THE WHO:
Sophronia Ward is a process improvement specialist with a Ph.D. in Statistics and 35 years of experience in the business world. (Statistician)
stat·is·ti·cian
ˌstadəˈstiSHən/
noun
an expert in the preparation and analysis of statistics.
Definition of statistics
The science of collecting, organizing, summarizing and analyzing data to gain insights and understanding regarding the source of the data.
Frony helps organizations (manufacturing, service, transactional) identify opportunities for improvement throughout an organization that will increase profitability and customer satisfaction while minimizing costs.
THE WHAT:
Organizations and their customers depend on each other and must meet certain goals for the relationship to be successful. That relationship is summarized as a “Value Chain & Value Stream Map” between a company and its customers.
Definition of the “Value Chain & Value Stream Map”:
* Businesses have a right to produce products and offer services that yield the highest possible profits!
* Customers have a right to expect to purchase the highest quality products and receive the highest quality services at the lowest possible cost!
All activity in any organization happens as part of a process and the collection of all activity or processes comprises the organizational system. Using the “Value Chain & Value Stream Map” as a goal, any organization can identify the need for process improvement. These improvements need to achieve a strategic alignment between what a business delivers (Voice of the Process) and what a customer requires (Voice of the Customer). interaction actually includes four entities:
- Owners
- Customers
- Employees
- The Community
THE WHY:
- To achieve long lasting business success with increased profitability, increased customer satisfaction, increased employee satisfaction.
- To improve quality and performance of products/services delivered to the customer
- Improve the communications between the company and its customers
- Achieve a lasting relationship that benefits both
- To ultimately better the business, the customer, the employees, and the community
THE HOW:
First, identify any incidences of misalignment between the business and its customers, such as missed or late deliveries, product or services that don’t meet customer requirements and the cost associated with these incidents.
Second, create a map of the organizational processes to identify where in the organization these incidents may originate.
Third, collect and analyze data for the critical processes. Use the insights from the analysis of the data and an analysis of the map of processes to prioritize improvements to achieve the highest, as close to perfect as possible, alignment with said: “Value Chain & Value Stream Map” (as defined above).
The steps identified above are accomplished by utilizing a variety of continuous improvement methodologies and techniques, including Six Sigma, Lean.
Lean focuses on reducing waste in the organization. In particular: Defects, Waiting, Travel, Excess Inventory, Overproduction and Not Utilizing People.
Six Sigma focuses on reducing a variation of any characteristic, such as product or service quality, or missed deliveries or errors in orders.
Together Lean and Six Sigma cover the majority of techniques needed for process improvement:
- Get rid of waste (utilizing Lean)
- Improve production
- Reduce inefficiencies
- Reduce variables (utilizing Six Sigma)
Thus; allowing the business to deliver the highest quality product/service at the highest possible profit
THE HOW ‘IN ACTION’:
- Processes are first studied using maps (preferably Value Stream Maps – VSM)
- Process flow is characterized and any waste is identified
- Data from each process is used to determine how the process “behaves”
- Each predictable process is evaluated to see if the results meet customer requirements
- If customer results not being met, improvements are recommended
- Analysis techniques with data are used to “see” what is happening within a process
- Utilizing the data and analyses of these insights to help the business/entity make better decisions on how to run the business
FRONY’S ‘WAY’:
- Keep my eyes open and observe everything
- Ask questions, especially the ones that deal with something unusual
- Talk to everyone about the tasks and how they are done
- Watch the interactions of people
- Listen to the conversations people have
- Be interested
- Offer compliments where appropriate
- Never forget the expert is the one doing the actual work!