Having a nodding acquaintance with the Concept of Zero Defect
31 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment
in Having a nodding acquaintance with the Concept of Zero Defect Tags: concept, continuous improvement, conventional, corrective, creative, developed countries, improvement, incremental, mistake proofing, prevention, prime, process, Quality, six sigma, slow process, status, sustained, techniques
In the late 20th century, the zero defect concept has gained momentum in many developed countries. This has made people to go in for prevention techniques rather than the corrective techniques which were in conventional use. Attaining zero defect is not a one time affair. This is a slow process requiring continuous improvement. Sustained efforts may result in zero defect in the long run. It should be understood that six sigma concept is also related to this.
The methodology is a continuous improvement process, at every stage attaining an improvement over the previous one. Initially the current status of the process and the desired future status of the process are to be clearly defined. The difference between these two indicates the quality improvement that has to be brought to the process under consideration. Once this exercise is over the next step of quality improvement has to be planned. Now the final quality status attained in the first exercise becomes the current status. A new desired future status is fixed. As before the difference between these two will become the new quality improvement which has to be introduced in the process. Steps have to be taken to effectuate this incremental quality. This exercise is again continued. Every time the exercise is carried out, it can be noticed that the incremental quality improvement to be introduced is reducing. After a prolonged exercise, this gap will become minute and one can hope to achieve the zero defect at the end.
How much is the incremental quality improvement that can be achieved and how soon the zero defect status will be reached, are dependent on how creative the ideas are. Highly creative ideas can help in reaching the zero defect status fast.
Different techniques, such as “mistake proofing” can also be used for zero defect concept. In this method, prevention is considered to be the prime factor and at every stage it is essential that the preventive measures are incorporated to avoid defects at any stage.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
Picking up on Lower Transaction Costs
28 Jan 2009 1 Comment
in Picking up on Lower Transaction Costs Tags: activities, asset, asset specificity, best price, carry out, contract, decision, delivery, Employees, enforce, externally, frequency, hire, idiosyncratic, integrate, internally, lead, lower, manufacturer, market, money, motivate, negotiate, on-time, opportunistic, option, organize, organizing, Quality, relationship, search, sign, supplier, supplies, train, transactions, uncertainty, value chain, vertical integration, vertically
Suppose a firm was pondering whether to integrate vertically into supplier activities or to keep buying supplies from the open market. One important factor is the decision would be the cost of each option. If the firm was buying the supplies from the market, it would have to search for the best price, best quality, and best on-time delivery, negotiate and sign a contract, and make sure that the terms of the contract are enforced. All these activities have costs associated with them—transaction costs. If the firm decided to integrate vertically, it would have to establish a value chain for the activities. It would hire, train, organize, motivate, and lead employees who carry out the activities of the supplier value chain internally—all of which also costs money. The firm would integrate vertically if its costs of organizing transactions internally are lower than those of doing so externally. That would depend on four things: asset specificity, uncertainty, the frequency of transactions, and whether the supplier is opportunistic. Asset specificity refers to how idiosyncratic an asset in the relationship becomes as it (the relationship) develops.
All else being equal, the higher the asset specificity, uncertainty, and frequency of transactions, the higher the transaction costs of market transactions, and the more the manufacturer should think about vertical integration.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir - Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
Organization’s Infrastructure
27 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: add-on, air conditioning, Architect, Channels, complex, compliance, control, coordination, electrical, elevator, essential, functional, hierarchy, horizontally, invisible, learning, livable, managers, People, plumbing, populate, redesigned, relations, reporting, rethink, solar, structural, systems, technology, telecommunication, vacuum
An architect’s work requires more than site selection and structural design. A building also has an infrastructure, a complex and sometimes invisible web of systems that work together to make the building functional and livable. These include the electrical, plumbing, and air conditioning systems, as well as the essential channels for people movement and telecommunication hookup.
Infrastructure is not just an add-on. The development of new technologies that provide efficient solar heating also required architects to consider a new set of factors when siting a building. Just as the invention of the elevator paved the way for today’s concrete and steel skyscrapers, some new organizational concepts and technologies are needed to make horizontally oriented structures workable and vacuum free.
This exactly runs in pairs with organizational infrastructure needed to make the new corporation work. It has issues such as the hierarchy of reporting relations, the career structures they imply, and the middle managers who populate them, along with ways to rethink control and coordination so that new learning, rather than redesign compliance, is produced.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
Psychic Profile of a Healthy Company
26 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment
in Psychic Profile of a Healthy Company Tags: artery, bind, breathe, cheerleader, circular, commitment, common language, coordinate, corporate, decision, Development, dictate, dignity, empower, enterprise, entity, evolve, executives, expressed, financial, grow, growth, health, holistic, humanistic, identity, implied, influence, interact, linear, living, managers, mismanaged, Mission, People, Performance, philosophy, practice, principles, producer, productive, reinforce, relationships, renew, responsibilities, robustness, roles, sick, sickness, spirit, successful, sum, synergy, values, vital, vitality, weaken, workers, workplace, workplaces
Just like a fine athlete is more than someone who isn’t sick, a healthy company embodies people and practices that combine and coordinate to produce an exceptional performance.
Healthy companies all possess and emanate a certain vitality and spirit This spirit is not a religious fervor or a mindless cheerleader enthusiaism but a deep feeling of shared humanistic values at the core of the company. These values are the glue that binds healthy, successful employees with healthy, productive workplaces. They influence the way people act and think at all levels of the company and form the foundation for corporate policies and practices. They define roles and responsibilities and dictate how business decisions are made. These principles are expressed and applied at every turn of the business, from receptionists and loading dock workers, through managers and executives, and into the board of directors.
These values are perpetually interacting, expanding, and contracting like a living entity. Each value depends on and determines the health of the others; sickness or disease that undermines one weakens all; robustness in one value strengthens all. The values at at the heart of the healthy company enable it to continuously grow, evolve, and renew itself, reinforcing what is productive and positive and sloughing off the unhealthy and unworkable. In short, the causes and effects between values, people, and companies are not linear but circular. Values are the center of the enterprise; they circulate through every cell and artery of a company, and a company and itsemployees either reinforce healthy values or bring about their decline.
Healthy company values bind people to their organizations. By creating a common language and appealing to principles of dignity, commitment, and growth, these values help to create an identity that connects thousands of people around a shared mission. Suddenly, the traditional hard values of business success and the nontraditional soft values of human development merge into one dream.
This convergence generates a synergy, producing something greater than the sum of their parts–a vital business that lives and breathes a humanistic philosophy, that treats people as more than profiot producers, views relationships as more than simply financial contracts, and regards the workplace as more than a setting for business. It is a holistic environment, one that nurtures, stretches, and empowers people. The result is an organizatipn that optimizes people, principles, and profits.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
Motivating Sales People
25 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment
in Motivating Sales People Tags: change, communicate, investigate, job, materials, negatives, new items, new product, object, orders, reduced, risk, salespeople, schedules, technologies, territory, Training
A new product is an intrusion. It takes time. It disrupts schedules. It involves change and risk. Salespeople are known for wanting new items to sell, but there are still negatives. Salespeople are not usually given reduced territories when asked to sell a new product. So, it is important a) to investigate in advance any possible reasons why salespeople might object to the new product, b) to give them all the training and materials they need to be effective, and c) to make sure the product is available, in their territories, when they start writing orders for it.
The key is to do your job such that they can do their job. That means to have a product that customers will understand and want to try, and to train the sales force to understand and communicate the story. This training should use the latest technologies.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
Disambiguating Cash Budget
25 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment
in Disambiguating Cash Budget Tags: activities, Advertising, anticipated, borrowing, budgeting, business, clothing, deficiency, disbursement, entries, equipment, estimates, excess, Expenditure, expenses, family, financial, financing, food, formal, function, funds, future, goals, house, income, individual, informal, labor, loan, long-term, materials, needs, opening balance, plan, Planning, process, projected, purchase, purchases, receipts, repayment, resources, Sales, short-term, sum, total
Most people plan expenditures for food, clothing, and other needs on the basis of expected income. Along with these short-term plans, many individuals and families use income estimates to plan for long-term activities, such as college expenses, the purchase of a house or car. This process of planning for the financial needs of the future is called budgeting. A budget, whether formal or informal, is a plan for utilization of anticipated resources.
The budget of a business serves much the same function as an individual or family budget. Like a personal or family budget, a business budget plans the expenditure of anticipated funds for immediate and long-term goals.
One budget common to both large and small businesses is called the cash budget. The cash budget is a detailed plan showing how cash resources will be acquired and used over a specific time period. For many companies, this time period is monthly for the first three months of the budget period, then quarterly for the remainder of the year. A typical cash budget is composed of four major sections:
- The receipts section. This section consists of the sum of the opening cash balance and estimated cash receipts for the budget period. For many firms, the major source of cash receipts is sales.
- The disbursement section. This section consists of all estimated cash payments for the budget period. Examples are payments for labor and materials, taxes, equipment purchases, and advertising.
- The cash excess or cash deficiency section. The entries in this section represent the difference between the totals of the receipts section and the disbursements section. If receipts are greater than disbursements, there is an excess of cash. If receipts are less than disbursements, there is a cash deficiency.
- The financing section. This section gives an account of any borrowing or loan repayments projected to take place during the budget period.
While the cash budget is useful to all companies, it is especially helpful to small firms because management can exercise more control in matching income with disbursements, in negotiating loans with the most favorable interest rates and terms, and in planning investments when there is an excess of cash.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
The Best are NEVER Satisfied
24 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment
in The Best are never Satisfied Tags: bigger, challenge, faster, finished, history, improve, laurels, learning, moves, rain, satisfied, shine, skills, sophisticated, stronger, successful
Like great artists and athletes, all top performers know they cannot stand still for long. They always look for ways to improve. Once you think you’re where you want to be, you’re not there any more.
The greatest challenge you have as you become successful is never to rest on your laurels, never to feel like you’ve done it. The minute you feel like you’ve done it, that’s the beginning of the end. Once you’re labeled ‘the best’ … you want to stay up there, and you can’t do it loafing around. In nutshell, your entity is getting bigger, stronger, and faster, the business is faster and more sophisticated. Never forget: if you don’t keep changing, you’re history. You should constantly be adding new tricks to your business. The meta-business, is to keep learning, exploring, day in and day out, rain or shine.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
Managing Supply Chain
23 Jan 2009 Leave a Comment
in Managing Supply Chain Tags: customers, decision, efficient, flow, focus, information, logistics, materials, Organization, People, Positioning, process, resources, strategic management, success
Your organization must have an efficient flow of materials, people and information to support your processes. If you are a manufacturer, you bring in raw materials, information and services—and then deliver finished goods to customers; hospitals move patients, materials and other services. Logistics is the management function that is responsible for these movements.
The final product of one organization becomes the raw material of another, so your process forms one part of the complete supply chain. The Institute of Logistics recognizes this by defining logistics as ‘the time-related positioning of resources or the strategic management of the total supply chain.’ They also emphasize the focus on customers by saying, ‘The supply chain is a sequence of events intended to satisfy a customer.’ In common with most interest groups, the Institute likes to emphasize its strategic role, but in reality it involves a whole range of decisions that are vital to the success of your organization.
My Consultancy–Asif J. Mir – Management Consultant–transforms organizations where people have the freedom to be creative, a place that brings out the best in everybody–an open, fair place where people have a sense that what they do matters. For details please contact www.asifjmir.com
