Relevance of Cabrera's perspective on system science

[Jack Ring]

Regarding Curt’s mention of Cabrera I encourage everyone to grok Derek's Map-Activate-Check triad. 

It is the lack of Check in most of our SE recipes that I am attempting to bring into our dialog. 

[Curt McNamara]

http://agilemodeling.com/essays/bestPractices.htm

http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/six-sigma/overview/dmaic.html

http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/project-planning-tools/overview/pdca-cycle.html

Please note that none of these should be visualized as "flat // 2D" processes. Systems exist in 3D (at a minimum).

             Curt

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Jack Ring <jri...@gmail.com> wrote:

Regarding Curt’s mention of Cabrera I encourage everyone to grok Derek's Map-Activate-Check triad. 

It is the lack of Check in most of our SE recipes that I am attempting to bring into our dialog. 

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[Jack Ring]

Thanks for the citations. It may be useful to note that these examples pursue an objective of removing variances in a process. One stunning finding about a decade ago was that the majority of winners of the Baldrige Award went out of business in a few subsequent years. 

The winner of foolish standardization was an electric utility company in northern Florida that became so focused on becoming efficient they neglected to provide for generating enough electricity for their customers.

An alternative is a pursuit scenario in which a system determines how it must change to be more effective in its uncertain context, c.f., "Effective Control in Peopled Systems” INCOSE IS2000 by yours truly. Also Rick Dove and I had a similar conversation regarding agility with Scott Ambler in 2002.

Regardless, the Cabrera DSRP model, being fractal in all four aspects, is the more likely guide to being sustainable in a non-deterministic context. The Cabrera Map-Activate-Check is likewise fractal such that one should Check the Map, Check the Activate and Check the Check and to do that you Map and Activate the first Check, M&A the second Check, etc.

Jack

 

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[Janet Singer]

Can you provide links with more information on

One stunning finding about a decade ago was that the majority of winners of the Baldrige Award went out of business in a few subsequent years. 

and 

The Cabrera Map-Activate-Check is likewise fractal such that one should Check the Map, Check the Activate and Check the Check and to do that you Map and Activate the first Check, M&A the second Check, etc.

Janet

[Jack Ring]

Janet, 

Pls see embedded.

Jack

On Jan 4, 2017, at 5:32 AM, Janet Singer <janetm...@gmail.com> wrote:

Can you provide links with more information on

One stunning finding about a decade ago was that the majority of winners of the Baldrige Award went out of business in a few subsequent years. 

As I recall the statistics were in an article in Industry Week Magazine, early 1990’s, but it is not readily available. 

Also, it was quickly overwhelmed by cheerleaders from NIST and management academia who only noted there were “some” negative effects.

NIST has difficulty with the question. See for yourself in this excerpt from https://www.nist.gov/baldrige/baldrige-faqs-baldrige-award-recipients

"Is it true that many Baldrige Award recipients have gone out of business?

No, that is not true; in fact, award recipients generally have had very good results. These include financial and other indicators of success, including exceptional results in such areas as workforce satisfaction, customer satisfaction, market share, and cycle time reduction.

[then, emphasis mine]

It is important to note that several award recipients have changed senior leadership and management systems since becoming award recipients and, for various reasons, have not fared as well as they did previously.

Have any of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipients gone out of business?

The Wallace Company, Inc., a 1990 award recipient in the small business category, filed for bankruptcy after it became an award recipient, and it was then acquired. The financial difficulties were a direct result of a recessionary economy and a highly price-sensitive market.

Armstrong World Industries, Inc., whose Building Products Operations was a 1995 award recipient in the manufacturing category, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in December 2000 to enable the company to continue its full service to customers and its employee pay and benefit programs while resolving asbestos liability issues.

In March 2006, Dana Corporation—the parent company of two Baldrige Award recipients (Dana Corporation–Spicer Driveshaft Division, manufacturing category, 2000; and Dana Commercial Credit Corporation [DCC], service category, 1996)—filed for Chapter 11 reorganization. Dana reorganized and subsequently emerged from bankruptcy in January 2008 as Dana Holding Corporation, which includes the driveshaft operations and several other core businesses. The assets of Dana's former DCC leasing operation have been divested.” 

[end NIST quote]

One example can be found at https://hbr.org/1991/11/how-the-baldrige-award-really-works

"Several Baldrige winners have stumbled after winning the award. The reasons have varied […] but the results have been the same: poor financial performance. Critics have seized on these problems as evidence that the Baldrige Award is doing little to enhance American competitiveness or improve corporate performance. A high score on the Baldrige, they claim, tells us nothing about tomorrow’s financial results. Here the critics are right—but wrong. The Baldrige Award and short-term financial results are like oil and water: they don’t mix and were never intended to.” 

Oh Really?  IMO the focus on 'short-term' financial results is clever but begs the question of long-term financial results

http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0718-27242009000100012 highlighted the five winners in manufacturing. 

Note that although the current focus of the BA is Quality, Malcolm himself initialized it to improve U.S. manufacturing. 

Anyway, here we are finishing 2016. Check for yourself the trajectory of the following five winners on the Fortune 1000 or any of your favorite lists.

Sunny Fresh Foods, Inc in 2005; 

Bama Companies in 2004; 

Medrad, Inc. in 2003; 

Motorola Inc. Commercial, Government and Industrial Solutions Sector 2002; 

Clarke American Checks, Incorporated in 2001.

Yes, Hospitals and other enterprises who serve customers who do not ‘vote with their feet’  report better outcomes. However, the manufacturing sector has largely discontinued pursuit of the Award.

IMO with a systems perspective the experience at GE Large Steam Turbine was typical. Their successful pursuit of the Award resulted in X% gain in Productivity. However, the demand by their served market did not grow anywhere near that. The result? Excess staff — therefore layoffs. Thereby BIG labor union problems. Resulting in significant depression of Net Income, not % to Revenue but real dollars deposited in the bank

and 

The Cabrera Map-Activate-Check is likewise fractal such that one should Check the Map, Check the Activate and Check the Check and to do that you Map and Activate the first Check, M&A the second Check, etc.

It’s all there at https://www.crlab.us/  Also, see a biomimetics associate http://web.csulb.edu/~tstankow/

OK?

Janet

On Jan 3, 2017, at 8:49 PM, Jack Ring <jri...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks for the citations. It may be useful to note that these examples pursue an objective of removing variances in a process. One stunning finding about a decade ago was that the majority of winners of the Baldrige Award went out of business in a few subsequent years. 

The winner of foolish standardization was an electric utility company in northern Florida that became so focused on becoming efficient they neglected to provide for generating enough electricity for their customers.

An alternative is a pursuit scenario in which a system determines how it must change to be more effective in its uncertain context, c.f., "Effective Control in Peopled Systems” INCOSE IS2000 by yours truly. Also Rick Dove and I had a similar conversation regarding agility with Scott Ambler in 2002.

Regardless, the Cabrera DSRP model, being fractal in all four aspects, is the more likely guide to being sustainable in a non-deterministic context. The Cabrera Map-Activate-Check is likewise fractal such that one should Check the Map, Check the Activate and Check the Check and to do that you Map and Activate the first Check, M&A the second Check, etc.