WK 1 – 05 DISCUSSION “Concepts and Ideals”

[Mike Hincks]

The foundational and supporting concepts/ideals of Lean combine together to create operational excellence. As outlined in the section headings within Chapter 2 ofLean For Dummies, these concepts/ideals include customer value, value streams, flow, pull, striving for perfection, highly motivated people, operational stability, visual management, just-in-time, built-in quality, eliminating waste, respect for people, long-term thinking, simplicity, measurement system reinforcement, etc. Through the remainder of this course, we will learn about each of these concepts/ideals. Pick one of these concepts/ideals and explain how it is a good fit for improving operations within your department or group at MasterControl.

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Thanks!

[Ryan]

Respect for people I think would be the biggest benefit to TS. It encourages support and team efforts instead of putting one person or group above another. Disrespect just damages morale and is not beneficial to anyone. This would also better lead to Highly Motivated people because if people are happy and enjoy their job, they are more likely to be motivated.

[estolberg]

I believe that eliminating waste is one of the biggest challenges that we face in TS. Go and review some of the responses in the discussion post WK 1 – 06 EXERCISE “7 Forms of Waste” if you need more convincing. There are numerous types of "waste" on those lists that fall into the Type-2 muda category (non-value added, also not necessary). Basically, this means that those activities provide no benefit for our customers, more than likely do not provide much benefit for us, and are not necessary for our general day-to-day operations. Eliminating this waste would allow us to focus more on the customer-valued operations, hopefully improving our customers' experience and doing our part to generate effective referrals (our two main goals).

[David Healey]

A large aspect to any well running company is flow.  The definition of flow from the Lean for Dummies book is: "The movement of a product or service along the value stream, from its inception to the customer."  A well-run company will have a seamless approach to all procedures.  This applies to the services and the product.  The company will make smooth transitions from Sales to TS, to CS, to Account Ret.  The customer will feel comfortable with every step of the way and when he/she finds a place that can fulfill their needs, they will tell their friends and that will increase our business.  Flow can relate to about anything. 

[Jared Allen]

Without highly motivated people, no amount of planning or proposed changes are going to get us anywhere.  However, with the proper motivation, there is no limit to the success we can achieve.

[bmiller]

One of my favorite concepts is simplicity.  It seems like most problems can be solved by simplifying (maybe that is too simple minded of me ;) ).  It seems that even now I have to find a person who has the right username and password to get into the right places.  When all of the information regarding any aspect of our job should be found in one place which we are given access to right when we start.  This is not an easy thing to do, but I believe will make things smoother and more efficient.

[ajones]

Keep it moving would be a good focus for the team. Our customers look to us to resolve their issues in a timely manner. They rely on us to keep there business moving forward. They don't like to hear that things a being worked on, they want resolution. Our responsibility to our customers is to keep it moving and always working towards a better product.

[Chanse]

I think striving for perfection is a big one.  Our product is constantly evolving with each version and revision.  Our customers frequently come up with new ideas that they believe will help not only them but all users of MasterControl.  When many of the customers call in, they need something fixed but frequently ask why the issue occurs and what we can do to ensure it doesn't happen again.  They are striving to perfect the product they are using to ensure it doesn't disrupt their work flow and cause waste by having workers with idle hands.

On Friday, August 17, 2012 4:42:21 PM UTC-6, Mike Hincks wrote:

[emcginty]

I believe that us being highly motivated will make all other goals easier to achieve. I feel that if we aren't motivated to do what is necessary for our customers then we will not strive to excel as well.

[Tyler Nelson]

I've highlighted on the waste portion in my earlier comments and how they can specifically apply to the Install Team.  However I also think that simplicity and measurement is key for our group.  Previously we were tracking quite a bit of information with each install that we did, while this did give us a lot of data it was not Lean because the data we collected was not gathered and presented in a way that was meaningful to our group.  Going forward we can focus on key metrics that will give us real meaning rather than fancy excel sheets that don't tell us what's really going on.

On Friday, August 17, 2012 4:42:21 PM UTC-6, Mike Hincks wrote:

[lgleason]

Simplicity-This concept/ideal is a good fit for our department as it reduces the exposure to making mistakes and confusion surrounding appointments. Additionally, simplicity in our department will benefit the customer through setting clear expectations.

[csimpson]

Simplicity in any task is of great importance to any organization. I am not saying that a simply task will not require work and a great deal of thought, but simplify how you complete that task. Our lives are filled with tasks, if we could perform each one of those with fewer or simplistic steps, we would get much more done.