The TEAM EXCELLENCE SYMPOSIUM is held twice a year in Singapore. The objective of the organiser is to provide a platform for problem solving teams to present their project and be graded by an independent panel of assessors. After the presentation, the teams were asked follow-up questions.
There are many ways a team can benefit when they take part in the symposium. Besides gaining some visibility of their success stories, the presenting teams not only have a chance to validate their problem solving skill with the assessors, I have seen how the presentation rehearsals build up the team members’ self-confidence; improve the intra-group bonding and co-operation, and increase the bonding between the supervisors and the team.
The 25 September 2009 marks an important day for four teams from Hitachi Global Storage (Singapore). Four teams took part in that national competition and all came up tops. Imagine, three Golds and one Star!
Team Excellence Symposium Results 2009 (Hitachi)
Assessors grade the projects based on their final reports and presentations by the team members. A set of 10 criteria are used covering all aspects of the project. To get a Star, a team need more than 850 points out of the maximum of 1,000 points. The maximum points possible is given below:
- Project Selection (100 points)
- Target Setting (50 points)
- Problem Analysis (100 points)
- Effective Use of Tools (100 points)
- Solution Development (100 points)
- Solution Selection (100 points)
- Solution Implementation (100 points)
- Project Achievement (200 points)
- Sustainability (of solution results) (50 points)
- Overall Impact on Organisation (by the project) (100 points)
From experience, a Star is only given to the outstanding projects. It usually falls on the top 3-5% of the cohort
In Hitachi, their team excellence projects started back in the 1980s. During that time such activities were called SGAs (small Group Activities) or QC (Quality Circles). This has become a way of life in Hitachi today.
One of the teams that won Gold
Management had make it a corporate culture for people to solve work related problems in small groups. To give it a framework, they have adopted the basic methodology as per the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle propounded by Dr Deming. See my introduction of the PDCA in 12-steps in past posts (note : I have password protected it. If you like to know more, send me an email and I will give you the password)
The philosophy behind the SGA or QC is that when workers at the shopfloor conscientiously carry out their duties, they would know best how to carry out the daily operations. This philosophy is easy to understand.
Frontline operators who directly encounter whatever inconveniences will know them first hand, thus whenever there is an error or something that go wrong they immediately know it.
However, being human, people are usually extremely adaptable. Many times people will think on their feet and find a way to check the errors. These ’stop-gap’ measures may become permanent changes which goes un-noticed.
Most people can improvise if asked to, and will improvise to prevent suffering
The trouble is, many times people do not report it to their supervisor, and many minor adaptations, improvements and adjustments go unnoticed. These could be very unique ways to prevent incorrect data entries, or they could be simple rules of thumbs to prevent slips or errors. It could be just simple re-arrangment of layout to prevent surface scratches, spillages, cracks; or simple moving an item away from a heat source to prevent discolouration, material warps; or even straightening the path of heavy items after some near misses. To me, these adaptations, improvisions, are burried treasures.
Of course, when someone suffers a burnt, cuts a finger, calls in sick because of a back injury, the ‘red-lights’ and ’sirens’ comes on, and then the safety engineer/supervisor is alerted and rushes in to make an investigation and writes a report.
Meanwhile, those tired fingers, blurry eyes, progressive back aches, etc are taken as part and parcel of necessary work (or labour!). Work should not be hard to perform.
Working hard is necessary, but work should not be 'hard to perform'
I recalled a very good story told to us by our professor when I was at the business school. This case happened at one of General Motor’s plants. The General Motor Quality Assurance Engineer was puzzled when the windscreen on their new vehicle leaked after a few weeks.
Logically, the first atep is to look through the manual to make sure that things are systematically and scientifically reasonable. Next, he compared what the worker was doing against the procedures. He found no discrepancy. The worker was doing exactly what was stated in the manual to the letter.
Then he reviewed several records of similar cases and realised that there was a surge in the number of cases after a certain date. After eliminating many possibilities, he found that that was the time the old worker retired and he was replaced by a newly trained employee. The instruction manual had not changed, and the new worker was doing exactly what is required.
Fitting the windscreen according to standard procedure given in the Instruction Manual is still not good enough?
Finally, in desperation, he decided to invite the ex-worker back to check with him. After tracking him down, to a beach resort, where he had taken a month-long vacation with his family, they managed to ‘consult’ him.
Guess what.
Although many supervisors accused their reports that they followed blindly, the reality is that most people do not follow blindly! They change to suit to what is better. But not all tell their bosses about it.
The retired worker proudly told the QA Engineer that, “Many years ago when I joined GM, I realised that when I followed exactly what the manual tells me, step by step, I had many complaints about leaks. So this is how I did it. I did this first and then this ……. and the leaks disappear. Since then I had been doing it that way.”
This classic silent movie satirized the 'production factory' of the 1930s. Charlie Chaplin depicts a worker as a 'cog' in the big production machine.
While standardised procedures and processes as well as establishing systems are important, what is more important is to know that, the micro-elements of every procedure really rest with the worker. The workers are directly involved in the operational work.
Government food inspection procedures (important, but is it effective??)
