Zero Quality Control

I picked a book off the shelf this morning and browsed through it again. I'm always amazed at what I miss the first few times through a good read. This time, I actually read the preface!

The book was Shigeo Shingo - Zero Quality Control. In the publishers message, Norman Bodek talks about engineers and their approach toward quality. He says that according to Shigeo Shingo, there are three types of engineers - Table engineers - who spend their time in meetings arguing about problems on the shop floor, Catalogue engineers - who spend their time browsing for the latest gadget to solve these problems, and Nyet engineers - those who put the kibosh to any improvement suggestion.

He suggests that instead, we should strive to become Improvement engineers, by spending the majority of our time on the shop floor - observing problems, making suggestions and working with those who do the work to implement solutions to problems. Go to the Gemba!

His quote from Shingo really hit home - "My medicine works, but only if the patient takes it". How often have good suggestions been discarded, forgotten or ignored.

It’s tough to change the mindset when what we have done so far has brought us so far. Becoming a successful company was no accident.

Making the company the best that it can be means challenging your paradigm, looking at things differently, going to the gemba and working with your team to drive out waste. That's a lot of work - and not as comfy as the board room chair. I guarantee the result of this effort will not only open your eyes, but it will shock and amaze you. Because continuous improvement means just that - you can ALWAYS do better.


Norm
www.normanbain.com

Do you have a road map?

Every day I pick up the paper and read about companies cutting jobs. The Globe is cutting jobs in Toronto, The Free Press is cutting jobs in Winnipeg, 4500 jobs lost at Boeing, Air Canada closes its flight center, Snow lake shuts down its mine, Paper mills close down never to re-open. Even Microsoft announced today that they are cutting 5000 jobs, 1400 today. There were 636,000 Manitobans looking for work in December last year, unchanged from November.

The past few years we focused on how to deal with unpredictable rising costs of materials. What will the challenge be in 2009? The Global Insight forecasting firm said the country will lose an additional 100,000 jobs in the first 3 months of 2009. Do you have a plan?

Todays leaders face bigger challenges than ever before. The financial markets are in crisis and it seems the economy is not far behind. How well equipped are you to face these mounting obsticals. Do you have the right teams in place to tackle your key issues.

I have released a new ebook entitled "The 5 Action Steps That Will Make Your Business At Least 50% More Profit in The Next 90 Days". It is available free at the NBI website http://www.nbi.onlinenow.ca. Just visit the site and enter the phrase "Profit" in the "Get It" box.

Sometimes it seems like we need an “oh-shit” experience to take action. We wait until we are in real trouble before we take action. A crisis makes us become more focused. It wakes us up to what was under our noses all along – but we were too busy to pay attention.

I hope you are not in crisis. I hope you are looking for a way to strengthen an organization that is already strong. Whether you are or are not in crisis, this ebook will help.

Norm
www.normanbain.com