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I have been working on a series of posts detailing my thoughts on how I would fix or turn around a business operation. I would take a stab at a scenario an MBA candidate/intern threw at me. So far we have talked about financials, how to get a handle on your customers and understanding your employees in an effort to get them more engaged.

Today we will talk about processes. Specifically understanding your processes and then applying continuous improvement to those processes. For those just joining, our hypothetical situation is a manufacturing operation that is in need of being turned around.My background is service operations. I have spent a lot of time in call centers in the financial services, telecom, and BPO industries. I’ve run customer service, technical support, inbound and out sales operations – you name it, I have the t-shirt.

Along the way, I picked up a very large helping of quality process management. I’ve gone through an ISO certification (and passed). I’ve been through a New York State Governor’s Award application process (it’s the state level Malcom Baldridge and we came in second). I’ve embraced and almost implemented COPC standards (call center six sigma).

I want to know how long it takes us to produce the widgets. I want to know how long it takes to ship the widgets. And I want to understand how long it takes us to support the customers buying our widgets. The current quality fad is Lean. Fine. Whatever. It goes back to Drucker. Total Quality Management. Six Sigma. ISO. All essentially the same stuff. All result in a quality framework. We can get what we need without spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on a “quality initiative.”

Coming from the land of technical support – any time someone was working on ANYTHING, they needed to be in a support ticket. Assigned to a customer. With the clock running. The same principles apply to production. Where do we have defects? Where do we require re-work? How long does it take?

I want to see rolled up reporting, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. How many tickets, top 10 issues, AGING of tickets. The same principles apply to production. Where do we have defects? Where do we require re-work? How long does it take?

The big tool here is doing root cause analysis. And, really, that is what this whole series is about. Figuring out why your business is struggling and setting it on a better path. RCA is actually very simple, but you have to be honest and authentic. You have to eliminate assumptions. Assume nothing! And the best thing about RCA is that you can do it without doing math.

A great tool for identifying root cause is the 5 Whys. Get  yourself a fishbone diagram. (there are templates for word and excel off that link.) And start working through each situation. Do it in groups. And I don’t mean groups of managers. Again – USE YOUR TEAM(s). Don’t do this around a big conference table with your managers. Go to the floor. Talk to the people DOING the work. Better yet, get a cross-functional team going. You will be amazed at what 3 people from different business units come up with.

You may have to do some brainstorming. Don’t roll your eyes at me! It works. Sometimes you have to help people shake the cobwebs off. Sometimes you have to help them make the transition from step by step process thinking to stepping back to a broader view. Get yourself a whiteboard and start drawing the mindmap of the brainstorming session. You will quickly get to cause and effect relationships.

So there you go. Get your non-manager people together. Give them some tools. And let them have at it. Don’t be afraid to use your fancy watch and do some simple time studies. If it takes you 20 minutes to enter an order while the customer is on the phone – you have a problem. If your widget making machine is down for an hour out of every 8 hour shift you probably have a problem. (I can’t say for sure, maybe that is normal.)

Next time, I will wrap this series up with some final thoughts. I hope this is proving beneficial. Please leave a comment or tweet this out into the internets!