24 WESTERN PALLET
a cosmic shift that U.S. automakers tried to emulate Japanese methods.
The next development was Six Sigma, a set of techniques and tools for process improvement. It was introduced by an engineer at Motorola in the mid-1980s. As Khaled noted, “Today Motorola is gone.” The company lost billions of dollars from 2007-2009 and was split into two independent public companies.
Six Sigma also was embraced by Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric. Welch came to believe that GE leaders “were making decisions based on the loudest voice in the room, who had the most clout,” said Khaled. Welch wanted the best decisions for the business. He pushed executives to collect and use data to determine the root cause of problems instead of applying “band aid” solutions.
However, today Sigma Six is a “certificate generating machine,” said Khaled, noting its value today is mainly for marketing.
The next step forward in industrial engineering was lean manufacturing principles, which focus on minimizing waste.
“Start with lean,” suggested Khaled. “It goes after low-hanging fruit, and it’s easy to implement.” It also makes work easier for front line employees.
The latest advance in industrial
Start with lean. It goes after low-hanging fruit, and it’s easy to implement."
- Mabrouk
engineering is Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) culture, creating an environment in the workplace in which front line employees -- not managers in an office -- own and drive improvement efforts. “They are the ones who look at what we’re doing, what can we be doing differently, and trying to figure out how to do it better,” said Khaled.
CPI is “not easy to do,” he added. “Not everybody reaches that. It requires a very significant change in leadership behavior.”
He ended his remarks with a discussion of the four tools he wanted to share with the audience -- tools they could take home and apply in their businesses immediately.
“Be process-driven,” he said. By contrast, most business leaders observe their operations after work has been completed, and they want to know how the employees did. Did they do the work right? Did they make mistakes? And they give their employees feedback.