My youngest son and I attended his high school's Jr. Class College Preparation Program. While the speaker was talking about the essay questions on college applications my son told me of his friend

The friend applied to his number one choice. The application's only essay question was "What is your favorite word? And Why?

The Friends response "Concise. It is short"

He got in

“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous.”
English born American Writer and Journalist, She wrote historical fiction such as Remember the Alamo (1888). 1831-1919

www.thinkexist.com

In an earlier post, our client successfully acquired the simpler PC-based CAD (computer aided design) system. They passed on the premature major CAD CAM purchase

Phil is the engineer on the system. At one point, they were correcting 11% of his drawings. The general manager asked him why. Phil simply said "each of my drawings a reviewed at least twice by salesman and supervisors. Given that process, I treat each drawing as a draft."

When asked what would happen if we took away the check steps, the simple answer was. "I guess I would have to do it right the first time. It would seem quicker."


Believe it or not it worked well. Let people know you are taking away the nets.

Eliminate review steps

Sounds crazy! You can make things simpler and better by eliminating review or check steps. Some stay, most go. They occur from a situation, an exception or when employee was new. The idea is, by eliminating you reduce the process steps in time and work and improve quality.


Improved quality?
Keaton was the customer service manager for a printing supply distributor. She proposed to the owner and president she be allowed to approve customer credits up to $500 from $35.

Fortunately, everyone asked her why before they said no. "Customers object to long return processes. If you solve issues immediately you can replace the product and possibly make an even in larger sale." That was easy to buy.

But she was not finished

"Today how many credits do we process over $35? How do you review them? How many do you approve?"

"I did the research. We process an average of 270 credits per month. I use months, because it is your approval process cycle. I put them in your boxes, and once a month you to review them. This interferes with the entire concept of customer service."

Just as the president and owner are prepared to commit to doing it every week, she chimed in "you have never turned one down."

Think of the things that didn't have to be done!

Strategically simpler

Among the most powerful simplification concepts is DFMA -design for manufacturing and assembly. The focus is reducing the number of parts in a product design. The place to look is a company named Boothroyd and Dewhurst. In preparation for one of our quarterly executive development session they used one of our most popular products. In two weeks of preparation they had reduced the part count from 76 to 42 parts.

They modestly suggested
"we don't know the part as well as you, therefore, we may have taken some inappropriate shortcuts". No one wanted to challenge.

Their point less parts to pay for, no purchasing support, no moving or storage costs. Less parts require less assembly, have no inventory requirements and on.

Stroll through what is possible. They of course are their best spokesperson. Go to their website http://www.dfma.com/ to see examples of meaningful successes among products you know. These are great examples of marrying "what is possible" to simpler101

President George Bush awards the founders of Boothroyd Dewhurst, Inc., the National Medal of Technology "for their concept, development and commercialization of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA), which has dramatically reduced costs, improved product quality, and enhanced the competitiveness of major U.S. manufacturers."

Simplicity - Why People Fear it so Much

Psychologist John Collard of the Institute of Human Relations at Yale University described seven kinds of common fears . ( All of us have some of them .) 1 . Fear of failure 2 . Fear of sex 3 . Fear of self-defense 4 . Fear of trusting others 5 . Fear of thinking 6 . Fear of speaking 7 . Fear of being alone.


It would appear not seeking simple solutions-stems from number 5 , " fear of thinking " Where are snakes and heights?


"The Power Of Simplicity: A Management Guide to Cutting Through the Nonsense and Doing Things Right." Jack Trout . Check out Google Reader

Have Some One Else Do It

There are two key headings here

1 - Delegate and Develop - see www.possibleness.blogger.com

2 - Using the bounty of the nets - here

A powerful habit is to look at the various Google offerings. For the unitinatiated just pick one that looks interesting and play. For the experienced Google Labs is where the fun is.

Today's Discovery - Google Reader

Unbundle Projects

CAD CAM
Computer aided design
Computer aided manufacturing

In 1989 a client considered buying a CAD/CAM setup for their one piece of automation. $90,000 for the hardware and software. "You know small scale CAD is much further along than CAM! No we need them both!

Do you know you can AutoCad on a PC this week for under $4,000? They had it the next today and were creating drawings before the end of that week. Within 3 months it became a natural and valuable part of the engineering and production department.

It is 2007 and they still do not have CAM, glad they did CAD

Louis Poncetran Disease

UN BUNDLE

Our factory in Belgium was looking at alternative technologies for our most significant quality issue. Louis, typical of the Flemish, was an exceptional manufacturing engineer and requested $10,000 for a test laser. Great Idea

Six weeks later I am in Belgium and asked Louis " Where is the laser? - Not here yet!

Six Weeks later I am in Belgium again and asked Louis "Where is the Laser" - We sent it to Switzerland first." Louis answered. 'We need to see if it could be automated to the production line." Oh no

We complicated a very direct test with a second mission at the same time. It prevented our basic understanding of the possibilities for almost four months and triple the expense. Louis original idea did work

Identify and Solve one problem at a time

80% of your Revenue is from 20% of your Customers

Pareto's 80/20 applied to your company. If this is true of your company there are many implications on how you make decisions. Often these decisions do not take the 80/20 results into account.

Test it. This link provides you a very simple WONDERMENT Project to play with this idea
http://www.jacquard.com/wonderment.htm

simple simpler101

Simpler Analysis

"The Significant Few versus the Trivial Many" Joseph Juran

Juran, a key quality leader, made Pareto's 80/20 Popular .

In any analysis 80% of the results are caused by 20% of the incidents. For Pareto in 1900 Italy, 80% of the wealth in each State was in the hands of 20% of the people. 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers

For analysis use a Pareto Diagram . To learn, follow this link
http://www.qualityadvisor.com/sqc/pareto_diagram.php

simple simpler101

"Don't Add, Subtract"

There is no better simpler way to start this blog on simpler than this story


A Very Important Idea

Years ago on being appointed President of a division of a FORTUNE 100 Company, the President of the Corporation said to me

'I want you to learn one lesson When there are problems our natural instinct is to add assets - Don't.

Subtract. Subtract people, various process steps, equipment. Add is the exception to the rule" He is constantly right.

Thank You Dr. Chang

simple simpler101