Sales & Opertions Planning March 22, 2006
Posted by Lawrence Loucka in : Supply Chain , add a commentDick Ling gave a talk on Sales & Operations Planning at Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Atlanta chapter of the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS). Ling has been a manufacturing consultant since 1979 and was once associated with the Oliver Wight Companies. His book on Sales and Operations Planning launched the methodology into corporate America in the mid 80’s. I first met Ling in the early 90’s when S&OP was all about balancing supply and demand. But the world has changed and so too has S&OP. More and more businesses are becoming global and the need for product and service innovation is ever greater. So beyond just tracking widgets and managing demand and supply we are now aware of the need for intergrating and rolling out New products and services.
Curse of the Shingo Prize? March 14, 2006
Posted by Lawrence Loucka in : Lean , 1 comment so far
Over at LeanBlog, Mark Graban writes about the latest batch of Shingo award recipients in his posts 2006 Shingo Prize Winners, Shingo Winners "Control Their Destiny"?? and Shingo Investing: a Losing Bet where he compares stock performance of past prize winners and finds a nasty negative trend. Bill Waddell of Evolving Excellence wrote Don’t Let Delphi Drag Down the Shingo Prize, lamenting how Delphi can receive so many awards and be patently un-lean. Both authors raise relevant challenges that reminds me of a similar controversy of the "case studies" Tom Peters used in his classic In Search of Excellence.
Having worked at and visited a number of the Delphi plants I know they’ve done good things, although in my opinion just too little and too late and at the wrong altitude. With Delphi’s bankruptcy can GM be far behind? What do you think?
Fast Innovation March 5, 2006
Posted by Lawrence Loucka in : Consulting, Reviews , add a comment 
Fast Innovation : Achieving Superior Differentiation, Speed to Market, and Increased Profitability by Michael George, James Works, and Kimberly Watson-Hemphill is a great synthesis of current thinking on product and service development. Chapter 2 "How to Become Fast" isn’t about designing faster, rather it’s about how lead time and task variation cause delays in project schedules. Two "Laws" are introduced:
- Littles’ Law: Time-to-Market is inversely related to the number of projects in-process; the more projects you have, the longer all projects will take. The fewer projects you have, the faster the development process can flow.
- Law of Innovation Variation: Project task time varies and is related to percent utilization and number of cross trained resources. Delays stack up. Without slack time or off loading of critical resources projects will be late.
Driving the Bus March 3, 2006
Posted by Lawrence Loucka in : Consulting, Lean, Lean Sigma , 1 comment so far
A colleague of mine, Charlie Hagan, had a unique scale for assessing professional experience and competence. He would describe someone as either having: driven the bus, ridden on the bus, seen the bus drive by, say "what bus?", or be thrown under the bus. I was recently reminded of this scale while talking with a self proclaimed organizational development expert who must have been on different buses from the ones I’ve been riding and driving on my lean sigma journey. Organizational transformation, like oil on water, can live comfortably on the surface of an organization resistant to penetrating the fiber and makeup of the culture. Transformation is a major undertaking that comes at a high price. A positive organizational culture reinforces the core beliefs and behaviors that a leader desires while weakening the values and actions the leader rejects. A negative culture becomes toxic, poisoning the life of the organization and hindering any future potential for growth. When dysfunction is detected and cultural change is needed, a major overhaul is called for. Cultures do not readily adjust. A serious mistake made by many leaders is to try to forcefully change the mindsets of those within an organization. Managers often try to force, rather than lead the change. Organizational transformation imposed on followers first is almost always resisted and resented by the followers. Successful leaders first impose change on themselves and then cultivate it in others. As Charlie would say, "Sometimes you got to drive the bus."