An Insight into one company’s changed culture because of SPC

An Insight into one company’s changed culture because of SPC

Sample job - circulars editor

Before SPC
1. Manager decides improvement/change is required
2. Manager calls in Organisation and Methods Section to analyse job and recommend efficiencies
3. Manager introduces O&M staff to job holder
4. O&M ask job holder to record activity (number of circulars edited during 2-week period)
5. O&M observe jobholder in action (job holder anxious to impress, does not like to be seen to be 'slow')
6. O&M analyse stats of 2 week activity period and compare with observations
7. O&M draw conclusion that even allowing for 'difficult' tasks and unspecified 'down time' jobholder can achieve an average of 'X' editing jobs per day.
8. Jobholder recognises this is 20% to 50% more than currently achieved
9. Manager receives report
10. Manager suggests that jobholder provides a report and strategy for achieving this projected average turnover (this is called empowerment and 'ownership), timescale 2 days
11. Jobholder works late and at the weekend to come up with a scheme which might work.
12. Manager says "excellent! - that can go on your objectives for the rest of the year"
13. Jobholder gets depressed
14. Jobholder works longer hours to achieve 90 % of target by year end
15. Manager understands the difficulties jobholder experienced and only reduces potential bonus by 5%
16. Jobholder resolves to look for another job

The SPC way
1. Data capture - at several points in the life of the document
2. Control charts identify whether process is stable/non-stable and whether particular 'jobs' cause atypical action times
3. Process maps (deployed style)
4. Periods of delay and inactivity in the life of the document identified
5. Further investigation to understand "the voice of the process"
6. Process changes proposed and studied - and piloted
7. Further process changes proposed and implemented
8. Data capture continues
9. Control charts indicate improvement or otherwise
10. Manager involved throughout
11. Jobholder 'comfortable' that improvements are genuine and sustainable
12. Agreed Objective is to follow and implement the Improvement Statement
13. Jobholder and Manager spend much time persuading others that the Objective is SMART
14. The process is improved and the jobholder goes home at nights!!

The most important figures are unknown or unknowable

One of Deming's paradoxical quotes is "the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable. David Walker picked up this point recently in the Guardian with an article about how difficult it is to measure productivity in the service sector. For example (in the NHS) "measuring the cost is a damn sight easier than evaluating the output. Just counting the number of patients a consulant sees gives no scope for assessing the quality of the episode or illustrating the improvement that might result, in the long run, in their lives"
It's a problem in policing, too. "Officers on patrol are very unlikely to spot or stop a crime, which makes their productivity seem unimpressive. But a glimpse of a patrolling officer is highly valued by members of the public. They might still feel good even if they registered the "unproductiveness" of the officer in terms of detection of criminals.
Deming lists "Running a company on visible figures alone" as one of the Deadly Diseases of Management. "A company may appear to be doing well, on the basis of visible figures, yet be going down the tubes for failure of the management to take heed of figures unknown and unknowable".