Replying to LO22173
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for sharing your stories. I can add some of my own.
With respect to resistance to making manuals:
> We did encounter the resistance you allude to and which one would expect.
> There was a culture present which did not reward, either formally or
> informally, the sharing of knowledge. The more immediate resistance was
> from the union leadership in believing that any manuals produced would
> lead to management's ability to withstand a strike because it would show
> them how to operate the equipment.
A few years ago i was involved with public transporation company in one of
the big cities in The Netherlands. It had a logistical department for all
the garages were equipment was serviced like trams, cars and autobuses.
The main problem was the chaotic demand on spare parts: now it was ten
mirrors, then seven exhausts, the front lights, whatever. So they were
heavely stocked, but still had trouble supplying the right material fast
enough in the right quantities.
Now, we made some causal maps (after teaching how to make these using
The Beer Game and computer supported brain storming), which showed that
a number of interlocked processes of shifting the burden are taking
place:
1. A bus or tram is always late. Passengers were annoyed on the waiting
times (in rain or heat), so they blamed the driver.
2. These drivers in turn shifted the blame on the traffic but could only
project this tension on the handling of the equipment by driving too
rough, driving too close past objects, braking too hard, etc.
3. The service stations personell never took the drivers seriously,
because they blamed them of maltreating (is that english?) the cars and
trams. This tension could only be relieved by blaming the logistical
department for not supplying the needed parts, when it came to timely
service. Also they most of the time created their own stocks of spare and
reworked parts, because the logistical department ... etc.
4. The logistical department silently accused the service personell of
not doing their jobs right, not registering the returns and the
withdrawals and not being able to forecast the need of parts. They took it
out however on the Information Technology Department, who were unable to
build an inventory control application with the right data-controls.
5. IT proposed to introduce a complex system.
6. And last but not least, the IT and purchasing department reported to
the Financial Director and not to the Operational Director like the
others, so Purchasing ordered large batches to obtain large discounts for
their boss.
I got a nice proof of these processes by asking if there were drivers who
serviced their own busses. As it happened, in one of the remote areas of
the city there was such a small line, a former local company, with a few
busses, a few drivers, who still worked on their own, doing the simple
maintenance themselves. Loo and behold: here there were much fewer
problems, less damage and much less stocks. (Long range coaches, drivers
making long trips, provide another example). So i adviced to make the
drivers (more) responsible for their own trams and busses. Which proved
my ignorance on the benefits of specialisation ;-D, right.
We had a two days session with representatives not only from all the
departments but also from the busses, the trams, the cars and the
underground. Some had warned us: this shall end in fighting. Off course
not, when people find common meaning, they quickly resolve their issues.
Now, during this project the city governement also wanted to have a better
procedure handbook, but up to now had been unable to persuade the men to
cooperate. However, once it became clear that the issue had to do with
taking responsibilities, that everybody had the same problem of making
agreements, that these were laid down in procedures and that making better
procedures could in fact support and ease some of the tension, they
started to make the handbooks right away.
> (This was actually the hardest and
> slowest barrier to overcome because it concerned a trust issue which
> didn't change overnight.)
We say in Holland: trust comes walking by feet (komt te voet) but leaves
by horses (vertrekt te paard).
...snip...
> Unfortunately, we just weren't fast enough. Costs weren't reduced enough
> fast enough to compensate for falling market share and lower prices
> generally within the industry. And when staff and hourly worker positions
> kept getting cut, it became more and more difficult to continue because
> basically the support just wasn't there. And management became distracted
> by the urgency of reducing the red ink immediately and took their eye off
> the longer term payoffs. Eventually, the mill was sold to another company
> which I understand has done even more cutting.
I also did a small job in a paper mill. It is such a strange, for me,
environment. On the one hand the calculate in cents and gramms, but they
produce in thousands of euro's and tons. The investments are hughe, the
profits are highly cyclical. They seem to me very "tightly run"
organisations, really lean and mean, efficiency rules, every dollar
squeezed out, reduce, reduce, reduced to the max...
In this project i learned that the interaction between order intake and
the scheduler and operators is crucial for their success. In this
oganisation, one factory was specialised in small batches of high quality,
being able to change over to a new recipe "on the fly". Also they had
little production "losses" and were very effective. A nice niche player.
The other factory was "caught in the middle": too small for real large
batches and to big for the smaller batches. Also, they tended to produce
lots of "second quality lots", having not enough control over their yield
and no good communications between sales and production. They were large
enough to have these separated. Together they created a nice (or not so
nice) Tragedy of the Commmons: because high quality paper fetches a
higher price, the bigger factory wanted to make large batches for large
trading companies of high quality paper for the prices the small factory
seemed able to charge. Being unable to produce these qualities, the tried
to reroute some of these large orders to the first factory. This factory
however, wanted to sell and produce smaller batches, working closer with
their customers, like specialised printing shops, in order to create even
higher margins, however on smaller batches.
The large trading companies demanded discounts on the high quality paper,
so the margins were reduced. At the same time, the bigger factory
sometimes did produce the large batches, but these were of the famous
"second quality". These they stored and tried to sell later for an even
lower price, soemtimes to the customers of the first factory (who wanted a
small batch) or to the big trading companies. These guys by now knew of
this policy and just waited for the price to go down or asking for a
bigger lot then the factory had in store. Forcing them to accept a new
order for a lower price, which they sometimes pushed to the smaller
factory.
When the economy in Western Europe was good, they were just good enough
to break even, however, when demand would go down .. .. .
We reached this conclusion in some workshops with the middle management:
now the realized that they were not really co-operating. They refused
however to bring this issue up with the top management. So we, as outside
consultants, were invited to bring it up. I had told my partner, who had
the lead, to talk it over informally with the CEO first. But somehow the
appointments were rescheduled, there was a day of heavy snow and we had to
bring our conclusions in front of the whole management committee. The CEO
got angry with us during the presentation and asked the middle management
whether what we were implying was true. They denied it, off course, so we
were decached then and there. Later one of the local managers came up to
us and apologized for not backing us, but you know how it is, you have a
career, a house, a family to support...
Last year i was again involved in a network of paper mills and converting
factories. Here i made a briljant (sorry to admit it, but it is one of the
best reports i wrote. Also it is probably the reason why the report was
not accepted) analysis of the situation: a double "accidental
adversaries", with the ICT-organisation caught in the trenches and the
external consultancy firm walking right into the same trap. And also a
very nice cover-up AND a cover-up of the cover-up. The strangest thing
happened: during a work shop i had some of the people who are unknowingly
playing this "game" realize what was happening and during the process i
could see them blocking themselves completely. One even started to deny
reality with both hands. My co-facilitator, the very capable tsu-jan, was
also unable to intervene. Later, we designed a better intervention, but
that required the co-operation of the consultancy firm and they preferred
to walk into the trap... . The latest thing i heard is that it is still a
stale mate.
We are on the road to enlightment, but when somebody said to me: "I see
light at the end of the tunnel", i said to him: "then you're probably
looking back".
Kind regards,
Jan Lelie
--Drs J.C. Lelie CPIM (Jan) LOGISENS - Sparring Partner in Logistical Development Mind@Work - est. 1998 - Group Decision Process Support Tel.: (+ 31) (0)70 3243475 or car: (+ 31)(0)65 4685114 http://www.mindatwork.nl and/or taoSystems: + 31 (0)30 6377973 - Mindatwork@taoNet.nl
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