Top 10 Signs Your CEO Doesn’t Get Lean | Quality Digest

Top 10 Signs Your CEO Doesn’t Get Lean | Quality Digest: Mike Micklewright

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Deming’s Chain Reaction for the 21st Century? By Dave Kerr

  

Pulling my reflections from earlier parts of this series of articles together, this kind of picture begins to emerge, one which might represent a version of the Chain Reaction for modern times?

This is developing thinking – definitely not a finished work, and not detracting in any way from Deming’s original work.

I am hopeful that this, or some further development, will help to engage a wider audience – leading to a greater take up in practice – leading ultimately to a better quality of life for all.

What do you think?

Social Entrepreneurship and the Deming Chain Reaction - by Dave Kerr

Recently I have been both encouraged & excited to discover that, whether by design or accident, there appears to be an uncanny resemblance to a Universal Deming Chain Reaction/ Cycle in practice within what appears to be referred to as the world of ‘Social Entrepreunership’

In the foreword of Tania Ellis’s book “The New Pioneers ” (Wiley 2010 ISBN 978-0-470-74842-8), Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder & Executive Director of the World Economic Forum, states that:

 “The main idea is that leadership is meant to serve all stakeholders of a company – and, at a higher level, serve the global community. Leaders must act as the trustees for the long term prosperity of the community.”

The book contains many specific examples of this principle in play. One that particularly strikes me is the LifeStraw produced by a Swiss based Danish company, Vestergaard Frandsen, a textile business which used to produce work uniforms but now specialises in disease control textiles & other innovative life saving products & concepts. The LifeStraw is a 25cm long water filtration straw which – at a price of less than 6 dollars for governments or international relief organisations – can be used by a person for up to a whole year to turn most dirty water into safe drinking water!

Another interesting example comes from Blue Ventures, this year’s winner of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge  (Blue Ventures & Buckminster Fuller Challenge http://challenge.bfi.org/2011Finalist_BlueVentures). By connecting conservation with wealth creation (a good summary of the Chain Reaction?) Blue Ventures has found a way to help fishing communities in the developing world experience a counter-intuitive reality: that saving fish doesn’t mean starvation, it means surviving & prospering!

One further example for the time being comes from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) as reported in the Independent on Monday 6^th June 2011 (http://ind.pn/mm6DJa).

Commenting on the move by GSK to offer its Rotarix vaccine (a vaccine which prevents diarrhoel disease – a deadly bug responsible for the deaths of more than half a million children annually) to poor nations for £1.50 a dose rather than £30, Andrew Witty, chief executive of GSK was reported as stating:

·         The drug  industry too often acts “as though it is detached from society.”

·         “To be successful in the long term, we have to operate in a way that is in step with society & its expectations.”

·         This move is  “not a gimmick or one off philanthropic gesture part of a concerted strategy to change our business model.”

·         “Specifically, we are aligning our commercial success with doing what we can to tackle the healthcare needs of people in all countries, including the poorest.”

In the final part 6 I will attempt to pull all this together.

A New Conversation for Quality Management | Quality Digest

A New Conversation for Quality Management | Quality Digest:

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Part 4 Presentation of the Deming Chain Reaction

Whilst at a recent conference, where I made reference to the chain reaction, it occurred to me that a significant factor in the apparent low ‘take up’ in practice of the Deming Chain Reaction could be related to the way that it is still generally presented and described i.e. as a linear sequence in an almost explicit manufacturing context. I suspect that when it was first ‘developed’ this context & format were very appropriate/ relevant to the issues of the day e.g. post WW2 manufacturing & employment – but I wonder i this both potentially ‘undervalues’ & unintentionally limits its ‘take up’ in current practice? There appears to be a hint of this line of thinking in “Fourth Generation Management”. On page 23, describing the chain reaction, Brian Joiner writes:

“With his (Demings’) permission, we’ve added a final step to this chain: provide better return to investors.”

And potentially even more significantly goes on to say:

“And producing more with the same resources raises our standard of living”.

Reflecting particularly on this latter point, and in the light of some of today’s’ key issues e.g. quality of life, climate issues, stewardship of natural resources etc, causes me to wonder if a different form of presentation & wording might ‘open the door’ to a significantly greater application of the Chain Reaction. For instance I am wondering about:

· Presentation as a closed loop cycle – rather than an open linear sequence.

· Wording which is more readily related to a universal context – rather than a limited manufacturing organisational context. Some thoughts that are beginning to form:

o Starting point ;

§ ‘Understanding the real value needs of your ‘community of interest’.

o Costs decreased because:

§ Less pollutants ‘generated’.

§ Less wasted labour.

§ Less wasted creativity.

§ Less waste/ destruction of limited natural resources.

o Productivity improves:

§ Human.

§ Material.

§ Financial.

§ Ecological

o Outcomes including:

§ Jobs & more jobs.

§ Better quality of life.

§ Reduction in carbon emissions.

§ Conservation of natural resources.

§ Increased financial profit.

§ Better return to investors.

§ Increased ‘wealth’.

In part 5 we will briefly ‘visit’ the world of Social Entrepreneurship, hopefully to gain further useful insight

Part 3 Reflections on the Role of the Customer

In the ‘Deming Dimension’ (SPC Press Inc 1990 ISBN 0-945320-08-6) Henry Neave introduces the chain reaction (page 33) with a reference to Quality Guideline 1 in an article by Joiner Associates “A Practical Approach to Quality”:

Quality Guideline 1: Quality Begins With Delighting the Customer.

“.... Your bosses may be ecstatic, the Board of Directors blissful and your company may be considered a legend on Wall Street. But if your customers are not delighted, you have not begun to achieve quality”.

Pretty direct wording – which I suggest is symptomatic of a strong belief that is an implicit fundamental of the chain reaction.

Whilst currently there are ‘shed loads’ of words and lots of activity around the importance of customers e.g. customer care initiatives, questionnaires, surveys etc, my experience as a customer is generally that reality comes nowhere near to me ‘being delighted’. I conclude from my experiences that in practice ‘delighting customers’ is not generally regarded as either the starting point for quality nor product/ service delivery. My personal experiences and observations, affirmed in conversations with others, strongly suggest that, in general:

· The actual prime focus in action is on ‘boss’ (I use this term in a VERY wide sense).

· ‘Quality’ is what we can ‘get away with’.

· Delighting the customer means we have gone too far – and given something away for nothing.

· The prime ‘aims in action’ are actually:

o Reduce cost.

o Sell more – of whatever you can manage to sell.

Regardless of the fact that I personally find the statements made by Tom Johnson & Brian Joiner (see part 1) both consistent & compelling, we are, however, still seemingly left with the reality that current practice does not, in general, appear to follow the Deming Chain Reaction. Maybe the way that the Deming Chain Reaction is presented may be a factor? This will be our focus in part 4

The Rule of 150 | Quality Digest

The Rule of 150 | Quality Digest