The realities of process change

摘要

Simply scratching the surface in small to medium-sized manufacturing companies often reveals permanent fire fighting in key areas of operation. Many are battling to operate processes that have evolved piecemeal from when they were tiny enterprises. Others have processes hiding in dusty rows of ring binders dating from the early days of BS5750, which only leave the shelf in the week before the quality audit and have no real relationship to current actual operation. There are a few dutifully operating systems set up decades ago but even these are slowly sinking under mounds of paper. The people operating such systems may be a little less than inspired by the arrival of someone in a suit telling them that they need to strive for the last few parts per million to become 'world class'. They may be even more cynical if this is one of a series of initiatives imposed by the uninvolved - likely to add to the overload in the short term and die quietly once the experts have departed and the boardroom spotlight has swung round to another part of the business. process change in such an environment requires a pragmatic and practical approach, working closely with the people actually operating the business on a day-to-day basis. Theobjective is often simply to build a little faith that the prooess can actually be improved, extinguish one or two of the worst fires and lay the foundations for more sophisticated methodologies in the future.