More direct controllable factors in establishing loyal customers are your products, services, work flow and distribution services. Our graphic model  includes products, services, work flow and distributions services and their relationship to the other elements. These are all the way they are because that is how the organizational leadership wants them to be.  If the leadership didn't want them to be how they are they would have changed them or would have an active effort in place to change them.  Any dissatisfaction with these at the top leadership level just means the pain they perceive required for the gain is not worth the pain of the change.

As part of the effort to maintain and build loyal customers product and service performance, work flow performance (cycle time is one key measure) and distribution services performance each have an impact. These must be considered based on the impact on the customer.  Every product or service has some performance criteria.  Every time that performance criteria is not met it is an error, defect, mistake, omission, off-spec, non-prime, second, reportable, etc. what ever the terminology is for your product or service.  These hurt customer loyalty, even if the customer never sees them because they were caught, corrected, off graded, recycled, scrapped, reworked etc.

Changes the concept and early design phases are much less costly than at any other time.  Cost go up exponentially as a product is moved from concept to design to prototype to field trial to full production and finally to the hands of the customer.  This is not to say that mistakes whenever detected should not be corrected, but rather that effort in eliminating the mistakes or problems at the front end of the process is much more efficient.

Mistake proofing and Poke Yoke concepts applied to the engineering and design of a product pay unimagined dividends later in the process.  Early consideration on ways to make a product fail can result in more robust designs and better performance in the hands of the consumer as these failure modes are addressed.  It is not unusual for a solution to exist that has essentially no additional cost or complexity.  In fact reduction of complexity will generally be an advantage.  Function Analysis can help discover paths to some of these solutions.

Feed back of Reliability Engineering data from similar components or products in a valuable resource.  Closing the loop from design to field reliability should be part of every design process.

It is obvious that there can be an impact on the customer if the customer is forced to suffer with less than the performance expected.  Very many occurrences and there is an EX customer.

Even when the defect does not get to the customer it hurts customer loyalty.  Every defect costs more than the good product or service at the same point in the process.  The same work, effort, raw materials and other resources are consumed yet because of the defect it has less end value.  This means the good product or service must carry the burden of the bad product or service.  At the very minimum the customer is paying more for the product or service that is good or the margin of profit is less than it could be.  The impact of defects is much deeper than this simple explanation.  Through put, inventory, raw material, disposal, inspection, energy are all impacted by defects.  With Six Sigma Plus a key activity is to know what the defect rate is and what it is costing.  This seemingly simple measurement can often be enlightening.

Efficient and effective work processes do not place unreasonable demands upon the people that have to use them.  The steps are natural and there is little wasted motion effort or complexity.  What is needed is done, requirements are met with confidence, and it just makes sense.  Too often the restrictive work practices are the result of a problem with a very small number of people and to cover up rather than address and correct that issue everyone is made to suffer.  It seems the larger the organization the more rules and restrictions are in place to cover the possibility that 1 or 2% of the employees might abuse an opportunity and all employees are forced to suffer with the "solution".  Cycle Time Analysis will usually show where the unnecessary rules and restrictions are getting in the way of meeting customer expectations. Key work processes frequently can be performed in 20%-50% of the original time with no addition of resources and fewer defects by applying the results of this kind of analysis.

A simple example: At a relatively remote location the most convenient place to have lunch is the company cafeteria.  In order to make it easy when meeting with customers on location, legitimate business lunches could be signed off at the checkout register.  Because of abuse by a very few this was eliminated and now expense accounts must be filed for all business expenses at the cafeteria.  Not only were the innocent punished, the guilty were never challenged and additional complexity was added to a simple process adding time and cost to all who use the cafeteria for business.  With this kind of thinking the complexity that is added to the "serious" work processes must be huge.

The best analogy I know for an effective and efficient work process is a large ball at the top of an incline.  It takes work to get it started but then gravity takes over and it is easy to move the ball to the bottom of the incline.  Contrast this with the work process that starts with the ball at the bottom of the incline and it must be moved up.  Gravity works against completing the process.  Any distraction, inattention, competing priority or just a bad moment and it is worse than starting at the beginning.  You have to go retrieve the ball from where ever it stopping rolling and get it back to the starting point.  Are your and those in your organization helping the ball down the incline or fighting to push it to the top?

One of the ways that many  have used to improve work processes is through Benchmarking.  In classic Benchmarking the search is to find the best in class at a given work process or function. To know which Work Processes need improvement requires that your own Work Processes are understood at least well enough to be able to compare them to World Class Performance.  Most people attempt to do Benchmarking within their own industry.  The common refrain is: "Who has done this in the injection molding business?"   utility business?  insurance?"   health care?  People seem to expect they can always find what they want in their own industry.  That just keeps you in the herd.  Competitors may be willing to share some information but are not likely to share the things that would bring your process up to their level.

Major benefits come from looking outside your industry to find who is World Class at the process or function you are seeking to improve.  Most organizations that will share with you are going to expect something in return. At a minimum be prepared to answer about your own organization every question you ask those you benchmark.

Blindly copying what others are doing will seldom give the kinds of gains possible from Benchmarking.  Being able to transfer concepts and practices from one industry to another is where Benchmarking has added value.

A cycle time reduction effort properly applied is one way to make significant improvement in any important work processes. It allows you to work on your own processes with your own people and provides a clear performance criteria, time.  An advantage over Benchmarking is that you do not have to go out and find the World Class performers and then make the necessary arrangements for visits and the exchange of information.  If the Work Process directly touches the Customer, time to complete a process could very easily be a very important customer critical measurement.   With Six Sigma Plus you  want to be sure that your process is so good  that there is less than 3.4 chances per million of not meeting that time measure.

 In either case a good understanding of the Work Process as it is currently being done is required.  It is not unheard of to do both on the same Work Process.

Distribution services can be as important as any element in establishing customer loyalty.  Distribution has impact in receiving orders, raw materials, supplies, and utilities as well as getting product to the customer.  Many a product has been though all the manufacturing process with all the potential miscues there only to fail the customer because of distribution.  Even if the correct product, it can be late, early, at the wrong location, contaminated, damaged, wrong size, wrong package, or fail to meet customer expectations in a variety of other ways.  With an increase in JIT (just in time) systems the demands on the distribution system can be a serious customer satisfaction issue.

Consider Wal-Mart when evaluating how important distribution can be.  They manufacture nothing, have no one to wait on you in the store, treat their suppliers harshly and yet are very successful in large part because of the understanding and application of distribution technology.

Note: From some friends in India. "A Customer" attributed in an earlier newsletter to Sam Walton was originally propounded by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi aka Mahatma Gandhi, (Indian - Father of the Nation). This statement of his is displayed in all the branches of the largest bank in India (over 12,000 branches), State Bank of India.

Some Quotes:

"Always make a total effort, even when the odds are stacked against you". Arnold Palmer

"A fellow doesn't last long on what he has done. He's got to keep on delivering as he goes along".
Carl Hubbell

"Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work". Bette Davis

"Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure." Thomas A. Edison {1847-1931 Inventor}

"A prudent question is one-half of wisdom."*Francis Bacon {1561-1626 British Philosopher}

Cary W. Adams

10A Bayou RD

Lake Jackson, TX 77566

1-979-297-5198

cadams@adamssixsigma.com

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