Steve Beeler

You have a goal…I have a way to get you there.

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Great Mementos

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Shelter in place is providing time for many projects that would not get done otherwise. While decluttering, I found some great mementos. Not just souvenirs, mementos tell a story.  Here are four COVID-19 decluttering favorites:

Mementos Steve Beeler with Dr Deming circa 1989

During the late 80’s, Ford (and the rest of the global auto industry) was desperately trying to catch the Japanese on quality. Part of that effort was to put problem solving resources into assembly plants.

I was on one of the plant quality teams, assigned to Louisville Assembly Plant. We received extensive training in statistical methods: SPC, DOE, etc. During a training off-site at the Dearborn Inn, W. Edwards Deming stopped by for a visit. Yes, that Dr. Deming.

After an impromptu talk, photos were taken. I am just behind Dr. Deming’s right shoulder. On his right are David Kho and Steve Redding. To Dr. Deming’s left are Ben Monhollen and Jim Dottavio. I think that is Dave Johnson at the left edge of the photo.

Mementos Steve Beeler LAP Process Capability Reviewe circa 1991

The next two mementos came from Q1.  Ford’s Q1 quality award was a well-conceived program to “stretch” plants to improve quality methods and systems. A major Q1 stretch was to demonstrate process capability on (I think) 50 significant characteristics. An SC was something important to our customers: dirt in paint, door efforts, box-to-cab fits. Voice of the customer.

All SC’s were documented with flow charts, fishbone diagrams, control plans, reaction plans, and control charts on SPC boards near the production operation. The task was to first achieve statistical control and then reduce variation. The higher the Cp/Cpk, the more points toward Q1.

Here’s a photo of the Brakes SPC board during Louisville Assembly Plant’s process capability review. The SC’s would have been brake pedal travel and parking brake pedal effort.

I am just right of center in the red tie. John Coleman is behind me. It’s Lanny Vincent in the short sleeve shirt looking in. I think that is Vera Linnansalo to his left. It looks like Steve Redding in the light blue shirt in the back with Stu Kendrick mostly hidden behind him.

Mementos Steve Beeler LAP Ranger Box-to-Cab Fit circa 1990

Here’s a summary sheet from the Louisville Q1 Process Capability Review. This SC, Ranger Box-to-Cab Margin Left Side, earned 13 points towards Q1 with a Cp/Cpk of 1.35/1.28. In the background of the image, you can see the Ford Blue SPC board.

I don’t remember the two operators in this photo but I can remember others on the team like it was yesterday: Larry Graham, Bob Bearden, Frank Kindrick, Ed Atherton. Good people, all of them. It was a busy time…we were working towards Q1, preparing for the initial Explorer launch, and building 87 (!) Rangers and Bronco II’s per hour.

Mementos Steve Beeler ISO 9001 Pocket Guide

After all the plants were through Q1, the next stretch was ISO 9001. Somebody convinced Alex Trotman that ISO 9001 registration was a perfect fit for his “Ford 2000” global reorganization. A letter was signed and the two-year clock started ticking.

I found myself on a very capable team responsible for the initial registration of 31 North American stamping and assembly plants.  Project management?  This was it.

A big challenge (and there were many) was communication. How to get one message to tens of thousands of employees?

Building on lessons learned at Oakville Assembly Plant’s single site ISO 9002 registration, Julie Trosen designed a pocket guide. I wrote the content, a “Cliff’s Notes” version of the Vehicle Operations quality manual. Don Riker sold the concept to senior leadership. Carlos Filio translated it into Spanish for our Mexican plants. A PO was approved for 100,000 pocket guides.

The story continues. One by one, other Ford activities adopted the pocket guide…and soon it was global! I found nine versions in a hanging file. I am sure there were more.

And the 31 plants were registered in only 21 months…whew!

Great mementos, to be sure.

COVID-19 Toolkit

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COVID-19 Toolkit“Adapt or perish.” This H.G. Wells quote captures perfectly today’s business environment. So much has changed so quickly. COVID-19 is affecting everything, everybody, everywhere. From six of my blog posts, here is a post COVID-19 toolkit to adapt your business to today’s new operational challenges:

SQDCME. There is just so much to do. When things are hectic, SQDCME prioritizes competing objectives and provides focus on the vital few: Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, Morale, and Environment.

Managing by Walking Around Quality Audit. People have changed seats. Many are now working from home. In just ten questions, you can quickly verify that your quality system is still functioning.

Business Process Mapping. Business processes are being re-engineered for a suddenly remote world. Process mapping answers questions about what actually happens inside your company. As such, it is an excellent tool for designing robust processes and communicating changes.

5-Step Throughput Improvement Model. Customer order patterns have changed and your internal operational constraints have moved. Here’s a quick refresher on Theory of Constraints and Goldratt’s 5-step throughput improvement model…how to find and break bottlenecks.

Sales Funnel. Is your constraint now outside the four walls of your plant? This blog combines business process mapping, Theory of Constraints, and Lean Thinking to improve the throughput of your sales funnel.

8D Team Oriented Problem Solving. An 8D is a simple but structured problem solving method that reinforces team work, encourages a bias for action, and delivers robust and permanent solutions across organizational boundaries.

Six great tools and methods to better equip you and your team for post COVID-19 challenges. Please feel welcome to put them to use. Adapt, don’t perish. 🙂

Pro Bono Help

The COVID-19 business contraction feels more severe than the credit crunch ten plus years ago. For me, that likely means not much in the way of new projects for the next six months or longer.

I will be fine. The kids are through college and my retirement is funded. But for those who work to provide for their families, the ramifications of COVID-19 are unthinkable.

Need some help with this post COVID-19 toolkit? Don’t hesitate to reach out.

Pro bono, I am offering my time to those struggling operationally to get their businesses going again. Quality, delivery, and cost solutions. Business processes for a newly remote world. Project management. A fresh eyes look. There is no reason for me to be sitting at home while small businesses are going under and jobs are disappearing.

If you are a neighbor along the Lake Michigan shoreline, here’s the link to the Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce COVID-19 Business Toolkit for government agency contacts, general business resources,  best practices, etc.

Stay safe!

Steve Beeler

Business Process Mapping

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Business process mapping answers the who, where, when, and how questions about what actually happens inside your company. They can range from relatively narrow questions (how are credit applications approved?) to more comprehensive questions (how is a customer enquiry turned into a factory work order?)

business process mapping

While a business process can be complicated, business process mapping itself is straightforward. Here’s how:

Only three elements are required:

(1) A box captures a process step. A typical business process will have dozens or more steps from start to finish. Write process steps in a “do something” format (“Review Credit Application”).

(2) A diamond captures a decision point. They are often written as questions (“Credit Approved?” or “OK?”). Yes goes one way, no goes another. Diamonds are very important as they are often the start of rework loops. In our credit approval example, an incomplete credit application (a quality defect) will have to be sent back for missing information, a waste of both time and money.

(3) A triangle captures inventory. In our credit approval example, there is a queue of applications (electronic or paper) ahead of the analyst. Where inventory collects in a business process is a great clue as to where the constraint (bottleneck) resides. Break the bottleneck, and the throughput of the entire business process is improved.

Connect these elements in process logic and you have a business process map. A brainstorm session with sticky notes on a white board is a great way to get started. Map your existing process first. Take a picture with your cell phone…this is your current state process. Now for the continuous improvement. Experiment (move things around, add or delete steps, change approval authorizations, change acceptance levels, etc) until you have a nimble and robust business process.

As an example of business process mapping, here is a redacted portion of the upstream “sales funnel” for a manufacturer of custom products:

Sales Funnel map

Business process mapping is a great training aide. There is no better way to visualize how a new employee’s roles and responsibilities fit into the bigger picture.

Need some help?  Click HERE for my contact page.

Project Management Tools

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Project Management

Project management is a mix of art and science. Here are three project management tools that you should have in your toolkit. None are complicated and together they provide breadth and depth in project definition, design, and control.

Project Plan

A critical early (if not first!) step in project management is to paint a picture of the project: who, what, where, when, and how. The more complete the picture, the more likely is success.

The project plan describes the project in its entirety: deliverables, timing, people, market and financial analyses, etc. This document goes by a variety of names. A business plan for a startup. A product direction letter for a new gizmo. A statement of work for software installation.

I outline my project plans in Word. Outlines are fast. Fast to write. Fast to read. Fast to edit. Fast to change.

What differs from one situation to another are the main project headings.

Fourteen headings were needed to paint the picture of the FF50th, a large event that a I recently managed: Objectives, When and Where, Leadership Team, Car Eligibility, Tire Rules, Driver Eligibility, and so on.

Another set of headings were needed for a cleantech startup: Executive Summary, Market Opportunity, Technology, Product, Competition, Management Team, Business Model, Manufacturing Plan, Financials, Risks, etc.

Now that everyone sees the big picture, the next tool is a Gantt chart to break the project down into sequential and parallel workstreams.

Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a great way to visualize project tasks: start dates, end dates, what can be done in parallel, what must be done in sequence. Here’s how to build one:How to Build a Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a matrix of tasks and time. As few as two dozen tasks are often enough. Depending on project duration, time increments can be in days, weeks, or months.

I do Gantt charts in Excel. List tasks down the left in start date order. If two or more tasks start on the same date, use end dates to break ties. Simply fill cells between start / finish dates with the color of your choice to illustrate task timing.

Write Gantt chart line items in a “do something” format: design logo, assemble prototype, etc. Pairing an action with an object provides clear, concise task definition. Building in milestones or touchpoints is a great way to keep everyone focused on project deliverables and moving forward.

The depth of a Gantt chart in a time period indicates how many tasks must be worked on simultaneously. If your Gantt chart goes vertical, spread out the work.

Any line item on the Gantt chart that requires an invention, regulatory approval, or some other significant uncertainty must be managed carefully. I pull risky line items as far forward as possible to provide extra time. No Rube Goldberg stuff on my critical path!

Next tool: a punch list with detailed who, what, and when assignments.

Punch List

Like a Gantt chart, a punch list is a matrix with tasks down the left. That’s where the similarity ends. While a Gantt chart provides big-picture visualization, a punch list captures specific assignments. Here’s how to build one:How to Build a Punch List

I also do punch lists in Excel. List tasks down the left. Order is not important…the tasks will be sorted many times as the project moves forward. Write punch list line items in a “do something” format to provide clear, concise task definition. Punch list tasks will be much more specific than the workstreams on your Gantt chart.

Each line item will have columns to capture its status, who it is assigned to, and when it is due. The comments capture recent actions, next steps, agreements, decisions, and other news. This is the project’s memory…write good comments and update them frequently!

A risk column can highlight higher risk tasks. Uncertainty demands extra attention. Get an early start on these items and watch them like a hawk.

I like a countdown to the project’s due date front and center…the clock is ticking!

A punch list can grow unwieldy with additional line items as a project moves forward. Color coding and sorting help highlight what needs attention and when.

Project Management Tools

Turn your project management into more science than art with these three project management tools.  Fast and nimble, you can always know where you are and what you need to be working on next.

Do you have a project to manage? Click HERE to ping me. I will be happy to help you set up your project management tools.

Sales Funnel

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The Sales Funnel is at the core of business development. Theory of Constraints and Lean Thinking are manufacturing fundamentals. Good things happen when these concepts intersect.

Sales Funnel

Start by mapping your sales funnel from the beginning. What are the steps from contact to lead to prospect to customer? Capture decision points and criteria to qualify leads and prospects. Document rework loops where steps are repeated…and why. Note IT systems utilized along the way. This long chain of events will be cross-functional: credit approval in finance, feasibility in engineering, costing in purchasing, etc.

Next collect flow metrics: numbers of leads and prospects, conversion rates to quotes and orders, days and dollars in funnel, etc.

At a level of abstraction, your process map is beginning to look a lot like a factory…because it is! The sales funnel converts leads into customers just like a factory converts raw materials into finished products. Both have capacity constraints. Both are full of waste. Both can be improved through Theory of Constraints and Lean Thinking.

Consider a case study.

A client company was in a business that designed, manufactured, and installed mostly custom products. Its sales funnel was a project management process that included site renderings, permitting, and electromechanical design. While there was a backlog of outstanding quotes, the company’s factory was often waiting for orders. Could the flow through the project management process (aka sales funnel) be improved?

Here is a redacted portion of the company’s very complex sales funnel that incorporates the entire span of project management activities through installation:

Sales Funnel map

From this map, short-term bottleneck actions were identified to reduce waiting, rework, and overprocessing:

• Publish standards for weights and measures
• Refine pre-production status codes
• Scrub standard product catalog to eliminate pricing errors
• Expedite new customer credit approvals
• Increase visibility of long-lead items
• Standardize permitting process
• Identify key jurisdiction permitting contacts
• Provide building codes and standards training

Longer term, project management software was implemented to further improve the linkage (and communication) between upstream project management and downstream purchasing and manufacturing.

Operations engineering tools like Theory of Constraints and Lean Thinking are not just for factories.  When applied business processes, in this case the Sales Funnel, more money comes out and faster.  What’s not to like about that?

For more on this topic, click HERE for a great blog post with examples of effective sales funnels.