Business and Organizational Excellence

What do you mean by Business Excellence? The idea of Business Excellence within the context of quality mangement resulted from advances and compilation of concepts and philosophies that demand organizations to become, not only profitable, but excellent in everything they do. In their struggle to deliver, produce and provide high quality products, services, or projects, organizations must capitalize on the limited resources that they have or will obtain. They must use/work on/employ/deploy their resources to ensure continuity and sustainability (i.e. survive and the intiatives continue to work).

One important resource or asset is the people. Not only companies must locate, select , recruit the talents from the global pool of human beings, they must provide the avenue and opportunities that the talented workers are able to perform at the level desired by the organization, producing the desired outcomes, results, performance, as agreed by the parties involved. And at the same time providing a caring and emotionally stable environment which the person can work.

I was in Port Dickson on Saturday and Sunday 25th and 26th April 2009, participating in a workshop on a new Master of Science in Engineering Business Management programme with industry and academics brainstorming (with some heated arguments) about the subject matters, the contents, the outcomes and the expected product out of the program. When discussing about the program outcomes, one guy from Proton pointed out the need to incorporate the soft elements missing in many academic programmes. It is about injecting the elements of not only IQ but EQ, SQ and CQ in the programme. How it will be done is another matter (or another workshop), but they must be taken into account. The industry is telling the academia that we need to put EQ and SQ in our engineering business subjects/modules. Technical matters are already enough, managerial issues are more than sufficient. We need the 'human inner elements' through the inculcation of ethics, moral, integrity, spiritual, emotional values and principles to the leaders and managers so as to ensure sustainability of business and organizational excellence. This is the critical success factor. Greed has destroyed the US economy and infected all countries including our beloved country, Malaysia.

In short, Business Excellence is not only technology, management related but most importantly the 'INSAN' and 'IHSAN' as defined in the teachings of Islam. Think about it..... or Read about it.

Lean Thinking

Lean means no waste. Slim and fit. Developed by Japan TPS and the likes, I remembered the 3 Mu - Muri, Muda Mura when I was training in MMC, Mizushima in 1983/84. Japanese organizations have been practising lean for a very very long time. Only recently that many companies (manufacturing and services) are hopping on the bandwagon of 'Lean Manufacturing' 0r 'Lean Enterprise'. Now it is quite a big issue in Malaysia. Last year, I went to Jeffrey Liker's two days course on TPS organised by Proton and it was enlightening.
Lean is a philosophy as well as a system which requires everyone to contribute their ideas in eliminating wastes in everything that we do and think. Just try to remove or reduce waiting time, idle time, travelling time, etc. Or even overproduction is a waste since we are making a product that no one needs at the moment. That is why the Toyota system is designed to be flexible and it is based on a pull system. Only make what the customer request. Imagine trying to make the system perfect.... just like a masterpiece Swiss watch. So, the next time you go to a bank, a hospital, or any commercial or government service for that matter, try to observe the system in working. In fact I found a book titled 'Lean Hospitals' published 2009 at the KL International Book Fair now on till 26th April 2009. In Europe and US, they are already making their health care systems lean. So, make Lean our way of life and this is what Islam has taught us. Pembaziran adalah amalan syaitan (Wasting is an act of the satan). So try not to waste.

bijaksana

bertindak bijak.
apakah yang dikatakan bijak?
yang dikatakan bijak itu ialah berpindah dari keadaan yang baik kepda keadaan yang lebih baik. what ever...apa saja...kalau dulu banyak sangat bercakap..kurangkan sedikit bercakap...bijaklah tu. kalau dulu kita gagal dan rendah markahnya..kini kita mendapat markah ujian yang lebih tinggi..maka bijak lah tu.

dalam meningkatkan kualiti langkah bijak dan pemikiran bijaksana amat perlu. dengan langkah bijak dan pemikiran bijaksana sajalah akan menyerlahkan kualiti pada apa yang kita lakukan.

salam

KPIs

Key Performance Indicators is the new word and concept. The new word has evolved form earlier concept of Management by Objectives where objectives equals KPIs. At the end of the year, your immediate supervisor (boss) will evaluate your performance based on the agreed targets. Then (supposedly) you will be rewarded based on the outcomes that you have achieved.
The current system is ' no time limit' do work until finish even if it takes 24 hours. then I measure you e.g.

Read the book - tell me what the book says
versus you have 4 hours , tell me what the book says

You have 8 hours to do the work, then work - who gets there first gets the reward.

Hypothethical Case
40 hours per week (in fact less minus Friday time)
teach 2 subjects which consists of
contact hours = 3 hrs/wk x 2 = 6 hrs
grading and preparing = 2 x 3 hrs/wk = 6 hrs
supervising PSM students = 1hr x 4 students = 4 hrs
supervising phd students/master research 9 students x 1hr = 9 hrs
supervising master by course 2 students x 1 hr = 2 hrs
reading manuscripts (proposals, chapter writeups, paper publications, etc) = 2 x 5 = 10 hours
committee members, managing programs = 1 x 5 = 5 hours
what about preparing research reports, examiners role for phd and master (internal and external). may be 5 hours average per week.
and now they (who they. Dont know) are talking about 3 journals per year, 70 k grants, and others...
Employer is having a nice time not getting people who openly fight their rights.. as the malay saying goes... Reda dan Syukur dengan apa yang ada...

not finished... still thinking

Quality Management

How can you produce or make a product that people need.
1. Design with end in mind, i.e. acceptable product quality level (function, form, fit) and not forgetting design for processibility and manufacturability and maintainability - easy to make and maintain the product (e.g. automobile)
2. Produce it based on standardised work by qualified workers
3. Prepare equipments and machineries that can achieve the desired effficiency and effectiveness - low downtime, high uptime, high throughput
4. Equipment selection and maintenance system
5. Quality suppliers through selection, control and to remove poor performing suppliers - so purchasing quality materials
6. Proper and suitable production planning, progress control and logistics systems - internal and external to the producer.

what did I leave behind ? All these can be viewed as Quality Processes. R and D integrate with Manufacturing, supported by Plant Engineering and Maintenance, serviced by PPC and Procurement, with Marketing and Sales getting customers requirements right. Not to forget the Human Capital doing their job in getting the best people to the organization. After that ..... work hard...... monitor .... then Improve and...

Quality of Roads

Last week I went to UTM Skudai for my weekly lecture and also attended a meeting for deciding the winner for the UTM AKNC (VC Quality Award). On the way from Senai to Persada, where the meeting took place, the airport taxi driver (a Chinese about my age) talked about why flash flood occur in JB. He gave a laymen's reasoning on why it occurs. He complained on how small the size/width of the drains are, and also he emphasised in his broken Malay that 'rumah makin banyak buat tapi itu longkang sama saja - kasi besar/kasi dalam lah) literally translated as -more houses are being built (around JB there are many housing estates), but the drain are still of the same (size) - why don't make it bigger/deeper. I thought to myself, even this 'taxi driver' can think of how to resolve the problems. I just cannot understand why those who have been paid to do the job to think such as the engineer/s and planners at local council, contractors, consultants/architects cannot think like this taxi driver. I guess people are so tight up with their busy schedule that they don't solve these problems faced by the people, and mind you it is our own people, i.e. Malaysians that we are going to help at the end of the day.
Then how does it relate to quality. Well, I have always said that quality of construction can begin right from design step. During the design and planning stage, those responsible, be it technical peole and policy makers, must put the people's interest first, and MUST pro-activley design for the future use, not just for immediate solutions. THINK ABOUT IT.
I have not talked about poorly maintained drains - all clogged up with rubbish and sand. Don't tell me the taxpayer will have to clear the stucked drain by himself, is it not the job of the local municipal to check and rectify these drains. DO YOUR JOB MEN.

Designing Quality

High quality products and services must start from proper planning. Quality should be designed into products and services, taking into consideration customer requests and requirements. The design stage involves many steps all focused on confirming, verifying all new methods, technologies, materials and functions that has been proposed and developed. They must be tried and tested before the new design can go through the production stage. Wastes are produced from defective designs that are passed on to production, and vendors. It is acknowledged here that it is not an easy process, there are difficulties and all must comply with legal and commercial requirements. Come to think of it, achieving high quality products through good design must be set as a challenge to all organizations to survive especially in this difficult times.