Systems Management Elements

The objective of this element group is to create the most cost effective organization possible through the careful applica­tion of resources—our people, equipment, and suppliers.

Meeting Effectiveness is critical for making the best use of people's time. How many time do you attend meetings that start late and only have 50% attendance? Too many! This element teaches companies the five "A"'s of meetings: Attendance, Agenda, Attitude, Attention, and Actions. The first step is to show up on time! A performance measure­ment on meeting attendance can be established to drive this behavior. Next is to have a prepared agenda that directs the flow of the meeting. Third, each person must have the attitude that they will contribute, but not contrib­ute more than their fair share. Fourth, attention must be paid to the agenda and the facts at hand, and not wander into areas that are outside the scope of the meeting. Fifth, actions should be documented with due dates and respon­sibilities, and be available to each attendee within one hour of the meeting's end!

A simple "process check" technique can help judge the effectiveness of the meeting. It is essentially "process control" applied to the activity of having meetings!

Workload Management contains a set of techniques to manage the flow of work in terms of leveling the load and balancing the flow. For example, there are times when the billing process is especially busy, or the payroll activity is hectic. Successful companies attempt to predict the peaks and valleys in the work flow and take proactive steps to get all work done on time with no added cost.

Performance measurements that reflect success here would be the number of employees that are cross trained on a given number of jobs. Another would be the work load backlog for a given process.

Supplier Partnerships focus on providing goods and services for the lowest possible cost—not the lowest quoted price. Our experience shows that up to 40% of the cost of materials is contained in non price areas such as inspec­tion, processing purchase orders, rework, expediting, repackaging, invoice corrections, and accounts payable activities. Supplier partnership concepts focus on the non-price areas in terms of developing supplier partnerships to eliminate these cost adding activities.

Applicable performance measurements include the num­ber of certified suppliers used, the quantity of goods deliv­ered directly to the point of use, and the percentage reduction in the supplier base.

Process Thinking teaches us to think of every activity as a process. It has a beginning condition, an ending condi­tion, a sequence of events to get from the beginning to the end, inputs to make the process happen, and outputs of the
desired results. All processes are traps for variation (a huge enemy of management) and potentially contain many cost adding steps. The entire process may in fact be completely unnecessary. Process investigation techniques allow participants to systematically question every detail of the process. What is being done, and WHY is it done; who does it and WHY does that person do it; where is it done and WHY is it done there, how is it done and WHY is it done that way, when is it done and WHY is it done then? The key is to use process analysis tools to capture exactly what is happening and then question every detail.

A suitable performance measurement would be to deter­mine the percentage reduction in the total number of process steps, or the portion of cost adding vs. value adding steps.

To be Continued