Have you ever gone for paddle with your friends? It’s really exciting to paddle a canoe and floating on the water. I have actually experienced it and I can tell you that it was incredibly enjoyable. However, the journey contains some risks. Therefore you have to be prepared for it. There are some requirements that you need to procure in land and before you get in the canoe. First of all, it’s essential that you plan and schedule your journey. Secondly, you have to prepare your scope such as food, life jacket, sleeping bag, light, drink water and other useful tools that you maybe need during your trip and of course your paddles.
In addition to the above mentioned preparation, you must identify on the map the direction, time required to reach the goals and break stations before you start the journey. Sometimes it is beneficial that you take a break and reward yourselves because you have done a good job, by taking a cup of coffee or eating something, on the other hand you can use the time within reviewing and controlling the direction, obstacles, short cut, tools and the whole canoe or making some calculations regarding the distance.
In order to keep the canoe floating on the water, enjoying the journey and reaching the target(s) one should be equipped with some skills and strategy. For example, as a paddling’s team you have to consider the speed of the paddling and the balance of the canoe, thus you have to cooperate with each other to divide working load into halves. Furthermore, you have also to communicate continuously with each other when paddling to keep the boat floating on the right direction and not overturning into the water until you accomplish your goals.
I will not drift away from the main issue, since I think the above example exhibits clearly the purpose of the content. As well, if we imagine the similarity between the canoe, paddling’s team, and company/plant and its departments then we can easily understand the correlation.
Moreover, each department must have a clear strategy which contains a transparent framework that is available for the staff that belongs to this unit and other involved people at the plant. Further the obstacles, resources, skills, qualifications, goals and benefits must be identified. In addition to the clear direction that department must has, all people should feel that they are sitting at the same boat by implementing partner relationship among department’s members and also among different departments. In order to reach the goals, all departments must be integrated properly, having high level communication, and cooperate continuously regarding working load. That enables the boat staying balanced and floating on the water towards the target(s).
The development of any system, issue, strategy etc must consider the entire organization on a horizontal axis. Thereby, prior to develop any specific working area or a department the impaction on company’s vision and other working areas and departments should be taken into account and must be estimated properly by using life cycle cost methodology. Since this culture enables the company to destroy the wall among plant’s silos and facilitates information’s flow throughout all units. Also, each department will identify and consider the amount of work contribution and the amount of profit, which in return enables them to grow and develop parallel based on company’s requirements and customers demands.
Continuous improvement strategy strives always for finding new methods, techniques, systems, thoughts, tools etc that could enhance the current situation and gives out the desired outcome. Thus, the plant will experience “continuous change process “that rely totally on innovations, experiments, and brain storming. Furthermore, rewarding yourself and your team after a hard work leads to renew your energy and recharges the batteries to continue the journey. Additionally, the empowerment of people encourage them to create and develop new thoughts and ideas and will also in return motivate them to work harder and being result oriented within doing the right things on the right way.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
söndag 25 juli 2010
måndag 12 juli 2010
Analysis contribution to DMAIC-process
DMAIC-process is one of most structured problem-solving methods that can be used in business. The letters are an acronym for the five phases of six sigma improvements, Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. These phases lead a team logically from defining a problem through implementing solutions linked to underlying causes and establishing best practices to make sure that the solutions stay in place. DMAIC-process structure gives the opportunity to develop and to create new thoughts and ideas based on the current process, product or services.
As known there are some key steps that must be conducted in each phase of DMAIC-process. Some of companies have full team to do all this work, but others outsource skilled people who have black belts or working experiences within this process to perform the whole work and to be able to achieve the goals. Although, I want to highlight in this blog the role of the “analysis” and its contribution in all these phases in spite of there is a special phase called (Analyze-phase).
The following is a summary of the essential key steps/requirements that must be procured in each phase:
1. Define-phase (establishing team charter, identifying sponsors and team resources, validate problem, validate VOC, validate financial benefit, administration etc).
2. Measure-phase (confirming team goal(s), defining of the current situation, collecting and displaying of the data etc).
3. Analyze-phase (determining of the process capability and speed, determining and identifying sources of variation and time bottlenecks, confirm root cause effect on output etc).
4. Improve-phase (generating ideas, conducting experiments, benefits and concern analysis, action plans development, implementation etc).
5. Control-phase (development of controlling plan, monitoring the implementation, examining the process etc).
Analysis
In each phase of DMAIC-process there are key steps that must be taken into account in order to conduct a LSS-project in a proper way and or to accomplish a specific target(s). Furthermore, if we look carefully at these key steps in each phase we will find that there are essential requirements and needs that must be procured and managed in a suitable way in order to carry out the project and achieve the desired condition. Also, the things that we need when planning, starting, executing, finishing and controlling the project are many. However, often there are several options that we must evaluate to simplify the selection of the right things.
Additionally, these requirements/things are not as spare parts that we already have stocked in and managed on a specific shelf in our storeroom, then the only thing we need to do is to go there and bring them, especially when these requirements and needs are varying. It could be as activities, data, information, resources, presentation, discussion etc and often there are more than one alternative that could be available as I mentioned above. Thus, the team leader, team members, managers, and other involved people normally discuss all of these things to be able to determine the needs. This discussion will be based on researching and the collected and available data. Although ,I can call this process “ANALYSIS”, because the involved people will go throughout all these details regardless of the phase, to analyze, compare and evaluate them. As well, What I want to emphasize here is that the analysis uses in all DMAIC-phases and not only in analyze-phase.
Moreover, for example to establish team charter is about to determine what rules, practices etc are best and make sense for the company in accordance with the current condition, that cannot be estimated without analysis and comparison. In addition to that, how can we determine process capability and speed, or how can we identify variation sources and time bottlenecks if we did not perform an analysis throughout the existing data? Furthermore, the selection of the valuable idea(s) when doing brain storming relies on analyzing these ideas to able to determine the most valuable and profitable one as well as the development of control plan and other activities. There are many examples that could show and proof the necessity of analysis and its role throughout DMAIC-phases activity and not only within Analyze-phase.
I want to conclude that the analysis is a significant activity that uses throughout all these phases and not only within analyze-phase, because it enables the analyst to identify, compare, evaluate and determine the requirements to accomplish the work in appropriate way and reach the goals.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
As known there are some key steps that must be conducted in each phase of DMAIC-process. Some of companies have full team to do all this work, but others outsource skilled people who have black belts or working experiences within this process to perform the whole work and to be able to achieve the goals. Although, I want to highlight in this blog the role of the “analysis” and its contribution in all these phases in spite of there is a special phase called (Analyze-phase).
The following is a summary of the essential key steps/requirements that must be procured in each phase:
1. Define-phase (establishing team charter, identifying sponsors and team resources, validate problem, validate VOC, validate financial benefit, administration etc).
2. Measure-phase (confirming team goal(s), defining of the current situation, collecting and displaying of the data etc).
3. Analyze-phase (determining of the process capability and speed, determining and identifying sources of variation and time bottlenecks, confirm root cause effect on output etc).
4. Improve-phase (generating ideas, conducting experiments, benefits and concern analysis, action plans development, implementation etc).
5. Control-phase (development of controlling plan, monitoring the implementation, examining the process etc).
Analysis
In each phase of DMAIC-process there are key steps that must be taken into account in order to conduct a LSS-project in a proper way and or to accomplish a specific target(s). Furthermore, if we look carefully at these key steps in each phase we will find that there are essential requirements and needs that must be procured and managed in a suitable way in order to carry out the project and achieve the desired condition. Also, the things that we need when planning, starting, executing, finishing and controlling the project are many. However, often there are several options that we must evaluate to simplify the selection of the right things.
Additionally, these requirements/things are not as spare parts that we already have stocked in and managed on a specific shelf in our storeroom, then the only thing we need to do is to go there and bring them, especially when these requirements and needs are varying. It could be as activities, data, information, resources, presentation, discussion etc and often there are more than one alternative that could be available as I mentioned above. Thus, the team leader, team members, managers, and other involved people normally discuss all of these things to be able to determine the needs. This discussion will be based on researching and the collected and available data. Although ,I can call this process “ANALYSIS”, because the involved people will go throughout all these details regardless of the phase, to analyze, compare and evaluate them. As well, What I want to emphasize here is that the analysis uses in all DMAIC-phases and not only in analyze-phase.
Moreover, for example to establish team charter is about to determine what rules, practices etc are best and make sense for the company in accordance with the current condition, that cannot be estimated without analysis and comparison. In addition to that, how can we determine process capability and speed, or how can we identify variation sources and time bottlenecks if we did not perform an analysis throughout the existing data? Furthermore, the selection of the valuable idea(s) when doing brain storming relies on analyzing these ideas to able to determine the most valuable and profitable one as well as the development of control plan and other activities. There are many examples that could show and proof the necessity of analysis and its role throughout DMAIC-phases activity and not only within Analyze-phase.
I want to conclude that the analysis is a significant activity that uses throughout all these phases and not only within analyze-phase, because it enables the analyst to identify, compare, evaluate and determine the requirements to accomplish the work in appropriate way and reach the goals.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
måndag 5 juli 2010
tisdag 29 juni 2010
söndag 20 juni 2010
onsdag 9 juni 2010
Maintenance manager’s biggest challenges!
Maintenance world has expanded during the last decades due to the increment of maintenance knowledge within industry regarding its necessity and significant impaction on company’s profitability and competitiveness, the huge technology development through automation and machinery, customers and marketing demands. However, it’s still unclear what maintenance strategy should be used and what metrics should be chosen to achieve a reliable plant and stay steady in business, therefore maintenance manager’s challenges have became bigger and broader. Thus managers should think outside the box and not be satisfied by only establishment continuous improvement strategy but also striving for implementing continuous change strategy to be able to meet the demand by considering all important and related factors and elements. I think the biggest challenges could be summarized as shown below:
Identifying an effective metrics
A successful and efficient maintenance system depends strongly on metrics selection that should consider every single factor and element which is related to and or could affect company´s profitability and competitiveness such as machines, equipment, CMMS & EAM, building, plant culture, operator’s knowledge, leadership, finance, quality, reliability, products, safety, environment, productivity, efficiency, customer’s satisfaction, goals, problems type, vendors, foreign currency, supplier etc.
The interaction among different factors/elements or between two or more processes must be considered. For instance companies which face technical problems cannot eliminate or reduce them by only implementing high technology tools or systems at plant, without considering people training, motivation, and clear direction and framework. Additionally, trained and motivated operators do normally less faults and experience less stress when performing the job required compared with untrained and unmotivated operators. Although, all decisions should be based on LCCA when implementing new systems or tools, starting any improvement project or getting rid of some staff. Also, safety, quality, environment, economic and other important aspects should be taken into account when decision making.
Getting management and operator’s commitment and support
The resistance that can face maintenance manager is varying depending upon the level, because it maybe occurs from front line due to the 3P-losses Pride, Power and Profit as well as from the bottom line. Generally people are scared for any change especially when the change comes in touch with things that they have done in many years.
Motivation, loyalty and moral among plant’s people just cannot be appeared naturally, because companies need to implement a culture, set up rules and strategy which include all people from top management to the work floor in order to create a defect free working environment. Furthermore empowerment, incentive, brainstorming, partner relationship etc are also powerful methods which can capture crew’s attention and maximize their support. It’s a kind of reciprocal relationship among the different silos at the plant.
However top management awareness and support enables maintenance managers to perform maintenance best practices even during the recession time. For example, cost reduction strategy should not include essential PdM activities and resources which uses for failure prediction that could damage assets. In some cases the loss becomes bigger than the costs of activities and resources that had been cut. Further by getting rid of some staff or resources it’s not always the reasonable and cost effective method to save money.
Additionally, the time is very important factor and its equal to money, but in some cases companies have to face their destiny and accept the time required to reach a significant target, especially when implementing a new culture or trying to change people behaviors and attitudes that they have done in many years. Some case studies have shown that some people require from 3 months to two years to change their behaviors and attitudes. Therefore it’s important that companies implement non blame environment in order to minimize the amount of stress and to maximize people’s engagement to perform the right thing on the right way. That would also make people feel safe even when they make mistakes.
The partner relationship approach among plant silos simplifies maintenance work performance. For example recording, documentation, and integration of information's flow among plant departments enables maintenance manager/staff to minimize the time, money and energy required to stocking in significant spare parts, plan and schedule maintenance work, scope preparing, having control over production’s rate, raw material, logistics and transport etc and providing basis data in which can be useful when doing business with supplier, customers, vendor and subcontractors.
Best regards
Hamid/
Identifying an effective metrics
A successful and efficient maintenance system depends strongly on metrics selection that should consider every single factor and element which is related to and or could affect company´s profitability and competitiveness such as machines, equipment, CMMS & EAM, building, plant culture, operator’s knowledge, leadership, finance, quality, reliability, products, safety, environment, productivity, efficiency, customer’s satisfaction, goals, problems type, vendors, foreign currency, supplier etc.
The interaction among different factors/elements or between two or more processes must be considered. For instance companies which face technical problems cannot eliminate or reduce them by only implementing high technology tools or systems at plant, without considering people training, motivation, and clear direction and framework. Additionally, trained and motivated operators do normally less faults and experience less stress when performing the job required compared with untrained and unmotivated operators. Although, all decisions should be based on LCCA when implementing new systems or tools, starting any improvement project or getting rid of some staff. Also, safety, quality, environment, economic and other important aspects should be taken into account when decision making.
Getting management and operator’s commitment and support
The resistance that can face maintenance manager is varying depending upon the level, because it maybe occurs from front line due to the 3P-losses Pride, Power and Profit as well as from the bottom line. Generally people are scared for any change especially when the change comes in touch with things that they have done in many years.
Motivation, loyalty and moral among plant’s people just cannot be appeared naturally, because companies need to implement a culture, set up rules and strategy which include all people from top management to the work floor in order to create a defect free working environment. Furthermore empowerment, incentive, brainstorming, partner relationship etc are also powerful methods which can capture crew’s attention and maximize their support. It’s a kind of reciprocal relationship among the different silos at the plant.
However top management awareness and support enables maintenance managers to perform maintenance best practices even during the recession time. For example, cost reduction strategy should not include essential PdM activities and resources which uses for failure prediction that could damage assets. In some cases the loss becomes bigger than the costs of activities and resources that had been cut. Further by getting rid of some staff or resources it’s not always the reasonable and cost effective method to save money.
Additionally, the time is very important factor and its equal to money, but in some cases companies have to face their destiny and accept the time required to reach a significant target, especially when implementing a new culture or trying to change people behaviors and attitudes that they have done in many years. Some case studies have shown that some people require from 3 months to two years to change their behaviors and attitudes. Therefore it’s important that companies implement non blame environment in order to minimize the amount of stress and to maximize people’s engagement to perform the right thing on the right way. That would also make people feel safe even when they make mistakes.
The partner relationship approach among plant silos simplifies maintenance work performance. For example recording, documentation, and integration of information's flow among plant departments enables maintenance manager/staff to minimize the time, money and energy required to stocking in significant spare parts, plan and schedule maintenance work, scope preparing, having control over production’s rate, raw material, logistics and transport etc and providing basis data in which can be useful when doing business with supplier, customers, vendor and subcontractors.
Best regards
Hamid/
måndag 3 maj 2010
The analysis and its role(s) !!!
There are still out there some managers who do not know the importance and the significant roles of the analysis; where it can be used, its benefits and the consequences in case it is totally neglected. This maybe depends on the following:
1. A part of managers do not have the ability to learn new things because they think that they already can everything.
2. They do not have sufficient information and knowledge about what analysis can contribute to.
3. They think it’s a simple task in which everyone can perform and there is no need to hire an expert and give him/her a full time job which can impact company´s budget.
The fact is the budget already will be impacted negatively when decision making is not based on an appropriate analysis. I want to highlight in this blog the role(s) of analysis, its importance, using areas, benefits and the consequences when it’s out of function.
Using areas:
Identifying and defining the business idea/plan
It’s very important to conduct an extensive analysis around business plan in early stage before the start to identify for instance customers segment, raw material source(s), expenses and costs, goals to achieve, profit margin, resources availability and competences, marketing, competitors etc. This analysis enables management/owner to take the correct decision.
Identifying and defining of company´s strategic goals
Companies have more or less similar strategic goals in which they strive for such as delivering in time, high product quality, customers satisfaction, environment friendly product, reasonable product price, strong competitiveness, increasingly profitability etc, however the difference(s) in these goals among companies might depend(s) on the type of the business branch. The identifying of the strategic goals enables the analyst to identify the correlation/connection with the elements/assets that must be maintained in order to achieve these goals and to have a sustainable economic growth.
Identifying and measurement of the gap between Mission and Vision
Since the strategic goals have been identified and defined it’s very important to analyze the current condition to be able to measure the gap in order to find out the problems and classify the causes behind them. Furthermore the problems are different and should be classified to find out the real cause by determining what area is related to such as technical, managerial, design, construction, organization and or human factors.
Identifying of chronic, technical and latent failure(s) and preventing them from recurring
The analysis could also be used to enhance business capacity and increase the productivity by identifying, eliminating and preventing chronic failures from recurring. It does not only mean technical failures but also everything that can impact company from not achieving its vision. Most of technical faults could be identified, analyzed and solved by the usage of FMECA (Failure Mode Effects And Critical Analysis), but in some cases RCA (Root Cause Analysis) or FTA (Fault Tree Analysis) must be involved, especially when talking about latent faults.
Improvement of process and quality
Process and quality improvement requires hardly and engaged work. Therefore a lot of information obtains and should be analyzed to be able to determine the suitable solution. Continuous improvement strategy focuses significantly on inspection, observation, measurement, test and analysis to verify the gathered information and data. Companies will gain a lot of money when identifying for instance the value-added, non-value-added -Waste, Customer-value-added , Business-non-value-added, the complexity within process by breaking down PCE(Process Cycle Efficiency)into small components part and lead & Takt –time etc.
Cost reduction
It’s essential that the company has a common system which connects and provides all departments within the company with necessary information. That means each department can display, record, report, and send work orders. In some cases and due to some reasons people cannot obtain information when it is needed. For example, what are the significant spare parts and what is necessary to be stocked in. However there are many unnecessary obsolete and new components which only consume energy, space and labor etc. The significant spare parts could be identified by the aid of continuously analysis and inspection. On the other hand unnecessary components and things could also be identified and converted into money. Moreover, the aim of analysis is to find the potential for cost reduction even in the other sectors such as traveling, document, machines, equipment, license, cars etc and not only within inventory.
Implementation or installation of a new system or machinery
It’s very important to conduct a comprehensive analysis before the installation or the implementation of any system or machinery. Firstly, to figure out if the implementation of the system or machinery would not impact operators and plant culture negatively and secondly it would give the desired function. Moreover, in order to avoid any problems that the company can face during project's life cycle decisions must be based on an extensive analysis which includes plant’s engineers, managers and operators from different areas . Furthermore other manufacturer, suppliers and vendors must be analyzed and evaluated to be able to make an assessment based on prices, quality, safety, support and other criteria.
For example, many companies have implemented CMMS, EAM-systems to simplify maintenance work, increase productivity, store information, enhance production process etc, but they have faced different problems such as technical faults, lack of support, the system does not give the desired function, its very complicated and difficult to use, does not meet company´s expectations etc.
Energy saving
It’s commonly that most manufacturing plants have heavy machines, motors, pumps, fans, compressors, FVD, lighting, heating etc. Often these machines and equipment are consuming more energy due to their installation, connection with the end user, work task, inefficiency, load, pipe dimension and voltage variation. Companies will therefore save a lot of money by reducing energy consuming within identifying these machines, equipment and improve the current condition by determining a cost-effective solution throughout redesigning, reconstruction or replacement with a suitable one which can give the desired function but with less energy consuming.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is not always a cost-effective solution especially when the company has the ability to do this kind of work. Further, regarding service´s outsourcing companies will lose competences as soon as the consultant finishes his/her contract. Sometimes the consultant could face some resistance from operators especially when the project is about huge change within plant’s culture. It could be more beneficial if the company hire a suitable and qualified person who can fulfill this position.
Enhancement of the communication and the relationship among personnel and different departments
Most of faults, problems, and failures are partly related to a bad communication and or bad relationship among personnel themselves, personnel and management or among different departments. A Company sometimes faces no-man´s- land (gap), overlap and or interaction between two workstations. In general the relationship among departments is like Supplier-Customer relationship, while companies wish to achieve partner relationship. Often managers do not involve operators when decision making or they are missing motivation, encouragement and moral due to bad connection/communication with management. It’s essential to identify personnel´s responsibilities and authorities, however managers should understand that they all are sitting at the same boat and when the boat goes down everybody will go down too. By the aid of the analysis companies can find out if there is any need for redesigning, reorganization or reintegration among working areas to eliminate gap, overlap or and interaction. On the other hand the causes behind that people have bad relationships or communication with each other will be identified.
The implementation of a new maintenance system or the development of the current one
Its 100% based on company´s strategic goals, current condition, type of failures, operator’s competences, machines, equipment and culture. Companies will not succeed if its carbon copies a maintenance system from another company just because this company has achieved their goals. Although, there are no 100% identical systems, people, machines, equipment etc. Thus the implementation of a new maintenance system or the development of the current one must be based on the above mentioned factors. Additionally, the process must consider the following important aspects such as safety, quality, economic, environment etc.
For example, many companies have successfully implemented TPM and achieved their goals, but this could not be generalized, because TPM requires such culture that all people must be involved from the top management to the work floor which is not possible for all companies. Another example is, the usage of VM(Vibration Monitoring) system and where should be used and its purpose.
Maintenance schedule and planning depends strongly on MTA(Maintenance Task Analysis) to identify machines, equipment and facilities in place to be able to decide when and where to perform preventive maintenance, reactive maintenance and or predictive maintenance based on their condition, age, task, load and manufacturer´s recommendations.
Expansion or development
It’s very critical to claim that expansion is always positive, because there is no guarantees when companies grow they will succeed since some companies grow to death. Thus management has to predict all scenarios in which can face the company during the next phase. Management should have a holistic picture about company´s total productivity capacity, customers demand and market´s forces. However companies which do not take their customers needs into account, competitors and marketing impaction cannot stay longer in the market even if they have world best designer.
Business sustainability
How can a company know if its still strong in the market, its product(s) is still requested and customers are satisfied if it does not do a continuously researching and analyzing? It requires a continuously research to be able to know if the product needs to be developed, adopted, redesigned, reconstructed, or if there is an opportunity to establish the company somewhere else in order to find a new market and new customers etc. On the other hand it’s also important to know competitors offers, product price and quality and everything is related to the business to be able to take the right decision in real time.
Purchasing and logistics
Companies lose often huge amount of money due to fast and unplanned affairs regarding raw material, transport, spare parts, outsourcing, services, machinery, systems, technologies etc. There are often several suppliers, subcontractors, vendors and manufacturers at the market. Neveretheless, companies could reduce their costs, and at the same time achieve their goals by the aid of analysis through making a comparison and evaluating of a certain interesting offers.
Recruitment
I have actually written about this in my previous blog, therefore I will not go deeper in details. I would only highlight that companies will gain a lot if the recruitment process is based on an appropriate and objective analysis to be able to evaluate the right candidates.
Conclusion
Analysis has very broad using areas, but I have only mentioned the areas which I work with and am interested in. I have also mentioned some tools which can be useful within analysis, but there are many other out there. It’s an important work that can help management in decision making. Actually the difference between a good and correct decision is the “analysis”. People can succeed sometimes to make a beneficial business based on some facts or experiences without conducting any analysis. But I claim that it should be a simple task or it happens by chance. However in order to perform any task accurately and accomplish a reasonable result there is a need for a comprehensive analysis. Furthermore a complicated task(s) mainly requires data gathering, calculation, measurement, test, comparison, planning, observation, inspection, evaluation etc that are useful when making a correct decision.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
1. A part of managers do not have the ability to learn new things because they think that they already can everything.
2. They do not have sufficient information and knowledge about what analysis can contribute to.
3. They think it’s a simple task in which everyone can perform and there is no need to hire an expert and give him/her a full time job which can impact company´s budget.
The fact is the budget already will be impacted negatively when decision making is not based on an appropriate analysis. I want to highlight in this blog the role(s) of analysis, its importance, using areas, benefits and the consequences when it’s out of function.
Using areas:
Identifying and defining the business idea/plan
It’s very important to conduct an extensive analysis around business plan in early stage before the start to identify for instance customers segment, raw material source(s), expenses and costs, goals to achieve, profit margin, resources availability and competences, marketing, competitors etc. This analysis enables management/owner to take the correct decision.
Identifying and defining of company´s strategic goals
Companies have more or less similar strategic goals in which they strive for such as delivering in time, high product quality, customers satisfaction, environment friendly product, reasonable product price, strong competitiveness, increasingly profitability etc, however the difference(s) in these goals among companies might depend(s) on the type of the business branch. The identifying of the strategic goals enables the analyst to identify the correlation/connection with the elements/assets that must be maintained in order to achieve these goals and to have a sustainable economic growth.
Identifying and measurement of the gap between Mission and Vision
Since the strategic goals have been identified and defined it’s very important to analyze the current condition to be able to measure the gap in order to find out the problems and classify the causes behind them. Furthermore the problems are different and should be classified to find out the real cause by determining what area is related to such as technical, managerial, design, construction, organization and or human factors.
Identifying of chronic, technical and latent failure(s) and preventing them from recurring
The analysis could also be used to enhance business capacity and increase the productivity by identifying, eliminating and preventing chronic failures from recurring. It does not only mean technical failures but also everything that can impact company from not achieving its vision. Most of technical faults could be identified, analyzed and solved by the usage of FMECA (Failure Mode Effects And Critical Analysis), but in some cases RCA (Root Cause Analysis) or FTA (Fault Tree Analysis) must be involved, especially when talking about latent faults.
Improvement of process and quality
Process and quality improvement requires hardly and engaged work. Therefore a lot of information obtains and should be analyzed to be able to determine the suitable solution. Continuous improvement strategy focuses significantly on inspection, observation, measurement, test and analysis to verify the gathered information and data. Companies will gain a lot of money when identifying for instance the value-added, non-value-added -Waste, Customer-value-added , Business-non-value-added, the complexity within process by breaking down PCE(Process Cycle Efficiency)into small components part and lead & Takt –time etc.
Cost reduction
It’s essential that the company has a common system which connects and provides all departments within the company with necessary information. That means each department can display, record, report, and send work orders. In some cases and due to some reasons people cannot obtain information when it is needed. For example, what are the significant spare parts and what is necessary to be stocked in. However there are many unnecessary obsolete and new components which only consume energy, space and labor etc. The significant spare parts could be identified by the aid of continuously analysis and inspection. On the other hand unnecessary components and things could also be identified and converted into money. Moreover, the aim of analysis is to find the potential for cost reduction even in the other sectors such as traveling, document, machines, equipment, license, cars etc and not only within inventory.
Implementation or installation of a new system or machinery
It’s very important to conduct a comprehensive analysis before the installation or the implementation of any system or machinery. Firstly, to figure out if the implementation of the system or machinery would not impact operators and plant culture negatively and secondly it would give the desired function. Moreover, in order to avoid any problems that the company can face during project's life cycle decisions must be based on an extensive analysis which includes plant’s engineers, managers and operators from different areas . Furthermore other manufacturer, suppliers and vendors must be analyzed and evaluated to be able to make an assessment based on prices, quality, safety, support and other criteria.
For example, many companies have implemented CMMS, EAM-systems to simplify maintenance work, increase productivity, store information, enhance production process etc, but they have faced different problems such as technical faults, lack of support, the system does not give the desired function, its very complicated and difficult to use, does not meet company´s expectations etc.
Energy saving
It’s commonly that most manufacturing plants have heavy machines, motors, pumps, fans, compressors, FVD, lighting, heating etc. Often these machines and equipment are consuming more energy due to their installation, connection with the end user, work task, inefficiency, load, pipe dimension and voltage variation. Companies will therefore save a lot of money by reducing energy consuming within identifying these machines, equipment and improve the current condition by determining a cost-effective solution throughout redesigning, reconstruction or replacement with a suitable one which can give the desired function but with less energy consuming.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is not always a cost-effective solution especially when the company has the ability to do this kind of work. Further, regarding service´s outsourcing companies will lose competences as soon as the consultant finishes his/her contract. Sometimes the consultant could face some resistance from operators especially when the project is about huge change within plant’s culture. It could be more beneficial if the company hire a suitable and qualified person who can fulfill this position.
Enhancement of the communication and the relationship among personnel and different departments
Most of faults, problems, and failures are partly related to a bad communication and or bad relationship among personnel themselves, personnel and management or among different departments. A Company sometimes faces no-man´s- land (gap), overlap and or interaction between two workstations. In general the relationship among departments is like Supplier-Customer relationship, while companies wish to achieve partner relationship. Often managers do not involve operators when decision making or they are missing motivation, encouragement and moral due to bad connection/communication with management. It’s essential to identify personnel´s responsibilities and authorities, however managers should understand that they all are sitting at the same boat and when the boat goes down everybody will go down too. By the aid of the analysis companies can find out if there is any need for redesigning, reorganization or reintegration among working areas to eliminate gap, overlap or and interaction. On the other hand the causes behind that people have bad relationships or communication with each other will be identified.
The implementation of a new maintenance system or the development of the current one
Its 100% based on company´s strategic goals, current condition, type of failures, operator’s competences, machines, equipment and culture. Companies will not succeed if its carbon copies a maintenance system from another company just because this company has achieved their goals. Although, there are no 100% identical systems, people, machines, equipment etc. Thus the implementation of a new maintenance system or the development of the current one must be based on the above mentioned factors. Additionally, the process must consider the following important aspects such as safety, quality, economic, environment etc.
For example, many companies have successfully implemented TPM and achieved their goals, but this could not be generalized, because TPM requires such culture that all people must be involved from the top management to the work floor which is not possible for all companies. Another example is, the usage of VM(Vibration Monitoring) system and where should be used and its purpose.
Maintenance schedule and planning depends strongly on MTA(Maintenance Task Analysis) to identify machines, equipment and facilities in place to be able to decide when and where to perform preventive maintenance, reactive maintenance and or predictive maintenance based on their condition, age, task, load and manufacturer´s recommendations.
Expansion or development
It’s very critical to claim that expansion is always positive, because there is no guarantees when companies grow they will succeed since some companies grow to death. Thus management has to predict all scenarios in which can face the company during the next phase. Management should have a holistic picture about company´s total productivity capacity, customers demand and market´s forces. However companies which do not take their customers needs into account, competitors and marketing impaction cannot stay longer in the market even if they have world best designer.
Business sustainability
How can a company know if its still strong in the market, its product(s) is still requested and customers are satisfied if it does not do a continuously researching and analyzing? It requires a continuously research to be able to know if the product needs to be developed, adopted, redesigned, reconstructed, or if there is an opportunity to establish the company somewhere else in order to find a new market and new customers etc. On the other hand it’s also important to know competitors offers, product price and quality and everything is related to the business to be able to take the right decision in real time.
Purchasing and logistics
Companies lose often huge amount of money due to fast and unplanned affairs regarding raw material, transport, spare parts, outsourcing, services, machinery, systems, technologies etc. There are often several suppliers, subcontractors, vendors and manufacturers at the market. Neveretheless, companies could reduce their costs, and at the same time achieve their goals by the aid of analysis through making a comparison and evaluating of a certain interesting offers.
Recruitment
I have actually written about this in my previous blog, therefore I will not go deeper in details. I would only highlight that companies will gain a lot if the recruitment process is based on an appropriate and objective analysis to be able to evaluate the right candidates.
Conclusion
Analysis has very broad using areas, but I have only mentioned the areas which I work with and am interested in. I have also mentioned some tools which can be useful within analysis, but there are many other out there. It’s an important work that can help management in decision making. Actually the difference between a good and correct decision is the “analysis”. People can succeed sometimes to make a beneficial business based on some facts or experiences without conducting any analysis. But I claim that it should be a simple task or it happens by chance. However in order to perform any task accurately and accomplish a reasonable result there is a need for a comprehensive analysis. Furthermore a complicated task(s) mainly requires data gathering, calculation, measurement, test, comparison, planning, observation, inspection, evaluation etc that are useful when making a correct decision.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
fredag 16 april 2010
How to increase company´s profitability and improve its competitiveness?
Profitability increment and competitiveness improvement could be defined as an end goals that all companies strive for. In order to achieve these end goals there are another primary/strategic goals which companies must reach and I think these more or less are similar for all companies such as reliable plant, high product/service quality, delivering in time, competent employees, suitable leaders and brilliant marketing strategy. Behind each one of these terms lies one or more of the following words Who, How, Where, When and What. I am trying to dig deeper to find out and highlight the real, asset, systems, elements, tools, methods etc in which their contribution is significant that companies can reach their goals.
Who?
Companies cannot maximize profitability and reinforce competitiveness regardless of process, equipment, tools etc it has in place if “Who” is not considered properly. People are most significant asset in which must be taken into consideration.
An assumption:
When our brains are sufficient charged with information, experiences and knowledge then logically we will do whatever is good for our bodies. We will for instance eat a good food, sleep well and do physical movements such as exercises or usually train regularly to activate our muscles to make them stronger especially our arms and legs because they almost do all the work, in order to live longer and avoid many diseases.
Is it essential that we must train and activate our muscles even we do not use this strength daily? The answer is yes, actually the whole body needs to be strong not only our arms and legs to be able to perform the daily work for long term and to be equipped whether any unusual task occurs during the time.
Well, managers, designers, engineers are in general the brain of any company however the workers are company´s arms and legs. If the management has sufficient knowledge, education, experiences and information then it will provide the company/plant with a suitable guideline and satisfy personnel’s needs, however the staff is company´s arms and legs because they almost perform all the work. If they get an adequate education, training, moral, motivation, encouragement they will do the best of the best.
How?
Does that mean workers cannot think, or plan because they are not the”Brain”? Absolutely not, but often they do what they have been told, or what they have been learned, which means there is a manager/leader who always set up work instructions. How can we be sure that the manager or the leader is always right? Well, this is a good point and the answer is “we cannot”.
Such mistakes could be reduced when managers use brainstorming and empower plants operators, further new and valuable ideas could appears during this process and maybe one of these ideas is the suitable solution. Do you think all managers use this strategy when any problem occurs, are they not afraid of3P-losses? Actually, not all managers are willing to carry out this strategy due to fearing of losing power, profit and pride, on the other hand a part of them are not aware about the importance of this strategy.
How important is it to involve operators when any problem occurs? Well, it’s very important, because the operators are almost “married with machines” and when a man or woman is married with someone logically she /he knows everything about her/him, because operators spend long time with their machines almost 8-9h/5 day and sometimes more. This enables them to know machines best performance, its requirements, failure modes and mechanism, and “often” the causes.
Furthermore the following requirements should be an important part of answering “How”.
1. Establishing continues improvement strategy leads to eliminate waste in all its forms, cost reduction, production flow & production strategy enhancement, process and quality improvement.
2. Maximizing plant reliability by establishing a suitable maintenance strategy and its best practices.
3. Continuously analysis around customer’s wishes and requirements, marketing demands including company´s competitors.
4. Personnel training, partner relationship (instead of Supplier and Customer relationship) among different department, communications improvement between management and workers at the same time among different departments such as operation, maintenance, store, design, purchase etc.
5. Leadership engagement, understanding, and strategic strategy.
Where?
The manager/leader should be near machines and equipment where most of the work performs and things happen preferably ”Gemba”. Firstly, it is not reasonable to trust workers assessment 100%, even they spend long time with machines and have such experiences and knowledge, thus the data and information must be tested and evaluated. Secondly, operators often need backup, supervision and support when new things occur. However CEO and other manager should be in their “Gemba” to figure out what is going on out there. They have to analyze the market to assess and evaluate company´s current condition and its future based on competitor’s offers and customers requirements, through being in the right place. That does not mean CEO or other managers must not being in the work floor, on the contrary their presence is beneficial and I will talk about it in the next section.
When?
Most failures could be detected in earlier stage by using visual monitoring or other tools. Normally it gives signal/indicator. It could also be called a “failure mode” such as high vibration, high noise, corrosion, smoke, friction, fatigue, debris, high temperature etc. That means the presence and the engagement of the leader/manager in the work floor is crucial because he/she could act in real time before it develops to the next advanced mode. Additionally, its vital to avoid catastrophic failures, unscheduled downtime, prolonging machines and equipment lives and to prevent productions outages and human injuries. The investment in “Who” within training and empowerment leads in return to huge benefits. If the operators have a sufficient training they can take the right action in real time instead of waiting for the leader/manager in case he/she is not available in this moment. Furthermore the job continues from inside the plant to outside the plant where the analysts and designers should be. They must continuously have a holistic picture around customer’s needs, marketing’s demands and competitor’s strategy. Why, to act in real time and do what it requires to stand longer in the market with a good profit margin. Companies should consider customers perspective In earlier stage such design phase to adapt their products with respect to what competitors’ can offer when talking about price, quality, delivering time, services etc. As well, companies should focus more on customer’s satisfaction and work hardly to achieve it. Additional benefits can be obtained when CEO and other managers continuously visit work floor, such as listening to workers problems and needs, observation, enhancing the relationship with them within encouragement and motivation which can lead to increase their moral and loyalty.
What?
In order to increase Profitability & improve competitiveness ”end goals” and achieve the primary / company´s strategic goals actually, there are many useful tools, systems, process and methodologies. I just want to highlight something important. From maintenance point of view there is something called”Maintenance best practices”. Actually, it’s not a law such as Kirchhoff’s Law or another math/physics Laws. It could be defined as “every technique, process, methodologies, tools etc you or somebody else already have used it and got a reasonable and good result”. The main issue is to reach your target(s) with a good and reasonable result regardless of what technique, system, tools etc you use, assuming that you already have made an assessment and evaluating between what you use and other alternatives. But anyway I will also mention some of these powerful techniques, systems, tools, methodologies etc.
Before I go further I would like to put more focus on the leadership and its contribution within the entire process. Beyond engagement, brainstorming, and operator’s empowerment strategy the manager/leader should act sometimes as a teacher. For example he/she must not ask who has done this fault? The question should be what is the problem and how can we solve it? To blame operators when they do faults does not solve any problem, but it could lead to something worse. The leader could show the direction to the right job and how it could be done right.
Generally, the implementation of Lean & Six Sigma, PdM, PM, RCM, TPM- technologies have almost showed a good result in most industrial companies. All of these technologies more or less are good, but sometimes you need to combine two or more of them in order to achieve your targets and being on the safe side. I will not dig deeper in this topic because it is not the issue to make an evaluation among different maintenance strategies. However, the selection of the most suitable maintenance strategy/best practices should be based on the following:
1. An identifying and defining of company´s strategic goals”Vision” What they want to achieve and the”Mission” what they have obtained.
2. A measurement of the “Gap” between the “Vision” and the “Mission”.
3. Analysis and classifying of the problems (technical, organizational, managerial, wrong construction, wrong integration, wrong design, latent faults or human factors)
4. Product(s), machines, and equipment.
5. All solution alternatives and decisions should be evaluated based on LCCA
However there are some useful and significant tools in which can be used and utilized within problem identifying, troubleshooting, problem analysis, project evaluating, planning and problem solving to accomplish the process of achievement company´s goals based on cost-effective methodology. These are RCA, FMECA, LCCA, FTA, DMAIC (VSM, Process mapping, pull production, JIT etc), VOC etc. I want also mention some high technology tools which can be used to analyze and monitor for example rotating machines such as vibration monitoring-tools, thermo graphic and oil analysis-tools.
It’s a vital that manager/leader has qualification and awareness in analysis and experiences on observations which enables him/her to know where, when, how and what to look at and observe, otherwise more things could be missed.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
Who?
Companies cannot maximize profitability and reinforce competitiveness regardless of process, equipment, tools etc it has in place if “Who” is not considered properly. People are most significant asset in which must be taken into consideration.
An assumption:
When our brains are sufficient charged with information, experiences and knowledge then logically we will do whatever is good for our bodies. We will for instance eat a good food, sleep well and do physical movements such as exercises or usually train regularly to activate our muscles to make them stronger especially our arms and legs because they almost do all the work, in order to live longer and avoid many diseases.
Is it essential that we must train and activate our muscles even we do not use this strength daily? The answer is yes, actually the whole body needs to be strong not only our arms and legs to be able to perform the daily work for long term and to be equipped whether any unusual task occurs during the time.
Well, managers, designers, engineers are in general the brain of any company however the workers are company´s arms and legs. If the management has sufficient knowledge, education, experiences and information then it will provide the company/plant with a suitable guideline and satisfy personnel’s needs, however the staff is company´s arms and legs because they almost perform all the work. If they get an adequate education, training, moral, motivation, encouragement they will do the best of the best.
How?
Does that mean workers cannot think, or plan because they are not the”Brain”? Absolutely not, but often they do what they have been told, or what they have been learned, which means there is a manager/leader who always set up work instructions. How can we be sure that the manager or the leader is always right? Well, this is a good point and the answer is “we cannot”.
Such mistakes could be reduced when managers use brainstorming and empower plants operators, further new and valuable ideas could appears during this process and maybe one of these ideas is the suitable solution. Do you think all managers use this strategy when any problem occurs, are they not afraid of3P-losses? Actually, not all managers are willing to carry out this strategy due to fearing of losing power, profit and pride, on the other hand a part of them are not aware about the importance of this strategy.
How important is it to involve operators when any problem occurs? Well, it’s very important, because the operators are almost “married with machines” and when a man or woman is married with someone logically she /he knows everything about her/him, because operators spend long time with their machines almost 8-9h/5 day and sometimes more. This enables them to know machines best performance, its requirements, failure modes and mechanism, and “often” the causes.
Furthermore the following requirements should be an important part of answering “How”.
1. Establishing continues improvement strategy leads to eliminate waste in all its forms, cost reduction, production flow & production strategy enhancement, process and quality improvement.
2. Maximizing plant reliability by establishing a suitable maintenance strategy and its best practices.
3. Continuously analysis around customer’s wishes and requirements, marketing demands including company´s competitors.
4. Personnel training, partner relationship (instead of Supplier and Customer relationship) among different department, communications improvement between management and workers at the same time among different departments such as operation, maintenance, store, design, purchase etc.
5. Leadership engagement, understanding, and strategic strategy.
Where?
The manager/leader should be near machines and equipment where most of the work performs and things happen preferably ”Gemba”. Firstly, it is not reasonable to trust workers assessment 100%, even they spend long time with machines and have such experiences and knowledge, thus the data and information must be tested and evaluated. Secondly, operators often need backup, supervision and support when new things occur. However CEO and other manager should be in their “Gemba” to figure out what is going on out there. They have to analyze the market to assess and evaluate company´s current condition and its future based on competitor’s offers and customers requirements, through being in the right place. That does not mean CEO or other managers must not being in the work floor, on the contrary their presence is beneficial and I will talk about it in the next section.
When?
Most failures could be detected in earlier stage by using visual monitoring or other tools. Normally it gives signal/indicator. It could also be called a “failure mode” such as high vibration, high noise, corrosion, smoke, friction, fatigue, debris, high temperature etc. That means the presence and the engagement of the leader/manager in the work floor is crucial because he/she could act in real time before it develops to the next advanced mode. Additionally, its vital to avoid catastrophic failures, unscheduled downtime, prolonging machines and equipment lives and to prevent productions outages and human injuries. The investment in “Who” within training and empowerment leads in return to huge benefits. If the operators have a sufficient training they can take the right action in real time instead of waiting for the leader/manager in case he/she is not available in this moment. Furthermore the job continues from inside the plant to outside the plant where the analysts and designers should be. They must continuously have a holistic picture around customer’s needs, marketing’s demands and competitor’s strategy. Why, to act in real time and do what it requires to stand longer in the market with a good profit margin. Companies should consider customers perspective In earlier stage such design phase to adapt their products with respect to what competitors’ can offer when talking about price, quality, delivering time, services etc. As well, companies should focus more on customer’s satisfaction and work hardly to achieve it. Additional benefits can be obtained when CEO and other managers continuously visit work floor, such as listening to workers problems and needs, observation, enhancing the relationship with them within encouragement and motivation which can lead to increase their moral and loyalty.
What?
In order to increase Profitability & improve competitiveness ”end goals” and achieve the primary / company´s strategic goals actually, there are many useful tools, systems, process and methodologies. I just want to highlight something important. From maintenance point of view there is something called”Maintenance best practices”. Actually, it’s not a law such as Kirchhoff’s Law or another math/physics Laws. It could be defined as “every technique, process, methodologies, tools etc you or somebody else already have used it and got a reasonable and good result”. The main issue is to reach your target(s) with a good and reasonable result regardless of what technique, system, tools etc you use, assuming that you already have made an assessment and evaluating between what you use and other alternatives. But anyway I will also mention some of these powerful techniques, systems, tools, methodologies etc.
Before I go further I would like to put more focus on the leadership and its contribution within the entire process. Beyond engagement, brainstorming, and operator’s empowerment strategy the manager/leader should act sometimes as a teacher. For example he/she must not ask who has done this fault? The question should be what is the problem and how can we solve it? To blame operators when they do faults does not solve any problem, but it could lead to something worse. The leader could show the direction to the right job and how it could be done right.
Generally, the implementation of Lean & Six Sigma, PdM, PM, RCM, TPM- technologies have almost showed a good result in most industrial companies. All of these technologies more or less are good, but sometimes you need to combine two or more of them in order to achieve your targets and being on the safe side. I will not dig deeper in this topic because it is not the issue to make an evaluation among different maintenance strategies. However, the selection of the most suitable maintenance strategy/best practices should be based on the following:
1. An identifying and defining of company´s strategic goals”Vision” What they want to achieve and the”Mission” what they have obtained.
2. A measurement of the “Gap” between the “Vision” and the “Mission”.
3. Analysis and classifying of the problems (technical, organizational, managerial, wrong construction, wrong integration, wrong design, latent faults or human factors)
4. Product(s), machines, and equipment.
5. All solution alternatives and decisions should be evaluated based on LCCA
However there are some useful and significant tools in which can be used and utilized within problem identifying, troubleshooting, problem analysis, project evaluating, planning and problem solving to accomplish the process of achievement company´s goals based on cost-effective methodology. These are RCA, FMECA, LCCA, FTA, DMAIC (VSM, Process mapping, pull production, JIT etc), VOC etc. I want also mention some high technology tools which can be used to analyze and monitor for example rotating machines such as vibration monitoring-tools, thermo graphic and oil analysis-tools.
It’s a vital that manager/leader has qualification and awareness in analysis and experiences on observations which enables him/her to know where, when, how and what to look at and observe, otherwise more things could be missed.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
måndag 5 april 2010
What is a problem and how can we define it?
Can we really define a problem as shown below?
Desired condition – Actual condition = Problem (original equation)
I think the equation is wrong logically, because the desired condition, the actual condition and the problem are not defined accurately.
I´ll try to shift the current equation and see what happen. You will get the following:
Desired condition = Problem + Actual condition (Shifted)
Analysis
Why the equation is wrong logically? Well, because it’s a false statement. Why the statement is false? Well, we will know that by asking these questions. Is it reasonable that the “desired condition” equal to what we have plus problem? Shall we add problems to the “Actual condition” in order to achieve the desired condition?
I think in order to understand the theme, the terms such as Actual condition and Problem should be defined properly, because when mentioning “Actual condition” does not mean that the current system contains problems. How?
Well, the word “Actual” means the current or what we have right now, but not necessarily it contains problems. For example, when a new project starts, normally everything is new(or in good condition) such as machines, equipment, assets etc and we also assume that the current condition is good, because the assets are new or in good condition. Additionally, that leads logically to an expected/desired outcome, which means, it could be ”Actual condition” = “Desired condition”.
What I want to say is the actual condition could be the desired condition according to the example above if it does not contain any problem and gives the expected outcome. That means we cannot generalize “Actual condition” as a system which contains problem.
I think it could be better and more reasonable if we replace ”Problem” with “Requirement” as you can see below:
Desired condition – Actual condition = Requirement (Suggested equation)
We will get a reasonable result even when we move one of the terms to the right or to the left. See the equation below:
An assumption (In this case we assume that the actual condition contains problems).
Desired condition = Requirement + Actual condition
Here can you see the difference between the original and the new equations. It’s acceptable and reasonable when I add “Requirement” to the “Current condition” I will achieve the “Desired condition”, in case the “Current condition” suffering of some problems, but I think it’s unacceptable and unreasonable when adding “Problem” to the “Actual condition” in order to achieve the “Desired condition”.
Or
Actual condition = Desired condition – Requirement
It’s understandable that the “Desired condition” is missing such “Requirement” and so cannot be achieved.
Conclusion
I think the usage of “Requirement” is more reasonable in this case, because it’s broader and includes everything thing in which can impact company´s profitability and competitiveness. Furthermore by using “Problem” it seems you mean something specific, however the problems are varied for instance it could be technical, organizational, managerial, or human factors. Moreover, “Requirement” could include all of these areas.
This is the website if you want to check the original article/video.
http://www.reliableplant.com/Article.aspx?articleid=21550
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
Desired condition – Actual condition = Problem (original equation)
I think the equation is wrong logically, because the desired condition, the actual condition and the problem are not defined accurately.
I´ll try to shift the current equation and see what happen. You will get the following:
Desired condition = Problem + Actual condition (Shifted)
Analysis
Why the equation is wrong logically? Well, because it’s a false statement. Why the statement is false? Well, we will know that by asking these questions. Is it reasonable that the “desired condition” equal to what we have plus problem? Shall we add problems to the “Actual condition” in order to achieve the desired condition?
I think in order to understand the theme, the terms such as Actual condition and Problem should be defined properly, because when mentioning “Actual condition” does not mean that the current system contains problems. How?
Well, the word “Actual” means the current or what we have right now, but not necessarily it contains problems. For example, when a new project starts, normally everything is new(or in good condition) such as machines, equipment, assets etc and we also assume that the current condition is good, because the assets are new or in good condition. Additionally, that leads logically to an expected/desired outcome, which means, it could be ”Actual condition” = “Desired condition”.
What I want to say is the actual condition could be the desired condition according to the example above if it does not contain any problem and gives the expected outcome. That means we cannot generalize “Actual condition” as a system which contains problem.
I think it could be better and more reasonable if we replace ”Problem” with “Requirement” as you can see below:
Desired condition – Actual condition = Requirement (Suggested equation)
We will get a reasonable result even when we move one of the terms to the right or to the left. See the equation below:
An assumption (In this case we assume that the actual condition contains problems).
Desired condition = Requirement + Actual condition
Here can you see the difference between the original and the new equations. It’s acceptable and reasonable when I add “Requirement” to the “Current condition” I will achieve the “Desired condition”, in case the “Current condition” suffering of some problems, but I think it’s unacceptable and unreasonable when adding “Problem” to the “Actual condition” in order to achieve the “Desired condition”.
Or
Actual condition = Desired condition – Requirement
It’s understandable that the “Desired condition” is missing such “Requirement” and so cannot be achieved.
Conclusion
I think the usage of “Requirement” is more reasonable in this case, because it’s broader and includes everything thing in which can impact company´s profitability and competitiveness. Furthermore by using “Problem” it seems you mean something specific, however the problems are varied for instance it could be technical, organizational, managerial, or human factors. Moreover, “Requirement” could include all of these areas.
This is the website if you want to check the original article/video.
http://www.reliableplant.com/Article.aspx?articleid=21550
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
söndag 4 april 2010
How can we evaluate personnel skills, basd on what and who will do that?
This topic has concerned me for a long time due to its importance. I would like to share you my thoughts and hope you will enjoy it.According to my experiences when companies/ employers want to hire someone either they engage a recruitment company or they do it by the aid of their own recuiter. Companies usually have some demands based on the key responsibilities and the objectives they want to achieve through hiring that person. The demands usually consist of what the employee should has for qualifications such as social competence, languages, computer skills, right education, experiences etc. However, there is an important question.
Who will decide that I am a very good engineer and am qualified for this position? Normally, and according to my experiences the answer is the “Recruiter” at lease in the first step. I have been interviewed by many recruiters who have the responsibility to introduce me to the customer, inspite of most of them are not technical educated and could not understand what I talked about.
The question is, how can they evaluate that I am the suitable person for this vacancy if they cannot understand and assess what knowledge and skills I have?
The answer certain will be, they will look at your CV and see what education, skills, experiences etc you have. Okay, but there is another question. Can anyone determine that I am the best one when you review my CV especially when you see that I have about 15 year’s experiences? I think the will be, yea. What is the motive? The answer is, the successful candidate in this position must has 10-15 years experiences. Okay. But can anyone guarantee that the candidate who has this amount of experiences is the right one for this position and based on what?
The answer will be, he has surly seen a lot, has been with a lot, and worked with similar tasks a lot and so forth. Okay, it could be. It’s not 100% false statement. But isn’t 100% true statement?
There are two crucial questions. Can all educated people really do what they are educated for? Are all people who have for instance 15 years experiences within a certain area always qualified, can deliver at good time and with high quality and do the best of the best?
I have seen many of both types who could not deliver what they have to. The question is, how could they still working in this company? The answer is very simple; it’s the “contacts”. They have truly strong contacts with management/leaders and they usually protect each other. There is another question, how can they make it when things go wrong? The answer is, they always find someone to sacrifice.
Conclusion
If most recruiters are no technical educated and cannot evaluate engineers, managers, technician etc skills due to the lack of knowledge and we cannot trust 100% that all educated people can really perform or deliver their tasks neither people who have many years experiences could be guaranteed that they are qualified.What shall we do?
Well, normally employers know company´s requirement and based on this requirement they hire people to fulfill a particular position to be able to reach a specific goal(s). Employers should create a reasonable process to justify the demands and the motives behind each decision when hiring people. I think it’s very important that employers involve themselves in this process. Additionally, if it’s a matter of time the manager(s) could engage somebody else who has the right background, right education, and/or right position in the company (Someone you can trust his/her assessment) to carry out the recruitment process based on company´s requirements and how much could the new recruited member contribute to. This could be conducting by creating some technical, organizational, managerial etc questions depends on the position. You can obtain the following:
1. You can determine/predict if the new member has really the right social competence, attitude, can deliver, has the capacity to adapt him/her self regarding company´s culture and can add some value.
2. A great opportunity to test, assess, and discover his/her knowledge, skills, and what he/she can offer or contribute to the company based on a professional discussion assuming that you already can these questions/topics and can really evaluate whether he/she is capable .
3. You can save some money when you involve yourself or engage someone who fulfills the criteria above, assuming that the recruitment process performs internally, secondly you will also gain in long term when you hire most competent employee who can add some value.
4. This process enables you to avoid the evil circulation hiring-firing and its consequences.
Moreover, the recruiter usually ask such questions and conduct some psychological test to choose few candidates that will be transfered to the next step. The question is, can they perform a professional discussion with the new member to assess his/her skills and knowledge if they are not technical educated, are they aware about company´s requirements and what type of problems they have? The answer is, not really as an employer or someone who has the right background or the engagement to be able to make a reseasonable assessement.
There are another agenda which we should consider regarding recruitment process when engaging other recruitment's company such as making money, racism, discrimination and contacts.
Nowadays we hear a lot about, how much you will pay me if I fix the right job for you and I think it’s OK as far as both partners has an agreement assuming that the job seeker has the right background. But we have also seen and heart that someone who hasn´t the right background for a certain position could be hired here or there due to his/her contacts.
The biggest problems that the humanity can face today are racism and discriminating even we are living in 2010 and we think that we are civilized community who fights for human rights. How many qualified women could not be hired due to their gender and how many people regardless of their skills could not be hired due to their background such as color, religion, nation etc?
I do not want to drift away from the origin topic because it’s really a complicated. As well, I´ll conclude that companies, stakeholders, and shareholders will lose very much when hiring people and only consider their gender, color, nation, religion etc and do not care about their competences and what they can contribute to.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
Who will decide that I am a very good engineer and am qualified for this position? Normally, and according to my experiences the answer is the “Recruiter” at lease in the first step. I have been interviewed by many recruiters who have the responsibility to introduce me to the customer, inspite of most of them are not technical educated and could not understand what I talked about.
The question is, how can they evaluate that I am the suitable person for this vacancy if they cannot understand and assess what knowledge and skills I have?
The answer certain will be, they will look at your CV and see what education, skills, experiences etc you have. Okay, but there is another question. Can anyone determine that I am the best one when you review my CV especially when you see that I have about 15 year’s experiences? I think the will be, yea. What is the motive? The answer is, the successful candidate in this position must has 10-15 years experiences. Okay. But can anyone guarantee that the candidate who has this amount of experiences is the right one for this position and based on what?
The answer will be, he has surly seen a lot, has been with a lot, and worked with similar tasks a lot and so forth. Okay, it could be. It’s not 100% false statement. But isn’t 100% true statement?
There are two crucial questions. Can all educated people really do what they are educated for? Are all people who have for instance 15 years experiences within a certain area always qualified, can deliver at good time and with high quality and do the best of the best?
I have seen many of both types who could not deliver what they have to. The question is, how could they still working in this company? The answer is very simple; it’s the “contacts”. They have truly strong contacts with management/leaders and they usually protect each other. There is another question, how can they make it when things go wrong? The answer is, they always find someone to sacrifice.
Conclusion
If most recruiters are no technical educated and cannot evaluate engineers, managers, technician etc skills due to the lack of knowledge and we cannot trust 100% that all educated people can really perform or deliver their tasks neither people who have many years experiences could be guaranteed that they are qualified.What shall we do?
Well, normally employers know company´s requirement and based on this requirement they hire people to fulfill a particular position to be able to reach a specific goal(s). Employers should create a reasonable process to justify the demands and the motives behind each decision when hiring people. I think it’s very important that employers involve themselves in this process. Additionally, if it’s a matter of time the manager(s) could engage somebody else who has the right background, right education, and/or right position in the company (Someone you can trust his/her assessment) to carry out the recruitment process based on company´s requirements and how much could the new recruited member contribute to. This could be conducting by creating some technical, organizational, managerial etc questions depends on the position. You can obtain the following:
1. You can determine/predict if the new member has really the right social competence, attitude, can deliver, has the capacity to adapt him/her self regarding company´s culture and can add some value.
2. A great opportunity to test, assess, and discover his/her knowledge, skills, and what he/she can offer or contribute to the company based on a professional discussion assuming that you already can these questions/topics and can really evaluate whether he/she is capable .
3. You can save some money when you involve yourself or engage someone who fulfills the criteria above, assuming that the recruitment process performs internally, secondly you will also gain in long term when you hire most competent employee who can add some value.
4. This process enables you to avoid the evil circulation hiring-firing and its consequences.
Moreover, the recruiter usually ask such questions and conduct some psychological test to choose few candidates that will be transfered to the next step. The question is, can they perform a professional discussion with the new member to assess his/her skills and knowledge if they are not technical educated, are they aware about company´s requirements and what type of problems they have? The answer is, not really as an employer or someone who has the right background or the engagement to be able to make a reseasonable assessement.
There are another agenda which we should consider regarding recruitment process when engaging other recruitment's company such as making money, racism, discrimination and contacts.
Nowadays we hear a lot about, how much you will pay me if I fix the right job for you and I think it’s OK as far as both partners has an agreement assuming that the job seeker has the right background. But we have also seen and heart that someone who hasn´t the right background for a certain position could be hired here or there due to his/her contacts.
The biggest problems that the humanity can face today are racism and discriminating even we are living in 2010 and we think that we are civilized community who fights for human rights. How many qualified women could not be hired due to their gender and how many people regardless of their skills could not be hired due to their background such as color, religion, nation etc?
I do not want to drift away from the origin topic because it’s really a complicated. As well, I´ll conclude that companies, stakeholders, and shareholders will lose very much when hiring people and only consider their gender, color, nation, religion etc and do not care about their competences and what they can contribute to.
Best regards
Hamid Al-najjar
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