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Five steps to excellence.

Article Excerpt
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

No one ever said excellence was painless. More than anything else, keep in mind that achieving excellence is largely a human resources issue. Begin by aligning expectations (easier said than done), then allow people to make mistakes. Measurement and commitment to success are essential, of course. And finally, support continued success.

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The drive for excellence has become a ubiquitous quest in manufacturing. While there are almost as many definitions of manufacturing excellence as there are organizations trying to achieve it, standards to which all should aspire do exist. Manufacturing excellence is the process of achieving benchmark performance that includes:

* Minimum 1.33 Cpk first-time quality

* 100 percent on-time customer service

* Year-over-year process cost reduction

* A zero-harm commitment to safety

While presenting the critical few elements of manufacturing excellence, the above list also challenges the concept of continuous improvement. Organizations have been working on these four performance areas for years without achieving these levels of performance. Excellence is not a matter of getting better each year. It is about setting expectations and taking specific steps required to achieve them. Simply put, excellence is a relentless commitment to an in-control process ethos. Establishing and maintaining all processes in statistical control is the minimum first step.

To identify and personalize the need to set benchmark results as minimum standards of excellence, all one has to do is listen to the constant media reports of outsourcing and competitive job loss or, in many cases, simply visit and talk with one's unemployed neighbor. The need for excellence is without a doubt the most pressing issue facing U.S. management.

For those who are not there, achieving a 1.33 Cpk first-time quality level and 100 percent on-time customer service reduces product cost and increases profitability to unimagined and unexpected levels. In many cases, margins can and do improve to such a degree that outsourcing becomes impractical and domestic competition is dwarfed. Operations and quality experts who have achieved such performance levels have witnessed 20 percent to 30 percent overall cost reductions.

Add to this the power of year-over-year actual product cost reduction and the creation of a caring safety environment, and the odds of survival begin to shift. Excellence is about protecting jobs from foreign and domestic competition. It is about growing the business and providing balance to all stakeholders. It is about acknowledging that the past efforts of employees are the only reason current opportunities exist.

Without such performance excellence there is no way employees will ever be able to enjoy their rightful place in a balanced reward system. In today's market, manufacturing excellence is a survival mandate and a management imperative. Understanding this reality and accepting direct responsibility for...

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