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While researching some BPIR.com related subject matter, I came accross this interesting bit of information which I thought was worth sharing on the Blog:

Ian Sutton [1] a process risk manager with U.S. AMEC Paragon believes that the root causes of safety and environmental problems are often economic. Managers can be subjected to relentless pressure to cut costs, while at the same time being expected to increase production rates, implement new initiatives, and to install new technology. This can lead to a mindset which crosses acceptable safety thresholds. The following six indicators are flags that thresholds are being challenged:

1. Unrealistic stretch goals.  If an organization is stretched far enough major system failures are certain to occur.
2. Excessive cost reduction demands. Managers being expected to "do more with less" can, over the long term, lead to the unsafe conditions being created.
3. Belief that "it cannot happen here".  Catastrophic events are very rare and this contributes to an “I'll chance it" syndrome. Often managers and employees fail to distinguish between occupational safety and process safety.  In fact the actions needed to improve occupational safety, as measured by the number of lost-time accidents, are quite different from those needed to prevent catastrophic, low probability and low frequency events. Organisations that have often reported excellent day-to-day and month-to-month safety figures have been surprised when one of their plants has experienced a major incident.
4. Overconfidence in regulatory compliance. Well crafted regulations, rules, codes and standards can also induce a false sense of confidence. These rules cannot anticipate the combinations of events that lead to catastrophic incidents most of which are unusual, even bizarre. Standards merely provide a framework for successful operational integrity. Detailed analyses must be also be carried out by facility managers and workers.
5. Ineffective information flow. A recurrent finding in disaster research is that information concerning potential problems was actually available within an organisation but this was not communicated to the relevant decision-makers. One reason for this is that most people do not want to be the bearer of bad news. This leads to information being more and more diluted as it travels up the management chain.
6. Ineffective auditing.  Good audits should attempt to identify the root causes behind any findings. Senior management should follow up the audit findings by reviewing the audit, the audit process, and the audit follow-up in detail. This also provides an opportunity to examine improvements required within management systems.

Economic and business factors commonly exert pressure on an organisation’s leaders; however this must never be allowed to interfere with its proactive safety culture.
[1] R10830 Sutton, I., (2009), Should Your Organization Fly Warning Flags?, Chemical Engineering Progress, Vol 105, Iss 12, pp 22-26, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, New York

 Members may read the full article which provides further excellent advice concerning process safety management.

PhD Student
Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (COER)
Massey University

I recently attented the Annual Quality Congress Middle East in Dubai hosted by the Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University. It was clear that I was in a Dubai much different to the one I visited a year previous. The economic recession had hit Dubai hard - much of the construction work had stopped, many of the foreign workers had been forced to return home.. I visited a few companies there - one company whose Head Office had previously been bustling with people was now quiet - there were mostly empty desks and one of their first departments to experience lay-offs was their Business Excellence Dept - deemed to be expendable in hard times.

At the conference many of the presentations addressed the recent downturn.   

One of the most interesting presentations was by Steve Unwin of AssesstoExcellence - titled "Role of Paradox and Uncertainty in Success".  The general theme of the presentation was on "change" and "perception" - informing us that we all perceive situations differently based on our experiences, our culture and how we filter information and that  when a potential learning event occurs (e.g. a quality problem or a recession) can we really learn from it and is it useful to do so? The point here is that we never find ourselves in exactly the same situation as every moment in time is different - time is constantly changing, we are changing, our perceptions change, the business environment and associated variables are changing etc etc..     

Whether you agree or not with Steve's views he certainly got everyone thinking - something many of us don't usually have time to do!

To highlight Steve's thought provoking views on life I have provided a snapshot of his recent newsletter below. He begins his newsletter by sharing his experience at the conference in Dubai …

 "Much of the conference reflected the current 'exceptional' times. I was struck by one speaker's plea from the heart. 'I wish we had tools to deal with the unexpected'. In my hotel I noticed the fire buttons. My mind wandered and I imagined an Emergency button for Improvement Tools.

In a fire we'd all be breaking the glass, yet I don't see anyone breaking my imagined glass..

I am sure many quality professionals would argue this is precisely what we should be doing. And that we aren't because we don't understand, or "we lack management commitment", or vision or the good sense to realise the power of the tools.

I can't help thinking that if these worked we'd be deafened by the breaking glass in times like these.

The real explanation I think is much simpler. The tools don't work. That isn't to say that they can't work, just that they very seldom do, and even when they appear to work, it's only briefly and always by accident." 

So do you agree with Steve? Why is it that quality professionals do not become more valuable in times like these? Is it because the tools don't work? Your thoughts please..

Dr Robin Mann

Co-owner, BPIR.com Limited.  

PS. The American Society of Quality published a report on How The Economic Recession is Affecting Quality Activities in December 2008. This report presented the views of 47 individuals offering comments on ways that the economic recession is affecting them and the companies where they work. The results show companies paying more attention to cost cutting, waste reduction, efficiency, and downsizing, and somewhat less attention to growth through either new product introduction or acquisitions.

In a recent survey it was found that from 20 improvement tools that Six Sigma was the least popular.. with 22% of respondents indicating they used Six Sigma.  Whilst this % is relatively high (more than 1 in 5 organisations) I was a little surprised that it was the least popular considering the publicity and fanfare it has received over the past five years.

Obviously least popular does not mean that it is not effective. Popularity and effectiveness do not necessarily go together.. Also, perhaps, some industries are more likely to apply this technique than others - perhaps Service Industries do not see the relevance of Six Sigma as much as other industries where data may be more readily available or perhaps some organisations think that they are too small to get the benefits from Six Sigma. 

Some answers to the relevance of Six Sigma to Service Industries and Small Organisations and an excellent overview of the technique has been provided by Alan Skinner of the Faculty of Business, University of Sydney. Go to the PodCast here to hear Alan's views.

Also, if you are aware of other useful PodCasts or Videos showing the use of quality tools or best practices, please let us know at the BPIR.com.

Thanks 

Dr Robin Mann

Co-owner, BPIR.com Limited. 

Hello all,,,

What is the future of quality? What is the next big thing? What does the future hold for the profession after the recent global financial crisis?

Fortunately, we have very good tool that can bridge the gap between two processes in two different entities in two different sectors, which is Benchmarking.

So, what does the future hold for us?

This is what you will experience in the next few weeks.

Best regards,

Ahmed

Everyone that's in business wants two things: more business and less work.
Read that last line again and see if you spot the delicious pun, then think about it. Then think about where you fit into your company. Are you the owner? The bean counter? The junior executive assistance regional vice-manager? Regardless of how you fit into the grand scheme of things you have control over making your job easier and improving your company's performance. Wait, wait wait. I have control? you ask. Ha! Do you know how many meetings and layers of management I have to go through to get anything done round here? Or alternatively, my job is to improve this company, and I'm pretty good at it thank you very much. See our last quarter results? That was me baby. I bought in a team of consultants. We had five strategy meetings a week. I got the results. Sorry, what was that? How did we do it? Well the consultants told me to implement a model. Which one? It's a cutting edge one. How do I know it's the right one? Look at the results! And the consultants are onboard for another two years to make it work. I'm not worried about the details, I'm paid to get results.

Knowing what to do is two thirds the challenge, knowing how to do it is a whole other mountain. No matter where you are in the business world, if you know about the various ways to monitor and improve business processes then your job becomes that much easier and you're that much more valuable. Being able to translate that knowledge to the real world means you can not only talk the talk, but walk the walk as well. And this ladies and gentlemen, is our segway into the BPIR. The BPIR (Business Performance Improvement Resource) is an information and networking resource that provides a complete library of benchmarking, business excellence (aka Total Quality Management), best practice and general performance improvement info. And we're not talking disconnected theory that just sounds impressive. We research how these theories and models have worked in the real world and then include the results, the problems and the lessons as case studies so you can see how the ideas stack up in the real world. We're staffed by some pretty amazing individuals who know what its like at the coal face, and we have issued over 10,000 passwords to BPIR to users in every level of every kind of business. Combine the information resources with the networking tools in place (and some very exciting ones opening up in the next few weeks) and you have a pretty amazing resource to help you do business better.
This blog is our soap box to share our (it's not just me, I like to share!) news, upcoming BPIR features and events, general musings and to discuss the world of business performance. I invite both existing BPIR members and casual readers to share their opinions and comments with us, and let us know your stories, challenges and what you'd like to see on this blog.
A warm welcome from myself and the BPIR team to the journey that is business excellence!

Chuck
The BPIR Team.