DMAIC and Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives
May 10, 2012 Leave a comment
ASQ’s Quality Progress magazine for May 2012 features an article titled “On the right course” which discusses the use of DMAIC road-map for implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives in organizations. In this case DMAIC is applied as a high level tool used by organizations to lead their decision making process in CSR implementation. DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) is a proven project management tool used by six sigma practitioners on a project level for measurable processes, but the main question in case of CSR is “What to measure”. Sounds familiar?
Authors of the article have pointed out that: “More organizations have become actively engaged in social initiatives, and many are proud to promote their activities and accomplishments in annual corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports”.
In all of these, usually called, “sustainability reports” companies present their achievements on a corporate level measured by company-wide KPIs. In these reports, CSR is presented in multiple categories such as: Environmental Management, GHG Emissions, Energy Consumption, Water Consumption, Recycling, Social Impact and Diversity. The biggest issue in implementing CSR initiatives in organizations is how to deploy the strategic CSR goals on the operational level.
In the case of implementing Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives, a wider continuous improvement framework is necessary to make these changes sustainable.
“A big ship traveling at full speed requires distance and time to turn around”. (Deming)
Calyptus Consulting has helped multiple clients in several industries (Mining, Manufacturing, Financial Services) in aligning their strategic goals and implementing a sustainable continuous improvement framework using its Policy Deployment procedure. Using this procedure we have been able to analyze and develop/redesign clients’ KPIs (Including CSR) and help them deploy their strategic objectives to the operational level. KPIs have been deployed horizontally and vertically encompassing multiple organizational tiers (depending on a client size and structure) and a reporting system has been implemented to roll up the KPIs from the operational level to the system wide KPIs.
The main goal of this approach is to align company objectives from the bottom all the way to the company vision and mission and empower the organization with sustainable system able to self-direct its initiatives across the organization to fulfill strategic objectives and stay “on the right course” as the title of the article implies.
The refining business once was dominated by integrated oil companies, which both produced the oil and refined and sold the final product. But as refining and marketing became less profitable than production of crude oil, some big oil companies began spinning off and selling or shutting down refineries.
New Old Challenges for Transit Agencies
May 18, 2012 by G. Harris Leave a comment
Metro’s survey was based on the questionnaire sent to 200 transit agencies with a list of questions ranging from biggest challenges and most frequent issues they meet in the shops to training and new ways to perform services.
One of the respondents noted that “Consistent parts availability and obsolescence avoidance is an ongoing concern being addressed through product testing and alternatives, working closely with manufacturers and vendors” Another one explained that it is really hard for them to determine the spare parts ratio because of the different lead times for different types of buses. He mentioned that many of their older buses require local fabrication shops to make parts for them, as they are no longer available from manufacturers or vendors.
This approach makes it almost impossible to predict the life cycle of bus parts to be able to plan preventive/predictive spare parts replacement and significantly increases the total cost of ownership for older buses. Consequently, it increases the number of road calls because of the increased number of external service failures.
The survey also indicates that workshop managers are facing a challenge arising from transit agencies’ strategy of transferring to cleaner burning engines with new, alternative propulsion systems.
This requires significant changes in repair procedures and knowledge management. More versatile fleet requires better planning and generally increases the cost of maintenance because of the new, specialized equipment needed and more complex organization of work in all segments from procurement of spare parts to the actual repair work by mechanics.
This survey has shown the need for better long term planning of capital investments in transit agencies. What is the cut-off age of the fleet when the total cost of ownership over the remaining life cycle of a bus becomes higher than selling the vehicle and investing in a new one? What are the costs of the more complex organization and smaller spare part batches ordered because of the more versatile fleet and how fast do we want to homogenize the fleet to reduce the related costs?
These are the types of questions management of transit agencies will have to answer to successfully overcome the challenges they are facing today.
Filed under Commentary Tagged with Costs, Fleet Maintenance, Lead Time, Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance, Preventive Maintenance, Spare Parts Management, Spare Parts Ratio, Transit Agency, Warehousing