Summary.   Surveys are a pain to complete and, as a result, most people don’t invest much thought in filling them in, which means the information they give is low-quality and unlikely to provide strategic insight.  Talking to customers and asking open-ended questions yields better results and in most cases your managers will not need to conduct...

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Give a listen… Hello and welcome to another edition of State of Readiness with your host, Joseph Paris. My guest today is Sanjeev Khot; Director of Global Product Quality, Cummins, Incorporated and is responsible for overall Global Quality Strategy, Supplier Quality, Reliability, APQP, and Logistics Quality Transformation to support growth and drive long-term business value....

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Traditionally in the Service Industry, Quality Assurance (QA) focused on ensuring the quality of (manufacturing and delivering) a service or product. Main focus was on preventing mistakes and defects, with techniques like Statistical Process Control (SPC), Total Quality Management (TQM) and Company Quality. The goal was to assure ‘fit for purpose’ (maximizing customer acceptance) and...

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My guest today is Sam Smolik, SVP Americas Manufacturing (retired) for LyondellBasell and author of the book, “The Power of Goal Zero“. After his retirement, Sam decided to share the lessons learned during his journey and years of experience – the best practices and techniques for achieving Operational Excellence – and that led him to...

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Back in the middle of 2017, as Tesla was ramping up the production of the Model-3 and the company was worth only $63.5 billion (as opposed to $1 trillion today), Elon Musk famously stated that he was entering “Production Hell“.  Evidently, he made it through just fine. But people reading this might think; “Isn’t Musk...

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As a manufacturer, we want our defects rate to be as close as possible to the “Six Sigma level, 3.4 defects per million opportunities” (DPMO) on products we fabricate.  A possibly overlooked key is how we manage our suppliers’ defects; what they do with the recovered contents off the parts we reject and return to...

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Traditionally in the Service Industry, Operational Excellence (OpEx) focused on the Operations function: Back and Mid Offices fulfilling the client’s request. Main focus was on decreasing handling and throughput time, with techniques like Lean Thinking, Six Sigma and Scientific Management. The goal was mainly to let humans work more efficiently. However, in the last years,...

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Joseph Paris invites Andrew Chrostowski, Chairman of the Board and Acting CEO of RealWear to “State of Readiness”.  We start with discussing what RealWear is all about – and it is one of the coolest systems I have seen for employee-enablement.  RealWear had designed and developed ruggedized head-mounted wearable Android-class tablet computer that frees a worker’s hands for dangerous jobs.  Being...

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In the late 1970s, “quality” began to evolve from its historically “Neanderthal” passive inspection approach to its current “Cro-Magnon,” more pro-active, project-based approach “bolted-on” to the current operational status quo.  Joseph Juran was a pioneer in such efforts. Various subsequent adaptations such as Six Sigma and Lean evolved it further; but, over time, it has...

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A growing number of law departments and law firms are exploring Lean Six Sigma and similar methodologies to continuously improve the way they deliver legal services. By tailoring these techniques to litigation processes, legal teams can reduce costs, increase efficiency and better align their workflows with client priorities This article provides a thorough investigation into...

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There are tens of thousands of books regarding management,  leadership, and culture. They all boil down to a list of base principles that are key to running a sound business. Simple to understand, very hard to execute. We should beware to confuse simple with easy. In fact, most of the behaviors that make us healthy...

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Packaging is everywhere.  Almost everything that we buy comes packaged in some form.  New cars are packaged in protective films for transport.  The jeans on the store shelf came in a corrugated paperboard box.  Even the fresh fruit at the farmer’s market arrived in a box, and you took it home in a bag. The...

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Welcome to Episode 35 of The Outliers Inn Topic: We welcome Don Burshnick, President of Alpha-1 Technologies LLC to “The Outliers Inn”, where we will learn of the importance of preventative maintenance and the conflict that exists between maintaining equipment so that it runs in an optimal state and a company’s reluctance to invest in the...

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According to the Economist,  the world’s second-biggest technology firm is facing an uphill battle. After the former owner of Samsung had ordered a significant number of smartphones to be destroyed in an attempt to reverse the unfortunate effects of negative reports from unhappy Business partner-customers – Samsung thought that it had managed to save itself...

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Is your organization struggling with Quality problems? Do you have what you think is a good quality management system but no one seems to follow it? Here’s a little sea story that might help get your program back on track. As a young junior officer on board USS NARWHAL (SSN 671) in the mid-1990s, I...

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Do you ever wonder why things don’t get done as quickly as they should?  Do things get lost in the shuffle?  Perhaps you find that you have to more closely supervise the people who are supposed to be doing the work?  Are decisions never made because they are perpetually being discussed?  Does work stop because...

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Bloomberg reveals how and why the development of a microprocessor is one of the riskiest, costliest, and most technically complex feats in business. While Intel rarely talks about how it creates a new chip, Bloomberg Businessweek managed to visit the Hillsboro factory in May when they were given the most extensive tour since President Obama visited in 2011....

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Although continuous and sustained growth is universally pursued by organizations, the goal itself remains elusive for some. Many companies say they aren’t fully confident their company will realize its growth targets, while others yet do succeed in growing annually.  To name some of these, companies like Amazon, Apple, Danaher, Haier, IKEA, Natura, and Starbucks are presented as having...

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The word on the street is all about how Apple will fare next quarter. Apple’s fortunes are dominated by the iPhone, from which it earns around two-thirds of its revenues. But thanks to turmoil in emerging markets, mainly in China where it makes a quarter of its sales, quarterly revenue is expected to fall by...

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“Virtual work” is increasingly just “work” for most of us – whether we’re dialing into a conference call with our branch offices in London and New York, or VPN-ing in from home to catch up with work after-hours, remote work is the new normal. But Peter Hirst is helping to lead MIT into a new...

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I have owned my own business since 1985, so I have been a leader far longer than I have been led.  In fact, I have owned my own businesses for so long (thirty-years this year) that I have often been referred to as “uniquely unemployable”.  I am not certain I would agree though, because I...

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The news about deadly crashes linked to a faulty ignition switch, followed by wave upon wave of recalls, did not go down well for General Motors dealers earlier this year. But according to Robbie Long, service director for the dealer, what looked like “great adversity” has turned into an opportunity. The hundreds of customers bringing old cars...

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GM has been under heavy pressure for some time now. Their problems began small, with just 500 of their latest full-size pickups being recalled because of a minor problem with airbags. But GM’s woes escalated after admitting that it waited a decade to act on an ignition-switch problem linked to at least 13 deaths, in addition to...

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A nincompoop is someone who is grossly inept.  They can be categorized as five-figures, six-figures … up to ten-figures or more depending upon how much they cost the organization in a year, or over their career. Ironically, Nincompoops have an uncanny way of surviving by flying below the radar, shifting blame or somehow gaining tenure. ...

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According to the Economist, the business of propelling large passenger jets is at maximum thrust – so much so, that some reckon engine-makers’ revenues could total $1 trillion over the next 20 years. This is precisely why Pratt & Whitney is gearing up for a fight, in hoping a new high-tech engine will restore its former...

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The Economist takes an in-depth look at the future of cars. While some mean the motor industry’s fortunes are increasingly divided, in the right markets and with the right technologies, they look surprisingly bright. With that said, the Economist means that while consumers will be in heaven, an investment in the motor industry has to...

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Okay, we know that ‘Operations types’ focus on production, yield, shipping/receiving of raw material, scheduling, and more production.  They figure their job is to make product, and more product, and continue making product according to the Master Schedule (at the required yield level) in order to make their numbers for the day/week/month.  And they are...

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Bloomberg reports that Maserati, the Italian maker of exotic cars, is shifting its focus from the elite to the merely wealthy. They hope to shift their target market (slightly) with a mid-sized sedan called the Ghibli. The new car, which will start at $65,600, is said to represent a direct challenge to mainstay German models like...

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For every company, it’s a jungle out there… Every day, every moment, you are either the hunter or the hunted. The strong and the skilled survive while the weak get cut from the herd to be killed and eaten – or just fall back and left to die. And the pace gets quicker each and...

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The word according to The Economist is that the world’s most valuable firm may be past its prime. Indeed, stiffer competition in smartphones and tablets from the likes of Samsung has spooked investors in Apple. The two factors that have contributed largely to Apple’s decline, namely the death of Steve Jobs and Apple’s fantastic profit margins...

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