Winning Without Competition: How to Break Out of a Commodity ...

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pattern, i.e., an unexpected snow storm in Atlanta will reduce daily output of a precast work team. One way to differentiate special versus common cause is to ask if this is a unique problem or an example of a larger class of problems and second ask, "If I replace the workers, would I still have this problem?" The following table gives an example of special versus common cause drivers of delays in architect’s approvals: Special Causes Common Causes • Architect’s wife dies in car accident • Drawings delivered to wrong office, where they sat for days • Architect does not appreciate need for speedy approval • Architect is understaffed • Architect is unfamiliar with precast and therefore needs to find outside help prior to approval • Other parts of design that affect us are not yet complete • Approvals are used to help finalize the drawings The key to minimizing adverse outcomes from special variation is to ensure you have a process in place to get timely data that reveals special causes quickly so that you can react to them. In a hospital setting, for example, highly difficult cases are flagged early on so that a case manager can help oversee the care of a patient. The goal is to contain damage with an immediate remedy. It is important to understand what’s different this time, i.e., what’s causing the special cause outcome, as this special cause outcome could in fact become a common cause at some point. If you think it might become a common cause at some point, then you must develop a longer-term remedy. How do you deal with special causes? • Get timely data so that special causes are revealed quickly • Contain damage with an immediate remedy • Search for the cause -- what was different? Could it be a common cause at some point? • If so, develop a longer-term remedy The focus of continuous process improvement, and process redesign for that matter, is to adjust common causes of adverse outcomes. Here you look at all the data, not a single data point, and you stratify the data into high occurrence causes and low occurrence causes and you focus initially on improving or limiting the high occurrence causes. You may ultimately treat different classes of projects differently if you see correlations between sources of problems and types of projects. Pamphlet #5 Page 218
Trying to understand the causes forces you to play detective in terms of figuring out: • Who is involved? • What and where is the cause of the problem? • When does the problem occur? • What types of projects does it occur on? You use these types of questions to identify how you will "study" or measure how a process is working. Collecting data helps you focus on the true location of the problem. Once you identify the location of the problem, you then hypothesize why the problem arises and determine potential solutions to this. (See Steps Three and Four in Appendix One.) Sidebar C: Structure Affects, but Does Not alone Determine, Behavior “Breaking the Functional Mindset in Process Organizations,” Harvard Business Review, Sept./Oct. 1996. • Authors compare companies in the same industry – electronics • Reorganization of operations along process lines made no difference to cycle time performance unless it was accompanied by new management approaches that create a culture of collaboration by focusing on: • Teamwork skills • A collective sense of responsibility to process outcomes • Key “collaboration” tools used to make process reorganizations succeed included: • Structure jobs with overlapping responsibilities • Base rewards on group performance • Layout work area so people can see each other’s work • Change procedures to enable collaboration • Using the above tool(s) increased cycle time 7.5 times in process-complete organizations • Functional organizations were 3.5 times faster than process-complete organizations not using collaboration tools Sidebar D: Benefits of Strategic Alliances • Enhance product value ~ Superior timing ~ Create new or improved performances ~ Lower costs and risks ~ Provide more value in use ~ Offer a stronger product line ~ Compatibility that increases product appeal ~ Enhance product images Pamphlet #5 Page 219
Page 1 and 2: Winning Without Competition: How to
Page 3 and 4: Introduction One of the greatest fa
Page 5 and 6: then responding. The response bring
Page 7 and 8: Management and administrative proce
Page 9 and 10: What should you do about a process
Page 11 and 12: is so important. It prevents improv
Page 13 and 14: The logic for process redesign work
Page 15 and 16: desire to -- continually discoverin
Page 17 and 18: Two types of marketing activities c
Page 19 and 20: markets as a whole versus for an in
Page 21 and 22: • Conscious decisions of where an
Page 23 and 24: profitability. From these sales obj
Page 25 and 26: • Creates an umbrella that will b
Page 27 and 28: marketing plan objectives. In essen
Page 29 and 30: Collaboration Crucial to a strategi
Page 31 and 32: Rather than contracts, effective al
Page 33 and 34: critical part of this plan. (See Pa
Page 35: Sidebar A: Systems Thinking A syste
Page 39 and 40: Sidebar F: Most of us choose to ign
Page 41 and 42: • Hire, train, deploy work force
Page 43 and 44: Time Redesign Continuous Improvemen
Page 45 and 46: Continuous Process Improvement Acti
Page 47 and 48: Tactical PCI Company Strategic Acti
Page 49 and 50: New Product and New Market Developm
Page 51: S A L E S ~ Specific customer under
Page 55 and 56: • Generate sales leads from targe
Page 57 and 58: * Ideally, this should be quantifie
Page 59 and 60: • Gain executive level and sales
Page 61 and 62: Is it working? Evaluation Execution
Page 63 and 64: Plantes Company July 1997 PCI:I Red
Page 65 and 66: Plantes Company July 1997 PCI:I Mea
Page 67 and 68: Plantes Company July 1997 PCI:I Whe
Page 69 and 70: Plantes Company July 1997 PCI:I •
Page 77 and 78: - If speed is the problem, where ar
Page 79 and 80: B. For each top level cause, ask wh
Page 81 and 82: • As you proceed through the step
Page 83 and 84: Job Description Exercise (continued
Page 85 and 86: • Which items did I prioritize to
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What did I learn? FOLLOW UP LATER T
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Marketing Manager Job Description (
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Marketing Manager Job Description (
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