Shigeo Shingo’s contribution

Shigeo Shingo’s contribution to management methodology is better known than his name in BPI [Business Process Improvement].

Shigeo Shingo was born in 1909 at Saga City, Japan. In 1930 after perusing his graduation from Yamanashi Technical College he went to work for the Taipei Railway, Japan. In 1943 Dr.shingo got transferred to the Amano Manufacturing Plant as Manufacturing Section Chief. He shown his magnificent performance of raising productivity level at 100% there. Dr.Shingo worked for several manufacturers during 1945-46 and also began a professional association with the JMA – Japanese Management Association. During 1946-1954 Dr.Shingo worked on countless assignments & delivered several important papers and crystallized his innovative thoughts on process and plant layout designing. He also applied Statistical Process Control to execute his ideas.

In the year 1955, Dr.Shingo get associated with Toyota. In 1959, Dr. Shingo started his own consulting company and he developed his concepts of poka-yoke “The Mistake-Proofing.” His great achievement is to cut the set up time of 1000 ton press at Toyota by 3 hours and 57 min. That was from 4 hours to 3 Minutes by using SMED in 1969. He also written 14 books and countless papers on manufacturing.

His contribution includes all these theory and processes.

-Poka yoke,
-Source inspection,
-Mistake proofing,
-SMED (single minute exchange of die) and
-Just In Time (JIT) production.

Shigeo Shingo’s quality teachings were successful as they were practical and action oriented. I will post more about his theory and process in coming days.

Success,

Vision Raval

BPI Design

BPI [Business Process Improvement] is the art of designing process, science of define strategic methodology and commerce of evaluate improvement in capability. Many companies follow Kaizen, six sigma or Time and Motion studies to enhance their capabilities to utilize optimum resource matrix.

There are two ways of BPI implementation to manage your business more effectively, one is to follow BPI and another is design BPI. Both ways require similar amount of expertise and qualified consultation. However time and cost investment differ in both model. The important thing is the right model is very necessary to define which suits your business model, work flow and methodology. Now task is how to judge which one would be right BPI model for your business ?

Well, I recommend to my clients after detailed analysis of their requirement and business model. It help to finalize that Follow BPI or Design BPI would be better option for them. That will be depend upon these key quesction which will define decision making factors.

1 – What kind of business you have?
2 – What business model do you follow?
3 – What kind of MIS system implemented in your organisation.
4 – What are the key area of your business where do you feel that there are still a scope of improvement.

Now once you have all answers about these then you need to define :

- Do your business [ Type / Model / Process ] match with any case study of BPI history ?
If the answer is ” No “, then its advisable to go for Designing the BPI for your own company with experts.

But

If answer is ” Yes ” then you need to take a look in to these basic factors:

A: What would be the “Trend gap” between the time of case study and today’s market scenario.
B: Do case study match with the process you follow for your organisation?
C: Do case study match with the Geographical environmental you follow in your country ?
D: Do case study match with the work culture and employee psychology your organisation has ?

If you find all four factor positive then you can move ahead with pre-established BPI for your organisation for the best result. even in designing BPI you can take basic theory or process from predefine BPI however you need to modify it to make it more effective according to your work methodology and other rating factors.

Most of fortune 500 company follow BPI according to their work flow and management structure as they designd it from scratch with the help of pre-existing methodologies. As measurable growth is the target for every company to deploy BPI, its very essential to chose the right technique and right methodology after process research & industry analysis to ensure value added investment towards organization.

Success,
Vision Raval

Six sigma: Critical To X Overview by Vision Raval

Critical to X factors are very important in Six Sigma component. In simple words critical to X factor is an impacts on customers, where x is a variable that corresponds to a critical area. These factors are effecting from customer satisfaction to operations’ safety at organisation level. There are several methods and matrix to define and calculate the CTX. Let’s look in to key types and basic overview of CTX requirements.

The key areas that are critical to impact on customers are as Under:

A. Critical-to-Quality (CTQ):

CTQ is the key characteristics which developed from an examination matrix of different customer needs. These customer needs include dimensions such as height, width, depth and weight of products. For example, customers may specify 1 – 2 pounds to be the ideal weight for a NET book computer. Unlike other measures of customer wants, customer needs that are directly related to product features like sim card slot or 3G connectivity are an important component of this Six Sigma methodology.

B. Critical-to-Cost (CTC):

CTC areas define the impact of costs on the customer. To manufacture one product includes number of costs for components, assembly and shipping. These all would be included in the construction of a CTC tree. For example, management in a mobile company exporting phone in next state via road way. Now due to increase in petroleum cost may understand that a price per unit of mobile is now ideal for 80% of their customer base due to budgetary factors.

C. Critical-to-Satisfaction (CTS):

CTS define very specific areas of entire application that contribute to customer satisfaction such as feedback , PR and attention to detail and processing of complaints. These factors are very useful to manage market standards and branding more effectively. More satisfy customers will also help in to mouth to mouth marketing strategy for generating futuristic demand.

D. Critical-to-Process (CTP):

CTP define process variables which are typically designed for input variables. Key factor affecting the process are many For an example, if the production of certain milk products requires specific temperatures, hygiene and humidity ranges, those will be considered CTP areas under CTX.

E. Critical-to-Safety (CTS):

CTS is very important and mandatory for customer safety parameters. CTS define customer needs that are concerned with safety terms. For example, a company manufacturing truck tyre may decide that all pair of tyres above 10 pounds will be marked with a label warning against possible back injuries when lifting. These will be useful for safety and health factor of customers.

In my career I have utilized Critical to X factor for many of my IT, Production and Construction domain clients during six sigma green and black belt project. And I experienced that CTX factor are very essential to define for result oriented approach towards your product marketing and branding.

Success,

Vision Raval

Ref: www.visionraval.com

How six sigma can be useful for BPO Domain ?

Business Process Outsourcing is fastest growing domain and key trend now a days to save money and get quality work. In Business Process Outsourcing domain Six sigma is playing vital role to manage quality output with maximum utilization of resources and process flow.

How six sigma works for BPO and Call center Industry ?

A: Six sigma works with Quality Control division. Where we can get highest quality and customer satisfaction by implementing six sigma.

B: Six sigma can also control minimal AHT [ Average Handling Time ] on each call if we become precise and Candid script for reply on to the point consumer inquiry. Less AHT menace more calls been taken and by that less resource can execute more work with quality.

C: Six sigma Shift timings will make sure about utilizetion on each cubicle or work station. for example I consult one BPO of south india where I pland their shift timings in three different shifts matching with three biggest economical zones like Australia, Uk and USA. They are able to perform 8 hours shift for all three client base and in 100 seat capacity they can take outcome of 300 seats in total shifts with zero extra infrastructure cost.

D: Six sigma Attendance and Planed Leave calendar. Planed leave calendar helps to manage leaves and call flow with less buffer executives in pipeline. It also keep resource investment low. It will also get an opportunity to schedule any training or skill enhancement lecture with 100% attendance.

E: Six sigma infrastructure Planing, where u can utilize maximum space according to your technichal requirements and resource arrangement. Team wise cubical or work station set up will get easy idea to manage the work flow. TL get high chair to check on call help required to any of the team member. Call barging facility with all IDs to make CCE properly and instantly supervised.

Apart of these A to E points, there are many minor and macro level analysis required according to call center policy, Campaign they run , Type of call flow, Software they use and Employee psychology to understand Business Process Outsourcing model in depth.

Success,
Vision Raval

www.visionraval.com