Recently I called on a custom cabinetmaker.  After spending 20 years of 60 hours per week of building up a nice $1m/yr business, his sole need was for …some time.  Time to work on his antique car. Time to cut the grass.  He really enjoyed the way the lawn looked when he was done…and the smell!

How many of you are yearning for more time? How would you like to free up 15% of your day?  You can do it, starting in three days! Here’s how:

For the next three days, record every activity you during the workday.  No times, just a list of activities.  At the end of day 3, number the activities and place the number in the box below based on Importance and Urgency.

                                                                        environment

               Urgent

                 Not

            Urgent

                              Not       Important

                        Important

From Stephen Covey’s, 7    Habits of Highly                 Successful People

Typically 15% of our activities are not important or urgent…so stop doing them!

There’s your 15%.  Some activities are urgent but not important.  Why are they urgent if they’re not important?  Some are important but not urgent.  So schedule them.  Lastly, the upper right hand corner becomes your priorities.  Make certain these get these done.  Caution:  more than 20% in this box may indicate a crisis environment.  Give this a try.  You'll be glad you did!

For many businesses developing and implementing a Quality Management System (QMS) that conforms with the ISO 9001:2000/2008 standard may be a business necessity.  Many large companies - particularly oil and gas companies and those that operate internationally - require that their vendors be certified to this standard as a condition of becoming an approved supplier. 

So if you are a small to medium sized business owner and you want to expand your market penetration into these kinds of industries, you should seriously consider certification.  In addition many times a business owner will be pressured by his/her existing customers to become certified.   

Well what is it and what does it do?  ISO 9001:2000/2008 is a standard for Quality Management Systems developed and published by the Geneva, Switzerland based International Standards Organization.

It establishes generic requirements for an effective QMS that:

• Provides assurance that the organization’s product or service meets customer requirements
• Provides assurance that the organization’s QMS is being effectively implemented on continuing basis
• Provides mechanisms for the continuous improvement of the QMS related to meeting customer requirements

Now aside from customer driven needs there are also good business reasons to seriously look at this standard because of the general business benefits that it can bring to all organizations.  There is often a mis-perception that this standard is only applicable to manufacturing companies.  In fact the standard was developed with the specific intent that it be applicable to all kinds of businesses - e.g. manufacturing, repair and service, distribution, and even research institutions.

Some of the business benefits that would be gained by having a conforming QMS are: 

• It improves customer satisfaction
• It results in standardized processes and procedures
• It results in continuous improvement of the organization’s product/service
• It increases employee involvement and satisfaction
• It provides confidence to the organization’s customers of the organization’s ability to meet their requirements
• It improves decision making through a disciplined approach based on hard data
• Adds value by increased sales via customer loyalty and retention, reduced costs via improved processes and reduced employee turnover
• Institutionalizes training in methods and procedures essential to quality
• Reduces dependence on individuals

Note that it is not necessary to become formally certified to this standard to reap the benefits of these businesses improvements.  Should certification be required for the customer or market driven reasons given above, certification by an accredited registrar will be necessary.

Now the next question for the small business owner is how to get started.  The first step is that the business owner must be committed to the goal.  Step 2 is to assess your current operations, procedures and QMS against the ISO 9001 standard (i.e. a gap analysis).  The last step is to bring you QMS into conformance. 

Should you like more information on this subject please feel free to contact me at jonelmendorf@iib.ws or call me at 713-303-1664

Companies who provide good incentive programs for their production crews and first line supervisors enjoy benefits far beyond just direct productivity increases, spectacular as those can be: Improvements in the 50% range are not uncommon. On top of that, though, such a program can tap into a resource that lies dormant in far too may companies: The day to day, down to earth, expertise of the hourly employees who do the actual work that the company eventually gets to collect money for. OK, they may not have even a High School education, but I have found them to be smarter than I expected, particularly about what they do all day long. Of course, without an incentive for them to apply their knowledge productively, many company owners and managers tend to view these folks as the source of some of their most vexing problems: Absenteeism, turn-over, lost time accidents, complaints and grievances, poor quality, low output, and so on and on. Even a well designed incentive program will not completely eliminate all of these problems, but it can make huge improvements. Here are some examples.

Let's say a company has a (properly designed) IC program which compares actual output against a reasonable standard, and distributes, say, one half of the amount saved by beating the standard among the crew members, including their direct supervisor, chief, foreman, whatever. We'll talk some more about how to do that in a minute, but just look at the things that happen right away: There is no longer any need to watch people to make sure they are working, because everybody knows that the laggards hurt the crew as a whole, so they watch and encourage each other. Social pressure is more effective than nagging by the supervisor any day. Quality improves because it is costly to do things over. Crew sizes tend to be more effective: I have had crews ask for members to be transferred to improve the output per man hour charged. Occasionally, conversations actually turn from sports and sex to ideas for doing things better, faster, easier. Morale improves: Working to beat a standard is much more fun than just putting in time, and the bonus payments, when they come, are like "found" money. Of course, turn-over drops as morale improves.

A good IC program also helps with supervisory training, because it lets first line supervisors acts as Leaders and Coaches instead of Naggers and Pushers. They can do their job just by helping the crews maximize their bonus earnings, telling them how "we" are doing, pointing out what can be done to improve, addressing and correcting problems as they arise, and generally being experts on the program who can answer questions and deal with concerns. So they learn to be much more effective supervisors than they would otherwise be, and, in the IC program, they have a tool that helps them be effective.

What's more, the crews will also be checking on their supervisors: They want the number of hours turned in to be as low as possible, so they do not want any of this checking a friend in early or out late or, as sometimes happens, reporting of entirely fictitious hours. In effect, then, a good IC program can also act as an inexpensive but highly effective production management control tool.

To provide all these benefits, the production incentive program must have the confidence of the production crews. They must absolutely believe that, if the make the effort, if they do well, bonus awards will follow like night follows day. If they do not, they will view the program as a slot machine - it pays off if you are lucky or the boss feels like it, effort and performance have nothing to do with it. Obviously, slot machines do not provide incentives, and so do not yield the benefits of a good IC program. They may actually be counter productive by generating bad feelings and ill will.

The crews will believe in the program if they and their supervisors understand it, and, above all, believe that the standards against which they are measured are reasonable and achievable. So - the standards should be as simple as possible, should be explained thoroughly and clearly, as many times as may be necessary to achieve complete acceptance. The source of the explanation should be the most credible available, preferably someone the crews accept as a real authority on their work. Do stay away from anonymous sources like "the computer", "acconting", "the office", "the bid price". If neceaary, a little hocus pocus with stop watches and clip boards can be helpful.

Once the program is under way, there must be opportunities for feed-back and exchnage of ideas for two equally important reasons:

First, to protect the credibility of the program. Supervisors must be able to get management to change any standards that prove to be incorrect, or at least get a good explanation for standards that just look wrong. Further, their crews must believe they can do that, so the supervisors need to be able to come back with answers.

Second, to make sure that good ideas from the field are utilised: Perhaps the company's pricing structure does not adequately reflect production difficulties; perhaps quality issues are routinely over sold or under sold; perhaps customers are made unrealistic promises; perhaps not all relevant information is obtained during the sale; perhaps materials obtained form some suppliers are unrealiable; and so on.  There are probably dozens of production details that should beneficially called to top management's attention. With the IC program, the crews now have an incentive to do so.

Finally, changes in the IC program should be handled carefully and thoroughly. Modifications should be predicted when the program is first introduced, perhaps by announcing reviews at stated intervals. Then, when adjustments are needed, let's face it, the crews are going to be suspicious if the program has treated them well up to that point. So, the adjustments need to be explained with just as much care and concern for credibility as the original presentation.

A good production IC program can have a decisively positive impact on a company's profitability and competitive prowess, so it is well worth the time and effort required to launch it and work with it. On the other hand, a program that is poorly designed and improperly implemented can actually be worse than none at all.

If you would like to talk about this subject some more, feel free to send me a message at jurgenringer@iib.ws