs to be realized and noted that although costly and time consuming, quality is something you cannot get around and something that you cannot take short cuts to produce.

By: SW