The Data Heads

Quality Magazine picked up my blog post on the Voice of the Process loop. I’m really interested in your comments on the questions posed in the post, either at the Quality Mag site, or here.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post announcing the release of GainSeeker Suite Version 8 that I have been working on a case study about the new report writer.

You can read the case study here, and download a PDF version to share with others.

A little bit of the back story:

This project came about during a training class we held for Valeo (the subject of the case study) early in the new year. During the class, Stacey (who is quoted extensively in the case study) made the comment “You’ll never find a kid who wants to grow up to be a data jockey.”  What a great comment.

Mel (the guy from our staff doing the training) was intrigued and scratched away at it. What did he mean by data jockey? Why had he become a data jockey? Who cared about the results of his data jockey work? What difference would it make if we could eliminate the data jockey work? What would it take to eliminate the work?

At the time, Version 8 hadn’t been released, and Mel had had only minimal exposure to the power of the new Dynamic Reports module. He came back and started asking his colleagues “So this is what they really want. Could Dynamic Reports handle it?” Dale, one of our senior developers whom I sometimes call Obi-Wan Kenobi, put together a prototype and we were off to the races.

In manufacturing circles it not at all uncommon to talk about “The hidden factory.” The hidden factory is rework. Another case study about our customer Titleist includes this analogy from the rubber and plastics industry:

Another benefit of reduced scrap is that equipment is freed to do productive work. A shop with a 5 percent scrap rate and 20 molding machines has one machine dedicated to making scrap. Using real-time production data to eliminate scrap is the equivalent of buying a new machine.

Working as a Data Jockey is a hidden factory in our offices. Like a machine producing scrap, it is not value added. Eliminating the data shuffle - freeing the data jockey - pays huge benefits to your organization. The case study outlines some of them.

What about you? What is your experience as a Data Jockey? What have you done to eliminate this hidden factory in your office? Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

For the last 18 months we’ve been working on the latest release of GainSeeker Suite, Version 8. We released it last week and you can read all about it here.

I can’t decide which is the coolest feature in the release: the new Dynamic Reports module or .Launch.

In beta testing, Dynamic Reports has proven to be very powerful and very cool.  Every time somebody has come up with a request for some special report I think “No way. That’s just too much to hope for…”

Then someone digs into it a little bit and the next thing I know we have a working solution that goes beyond my wildest imagination. I’ll be publishing a case study in the next few days to show you what I mean.

But .Launch (”dot launch”) … what a little sweetheart of an application. There aren’t any fancy stats or charts, and it doesn’t integrate with your ERP system. But it puts a really nice UI on all the command line parameters that our geeks have built into system that nobody has time to figure out. If you want to launch a specific desktop in Charts & Reports, with a specific user name (and not have to type in the password everytime), .Launch can take care of it. Plus you can launch any other application on your system and organize all of them in Groups.

I’ll be using .Launch to organize presentations. In my world, I’m often flipping between a PowerPoint slide show (maybe two or three different files), and Excel spreadsheet, and several GainSeeker Suite modules. .Launch gives me a single place to drop all those shortcuts. It significantly unclutters my desktop.

So for raw power, I vote for Dynamic Reports. But for the module that I’ll be using on a daily basis to make life more convenient, it’s .Launch all the way.

We put together a micro-site on GainSeeker Suite V8. Take a look and let us know which features you’re most happy to see added. Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

In a recent post I described the difference between the Voice of the Customer (VOC) and the Voice of the Process (VOP). I used a simple Input => Process => Output diagram to explain that both the VOC and VOP have an important role in evaluating our systems and processes. I said that it isn’t a case of one being right and the other wrong, or one being better or worse than the other. Both approaches have their place. But they are different.

It seems to me that the biggest issue comes when we confuse the two approaches.

I suspect someone is confusing the two approaches when they point to a control chart with subgrouped data plotted on it and say something like:

“When I see a point out near our limits then I know we’re getting close to going out of spec.”

On the surface this seems like a reasonable thing to say. And it must be reasonable because I hear it so often. So why do I get all worked up when I hear it?

(Because I do get worked up. I have a hard time not jumping up and down and raising my voice. )

“When I see a point out near our limits…”

The issue is that the point is the average of the data in a subgroup.

Lets look at a picture:

We’re looking at three subgroups of data.

What is your vote?
Specs are 25 plus or minus 5, we have no problem, right?
Specs are 25 plus or minus 1, we should worry, right?

Here is the actual data:
Sample A: 24.9, 25.0, 25.1
Sample B: 20.0, 25.0, 30.0
Sample C: 20.0, 20.5, 33.0

And here is what it looks like plotted on the same run chart:

Plotting subgroup averages on an X-Bar chart and then comparing those average points against the specifications is misleading. You’re blurring the use of VOC and VOP. Don’t stop using either loop - but don’t try to use them at the same time.

Have you ever seen the VOC and VOP loops confused? What issues has it raised for you? Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

In the weeks leading up to American Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season, I found myself buried in a couple of projects related to the release of GainSeeker Suite, Version 8; and a course in Appreciative Inquiry. In the process, I got out of the blogging groove. (Version 8 is pretty cool. It includes some brand new modules that will help you get more value from your data, and make it even easier to use. More on the new version in subsequent posts. Likewise, I’ll write more about my interest in Appreciative Inquiry in the weeks and months to come.)

Now my editor at Quality Magazine is prodding me, so it is about time to get back in the rhythm, even though I still have some tasks on Version 8.

My last post at Quality Magazine on ‘Defining Quality’ (which was a revision of ‘What are they thinking…?’ published here) generated a number of thoughtful comments from readers. I really appreciate hearing other perspectives on the questions I posed in the post, especially this comment:

Only in the world of utopia are there processes with zero variation and where only Green or on target values are produced. In the real world you have to look at each process and determine the ability and cost required to reduce process variability. In some cases it may be more cost effective to use an inspection system (like a vision system) to inspect out defects, then it would be to reduce the variation that creates these defects. The rule I use is if prevention is not practical and if detection methods are effective and reliable, then the inspection method is the right choice. When detection is difficult or not reliable, then prevention efforts must be taken.

This got me thinking about a model for inspection that I’ve found helpful in recent years. Here it is:

Bear with me because this graphic still needs some explanation.

If you look at this carefully, you’ll see that it is a typical ‘Input - Process - Output’ diagram. If you look at it even more carefully you’ll see that it is there are two loops on the graphic. The question isn’t so much which loop is right and which is wrong. The question is: Which loop is primary? Which loop is emphasized?

Both loops start in the middle with an observation or a measurement. The right-hand loop is the Voice of the Customer. I’ve highlighted it here in yellow:

The right-hand loop compares the observation to the customer’s requirements and asks “Does this meet the customer’s requirements?” If it passes, you can ship the product. If it doesn’t, you have a couple of options.

If your product fails to meet specs in a manufacturing environment, your options are to Scrap, Rework or Downgrade the product. In a transactional world, your options are to Remediate, Replace, or Compensate. In either situation your options for response are always reactive and wasteful.

I see people tolerate this waste for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps there are other, more expensive issues that need to be addressed before this problem can be tackled. Perhaps the cost of getting rid of a problem seems too high. Perhaps they’re just used to it and can’t imagine any other way of doing business. Some of these reasons are probably better than others, and I’m really not here to pass judgment in this blog. The point that I want to be clear about is that the right hand loop - the Voice of the Customer Loop - captures waste and protects the customer. There is nothing wrong with that (actually there are some good things about it). But it doesn’t prevent the problems from recurring.

The left hand loop starts at the same place, but has a very different impact. This is the Voice of the Process Loop, highlighted here in green:

The Voice of the Process Loop also requires an observation or a measurement, but here is the crucial difference. Where the Voice of Customer Loop compared the observation against specifications, the Voice of the Process Loop compares the observation against what is expected.

On what do we base our expectations? Well you can guess that it isn’t a specification - or anything that is derived from a specification or a requirement.

We base our expectations on our past experience with the process. This is why we call it the Voice of the Process. The best way to tap into our past experience with the process is with the humble control chart.

The control chart tells us what we need to know about the process. If the data we observe shows no patterns, no shifts in mean, and no more variation than we’ve experienced before, then we have reason to conclude that the process is stable. Once we know the process is stable, then we can still ask ourselves “is there a way to improve (reduce) chronic variation? This can lead to improvements in the process or the inputs to the process.

If the process tells us that it isn’t stable, then we can (and should) address that. We can focus our efforts on improving the process or the inputs to the process.

Using the left-hand loop - the Voice of the Process Loop - is how you improve processes and ultimately reduce or even eliminate the need for the Voice of Customer Loop. In an ideal world our processes are well understood and stable, and we don’t need to check against specs because we know that we’ll always meet customer requirements.

In the meantime, we live in the real world. In the real world, inspections against specifications are a reality and will probably be around for a long time. They’re useful and I would be the last to advocate their complete elimination.

But they don’t lead to process or quality improvement, or to an elimination of the waste associated with failure to meet requirements. To get there you need to pay attention to the Voice of the Process. You need to stabilize your processes and then systematically reduce chronic variation.

Where is your emphasis? Which loop do you follow? What are the biggest challenges you face or have faced in shifting your emphasis to the Voice of the Process Loop? Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

Last Friday evening I drove up two hours to Valpo University. The Business Department at Valpo has an annual lecture series, and this year’s topic was Sustainable Business. I have no real connections with Valpo, but when I got a notice about the lecture from an associate, I followed the link to a video clip about the keynote speaker, Ray C. Anderson. If you’ve followed my posts with the tag “Environmental Sustainability” you won’t be surprised that I made the trip.)

Anderson gave a compelling talk. He is an industrialist - actually an industrial engineer by training. His company, Interface Global, is a $1B carpet and floor coverings company. Fifteen years ago Interface began climbing what he calls “Mount Sustainability”, with the goal of meeting the United Nations definition of sustainability by 2020:

”Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

I really appreciated the fact that Anderson is rooted in the industrial world and is actually doing something. At the risk of oversimplifying it sometimes seems like there are two camps in the environmental debate: the environmentalists who have all the theories and spend their time throwing stones and distrusting the industrialists, and the industrialists who focus on “the message” and are mostly not doing much besides “greenwashing.”

Anderson had the passion of an environmentalist and the discipline of Six Sigma Black Belt.

His talk oscillated between the macro and the micro. On the macro level he addressed issues of species extinction, depletion of resources, and the burden of industrial waste. On the micro level he dove into details of specific projects (very Six Sigma-like) where his company has reduced energy use and waste, switched to renewable power sources, and taken responsibility for recycling their products at the end of the product life cycle.

Another thing that impressed me was the fact that there were probably about 100 undergrad business students who gave up their Friday night to come to an evening of lectures. How cool is that?

I bought Anderson’s latest book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist. When he signed it we talked briefly about all the gap between his company and the manufacturers who didn’t seem to see beyond the end of the quarter, much less a five year plan, much less to the next generation. His parting comment? “One mind at a time. One mind at a time.”

I don’t think I’ve ever plugged a book before in this blog. I urge you to buy Anderson’s book, and watch some of the videos floating out there on the internet. Pass it around your office and to your CEO.

And he got me thinking about what’s next on Hertzler Systems’ sustainable business journey.

One mind at a time.

Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

Back in August I gave a sneak preview of a new case study that I was working on. Yesterday I finally completed it and published it on our web site. You can read the entire study and download a copy to share with colleagues.

My favorite quote?

“We can’t credit GainSeeker with all of these benefits. We still had to do the work. But we would never have been able to capture the changes we needed to make if we didn’t have GainSeeker. We’d never have been able to do any of this if we didn’t have the system. So truly it deserves the credit. GainSeeker is the tool that enabled our people to make the changes.”

Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

At today’s web seminar How Best-in-Class Food Processing Companies Drive Profits, Increase Efficiency and Reduce Risk, my colleague Tom Albrecht offered a number of free resources for individuals who would like more information. (If you missed the live presentation, you can still view the recorded version.) We decided to put links to all of these resources on one page so that you can use this as a starting point.

Here are the resources:

• The Aberdeen Group’s Event Driven Manufacturing Intelligence Benchmark Report.
• A supporting white paper that examines the role of real-time data in improving profitability and customer satisfaction.
• The Aberdeen Group’s Cost of Quality Benchmark Report.
• Free gap analysis software that helps you rate your ‘Gap to Entitlement‘ to a data driven organization
• Case Studies and video presentations from McCormick Flavor Division, Hormel Foods, Consolidated Biscuit, and Del Monte Foods. Additional case studies and white papers are available from the Portfolio pages on our website.

Of course, if you’d like to link to this, share it with a friend or make a comments, please do so. Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

This week at the Quality Expo I ran into an old friend who described a business transaction that left me shaking my head.

He told me about a company that went to their customer and negotiated a 10% price increase for the product they supplied. The customer agreed to it because the supplier was using the increase to fund new high-speed vision inspection equipment. The new equipment would enable the supplier to 100% inspect the product they’re supplying and guarantee that the customer would receive only good parts.

On the surface it’s hard to argue against that. Evidently the customer had been very frustrated with this supplier because they had had to put up with a lot of defects. They seemed eager to shift the effort to inspect and sort good from bad to the supplier, and were even willing to share in the cost. They must have felt 10% was a pretty good deal. (Given all the estimates out there that total cost of poor quality is 30 - 40% of sales, I can see how they could reach that conclusion.)

So why am I shaking my head?

If your definition of good quality is “no bad parts” then this is a perfect solution.

But “no bad parts” is only one definition of quality. And it is the wrong one.

Don’t get hung up on the “parts” language. At the risk of over-simplifying, it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the diameter of a metal part, the time it takes to close a call in a support center; the amount of yellow ink printed on a magazine cover, the weight of peanut butter in a jar, or the sales of a particular product by a sales rep. All of these are processes, and all have targets and acceptable limits (specifications).

Regardless of the product or the service, “no bad parts” is a poor definition.

Maybe a picture would help:

What the graphic shows is that the green dot is our target and when our output is on target, it is the best that it can be. It also says that the further you get from target, the worse the quality.

“No Bad Parts” says that “Best” and “Fair” are the same. They’re not.

Think about this: A product that is at the yellow dot is closer to the red dot than the green one. It is closer to Unacceptable than it is to Target. When you’re out there in the boondocks of your specifications, you’re a long ways from target, and it doesn’t take much to push you over the edge.

A far better definition of good quality is “on target with no variation.”

Twenty-seven years ago W. Edwards Deming published his 14 Points to guide businesses “Out of the Crisis”. Point 3 of Deming’s 14 points was “Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.” My friend’s story tells me that we’re still depending on inspection to achieve quality. Is there any doubt that we’re still in crisis?

How about you? What examples do you have of inspecting quality into a product? How is it working for you? Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

If you’re connected to the foods industry, mark your calendar for October 6 at 1pm EDT.

That’s the date we’ve set for our brand new web seminar “How Best-in-Class Food Processing Companies Drive Profits, Increase Efficiency and Reduce Risk”

Over the years, my colleague Tom Albrecht (our VP Bus Dev) has worked with a lot of people in the foods industry, and he has had an amazing range of experiences. I don’t think there’s much he hasn’t seen in one form or another.

I’ve asked him to try to boil it all down to the essence and present it to you on Oct 6 in 45 minutes or less.

This isn’t going to be a sales pitch. Tom is going to share his experience with best-in-class customers and back it up with research provided by the Aberdeen Group. It will be solid content that your team can sink their teeth into.

The seminar is free, and will be delivered to your desk top. But you need to register by following this link. You can also read our press release here.

Hope to see you there. Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.