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
fredag 16 april 2010
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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