I just read an interview in Harvard Business Review by Edgar H. Shein (Coutu 2002). The article was of the type where you feel at home and learn something. Because it's Thursday and I'm done for the week with all cases on service operations management, I thought to share with you Sheins thoughts.

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Anxiety can be translated as fear or excitement. These are two words with each one according to me has a negative connotation and the other sounds more positive. For how is it, is the eagerness or anxiety that drives learning? To look to myself, I think I study of both excitement and anxiety. I think it's fun to learn things but I do it also because I have to get an education. Shein says that learning does not happen by itself for most want people just to be, eat and run around. This is true, or what do we do when we take vacations? Learning takes place according to Shein at after the following conditions:

Learning anxiety (resistance to change) <Survival anxiety (survival threat)

There, learning anxiety account for our motivation to not want change, not wanting to learn, just to be tough and some if nothing has happened and survival anxiety is the requirement that we have to learn because the world is changing and we need to keep up with in development. According to Shein can not anxiety translated into enthusiasm. It's more about the press and musts from one or another direction. Shein argues that management often takes the easy way out and push the press in a learning organization by threatening to terminate or cuts (whip instead of carrots). For some, this leads to change and learning, but for some it can also lead to a passive wait-and-see attitude. What many organizations do not manage is to provide security with the necessary security to reduce resistance to change. Management must lead by example and use carrots to drive innovation and development.

I think definitely not the false sense of security. While I agree with Shein. I think it's better to build up excitement than anxiety. It is that small innovative companies are good at and where we as operations managers have a role to play in our large industrial companies! The old quality guru Edward Deaming's 14 points for effective leadership includes Drive out fear - drive out fear. For it is not going to be afraid of changes and improvements. One must always look ahead. If you are afraid and do not dare evolves, competitors and drive over and then smokes the employment and security that you were so afraid of anyway!

References

Coutu, DL (2002), The Anxiety of Learning, Harvard Business Review, 80 (3), 100-106.

Fourth week of the course on Operations Management Master's program Quality and Operations Management has focused on product development. This is according to me perhaps the most interesting part of the master's program, perhaps because I have a history of having developed EverTee, eternity tee for golf verdict . During the week we had a guest lecture by the SCA, has been at Volvo 3P and solved a Harvard Business Review case studies on product development (Le Petit Chef).

Dilemmas in product

Product development, or at least strategy and portfolio theory in product development, has a lot to make tradeoffs. Organizations are constantly faced with product development dilemmas. Typical examples of dilemmas in product development are:

• What projects to be developed - in a mature organization, it is often the case that the number of projects exceeds the number of available resources. Many organizations make the mistake of having too many projects in the portfolio at the same time, leading to missed deadlines. Another mistake is to allow each engineer to be on too many projects. Classic in product development, Wheel Wight & Clark (1992), shows that the optimal number of projects for an engineer to attend at the same time is two. Then the engineer switch between projects when any of the projects are stationary. At the same time not too much of the time spent on meetings and non-value-added time.
  

  Resource utilization in the number of parallel project

• If the product is manufactured internally or externally
• When a product shall be released from R & D? Sent -> competitors get ahead; early -> for bad product.

Time, frequency, focus and strategy for where and how they must be manufactured (sourcing) is usually mentioned as four key dimensions of product strategy. With a focus means that the product mix should not be so broad that products kannibaliserar on each other.

Product Portfolio Management - product portfolio management

Scientists today agree that portfolio management can not only be made after a financial perspective. Several studies have shown that this leads to ineffective results. Many companies are now estimates of such repayment or present value of their projects and then take the decision after the project has the best numbers. Financial estimates are of course always speculation as they rely on a number of uncertain assumptions.

A far better approach to portfolio management, ie to select their projects in the portfolio, is to use several different methods for assessing the projects. Cooper, Edgett and Kleinschmidt (1999) have proposed that the portfolio should be selected along any project that best fits with its strategy, has a good balance and is financially viable.

Strategy for portfolio management

Strategy for the product portfolio

Volvo AB has a three-pronged strategy that has chosen to focus on safety, quality and environment. If their product portfolio to be good from a strategic perspective, so all the elements of the strategy is reflected in the projects in the portfolio. If Volvo says that the three perspectives of safety, quality and environment equal weight is 1/3 of the projects consist of improvements in each area. As it stands today, most of Volvo's portfolio in environmental research thus is their main policy dimension.

The balance of the product portfolio

In some dimensions are important to product portfolio is in balance. Such a dimension such as time to market. In contrast to profitability perspective, where you want to select the projects with the highest profitability, wish it when it comes time to market, selecting projects as widely as possible. It should be a balance between long and short term projects.

Another dimension where there should be a balance is in the type of project portfolio contains. The portfolio include a balance of small improvement projects, new platform projects, breakthrough projects (in areas where the company has not previously served), and pure research (where the exact use of the developed technology is unclear). However, it should also be a balance between projects that develop products and projects that develop processes for manufacturing products. Product and process development are equally important!

Financial viability of the product portfolio

Financial viability is conveniently measured by return on investment, ROI = profit / investment, as in the case of product development can be translated to:

ROI = net present value of the investment / cost of engineering hours [%]

Credit models are common to determine the product portfolio

It is common points models are used for weighting the different dimensions to each other. It is important that the process is as objective as possible so that scores are not adjusted retrospectively to change PORTFOLIO composition. Score weighting to be determined along the three dimensions and then stand firm.

References

Clark. K. B & Wheelwright. S. C. (1992). Revolutionizing Product Development - Quantum Leaps in Speed, Efficiency, and Quality. New York: The Free Press

Cooper. RG, Edgett. SJ & Kleinschmidt EJ (1999) New Product Portfolio Management: Practices and Performance. J Prod Innov Manag 1999; 16:333-351

The second week of classes in the course Operations Management at Chalmers has been a week of focus on quality. During the week, we made a study was to SKF and solved a case. Quality is the core of the Total Quality Management movement, looks at a company. According to Operations Management theories, there are five performance measures that a company competes. These are price, speed, reliability, flexibility and quality. Quality is here seen as key to the camp costs and a better functioning organization. The cost of not caring about their quality is huge. By putting quality at the center, a company must continually improve themselves in order to eliminate waste and therefore will always evolve. Were key to good-quality total quality management in the principles presented in the cornerstone model (English Cornerstone model). The principles are:

• working with processes,
• continuous improvement,
• base decisions on facts,
• involve everyone in the company,
• have a committed leadership and
• focus on the customer

Customer focus is important here to emphasize, because quality is defined as "meeting or exceeding customer needs and expectations" (Bergman and Klefsjö, 2010). These are not the only external customers but to all processes in a company should see its next process, the customer.

Visit SKF in Gothenburg

There is a lot to discuss in terms of quality subject: From the principles / values ​​that the topic is based on (you can also divide these into three main elements teamwork, customer focus and continuous improvement: etc etc) to the methods (Six Sigma, Lean, Zero Defects, Policy Deployment) used to comply with the principles with the help of various tools (control plots, the quality house, ...). Because there are so many different tools, methods and principles to work with, it is interesting is how the company chooses to apply all this in its strategy. What we are seeing more and more is that a strategy for manufacturing is becoming the material if a company is to survive and to produce the products customers demand in an increasingly competitive.

SKF has 10-thousand products in its catalog and also more customized projects. To produce all these variants, it is impossible to have a process where you like Volvo produced on an assembly line. All layers have different sizes, materials, weight, etc.. However, complete factories specialize in a warehouse is also difficult because the customers are found worldwide. However, grouping the products you something by size. Stocks of approximately the same size produced in the same factory. The process is fairly automated, and the bearings are made in series of small areas of production. Conversions are made all the time and average time for this is 9 hours. In order to create a flexible production process that contains so little work in progress as possible is the challenge to reduce conversion times. This is where SKF is working with Total Quality Management!

The first improvement we had done was to start working with order and method (Japanese 5S method). Previously, all tools and parts for the conversion were to throw in a drawer a mess. It has taken time to look for tools and sometimes parts come off. Any time the machine is stationary, non-value-added. By keeping track of stuff and create a structured system has a lot of time saved. SKF made the analogy of building a replica of a house in Lego. If you have a drawing and Lego bricks are sorted by type and color, it is much easier than if everything is helter buns. This exercise in order and you drive with the operators right now for training purposes.

LEGO to illustrate 5S

Another improvement has been done is to start with continuous improvement and standardized work. By having thought out processes for how the machines will be reset and update these can reduce wastage. The workers are free to work on improvement and standardized work which increases their sense of ownership.

Total Quality Management is a very powerful tool. We see example after example of companies that apply the principles and reach new record levels. SKF is no exception. According to me, however the company a lot to do before they become as efficient as Volvo or Toyota. However, there is great potential as competitors lag behind SKF when it comes to technology, width and quality.

My idea

I think that many manufacturing companies have been extremely efficient factories. Sweden also constantly moving production abroad. It is in office, design, product development and medical care as the major improvement opportunities exist. I think there are great many offices that could benefit greatly by defined processes, continuous improvement and some of the other principles of Total Quality Management advocates. This will I drive in my thesis and in my future career.

Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award case

The week also included a case. This was to comment on an application that a company had made to the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award, awarded by the American president. This evaluation was done after the theory and the criteria that are of the case. This was a good exercise because it gave me insight into how an application for a quality award / certification can be made. By making such a request the company to think properly about how they work with quality. This is great because it offers several suggestions for areas where companies can improve.

References

Bergman. B. & Klefsjö. B. (2010). Quality - from Customer Needs to Customer Satisfaction. Lund: Routledge.

> A political push

Yesterday I commented on the rödgrönas proposals for a new high-speed rail, which I think will be a flop. Today I intend to comment on another flop. The proposal is the Liberals are talking about in terms of school, to remove the power to apply to college for some programs. The proposal in itself might not be so bad, not everyone has the motivation to study. But I think it sends the wrong message and is a step in the wrong direction. Whether you're researching qualities or if you are illiterate, I think you should go through certain stages of the school. All of our systems need to be competent for Sweden to be able to keep his high competence and competitive advantage. That we are both smart workers and employees is a huge advantage over Indonesia and China. This is where we can compete for in the future as a country with a strong industry, many innovations and high living standards.

I am now home from Australia and read my second year at Master Quality and Operations Management. To be more precise, I do courses for the first and last six months since I finished reading half two and three in Australia. The course I'm reading now called Operations Management and is an introduction to the topic. This means that I have heard everything that is in the course before, which might not make it very exciting. On the other hand, I think the course is exciting, repetition is necessary for learning.

Since it is raining in Gothenburg, today's workout is complete, food is eaten, the Chernobyl disaster is listened to by P3 documentary, there is not much left to do than to write an interesting post. Operations Management course at Chalmers has an arrangement with seven themed weeks that introduces all aspects of the subject. A new professor holding the levers of each week. Competition is good, each professor would be able to boast of having had the best week for next year's coffee breaks. The implication of this is that it is filing every Friday which frees up the weekend for other activities such as employment, training or special occasions.

Strategy Week with Mats Winroth

First week of lessons have been about business strategy (Operations strategy). We have had a number of articles to read, a literary seminar where I presented the article "Managing process technology - Further empirical evidence from manufacturing plants" and a small case where we would write about the strategy for a company.

The main lessons to be learned from the week is the importance of having a strategy that everyone is on and how to design such a strategy.

Strategy means focus and trade-offs (trade-offs)

Traditionally, researchers believe that senior management has not adopted a strategy implies focus and trade-offs. If you choose what you will do fine as it means that you will do a lot of other things poorly. It's about doing the right things well. If you choose to focus on low prices, as many companies do, it will mean big volumes, difficulties in providing for: short, a loss of flexibility. Skinner (1969) writes, among other things, that companies too often fail to do so. After the war, all goods sold but today you can not make strategic mistakes companies have to produce exactly what the customer requests!

HR - Technology

Technology investments must be made in line with the human skills development. GM tried in the 70s to invest at a competitive advantage through increased automation. Since no one knew how the technology dropped GM rather than market share from 60% to 33% in the U.S.. Investment in automation is also a lot of tradeoffs. An automated system is not flexible and requires high volume for profitability, which has been shown to be contrary to what the customer wants. Automating for the right reasons, for jobs that are repetitive and standardized.

Tools for setting strategy

There are a lot of tools for working with the strategy. Some of these are:

• "Strategy Model"
• Operations strategy matrix
• Importance performance matrix

Strategy The model says that the four different perspectives should be considered when the strategy should be formulated. The best strategy is obtained when all perspectives are in harmony (English alignment). The perspectives are:

• "Top down" - The strategy must be the management team and pushed down on the rest of the company.
• "Bottom Up" - The strategy must come from the company's operations and the daily lessons that are available in the meeting with customers.
• "Operations Resources" - A company has some resources in the form of machinery, well-established process and human skills. These resources are difficult to change that strategy must be decided by what the company is good at.
• "Market Perspective" - ​​Customers 2010 is picky and will not buy anything. You have to listen to them and just make what they want. Everything we produce must have a customer. This perspective is becoming increasingly important today. Many, including me, agree that the customer must be the core of all activities.

The important thing is that all perspectives have their space and not overlooked. Involvement of the entire company in strategy creation is another important aspect. A guest speaker said that he had seen various business areas during the creation of their respective strategies in two ways.

1. By involving all
2. By the Head of business unit strategy, writes a Wednesday evening on the couch

Guest lecturer said that it is impossible to physically see the difference in perspective from individual managers. The remarkable thing is that when it comes to implementation of the strategy is the first approach to strategy formulation is considerably more successful.

I am a member of a candidate group that writes an essay entitled "Tomorrow's assembly line in light of yesterday's experiences." Candidate work compares Swedish and Japanese assembly lines, and so-called alternative assembly in the form previously practiced in Volvo's plants in Uddevalla and Kalmar. The essay focuses on the assembly line in the automotive industry and our starting point the analysis is a sustainability perspective. By this we mean that the future of assembly lines must be socially, ecologically and economically sustainable (after the so-called triple bottom line -approach).

Within the social dimension, we have looked at what it is like to work in a production system and how it will / should be to work in the future. A matter of course is that tomorrow's assembly line will provide a minimal amount of repetitive strain injuries and heavy lifting, it must be ergonomic.

Japanese assembly lines are usually machine-driven, which means the car is moving forward with constant speed. The worker will then go by car or ride on a moving sidewalks. Work that takes place inside the car can sometimes be very challenging because space is limited in all dimensions and adapted for prisoners. Ruku-ruku-chair is a very interesting solution to the problem. The chair hangs on an arm that comes with the car. The arm is usually attached to the ceiling, but I have also observed the solutions it is screwed into a device in the floor, between the rolling pavement and the car.

Ruku-ruku is an ergonomic, originally from Japan, used for mounting in tight spaces