Three Keys to Global Harmonization in Quality: Learning to Share

 Posted
by Tim Lozier on Mon, Mar 28, 2011

Growing up, I never was one to want to share my toys.  I wasn’t one to throw a temper tantrum and take my toys home, but I never really liked the whole concept of people touching my stuff.  Thinking back on it, it all boiled down to the fact that I kept my toys in a certain working order, and I didn’t want little Jimmy MacMillan going and getting his scummy hands all over it.
When I hear people talk about the challenges behind a global harmonization initiative, I can help but think of a group of kids not wanting to share the toys.  Each site within the organization, operating under their own Quality Management System, happy to have their specific processes just the way they like them.  Then someone comes along and says, “We’re going to standardize on a single platform”.  It’s akin to mom saying, “We’re going to pool all the neighborhood kids toys together into one room, and everyone is going to share (even dirty Jimmy Macmillan).   There are inherent challenges to harmonizing a solution, especially Quality Management.  However, with the right tools, harmonization can actually enable a single standardized environment, while at the same time sustaining each site’s unique business processes.  Below are a few key considerations when harmonizing your Quality Management System:

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Zenjidoka II The Power of Self-Reliance

by

Norman Bodek, Author How to Do Kaizen

and

Jeremy Green, PhD

Jidoka is one of the core principles of the Toyota Production System, one that empowers production line workers to take immediate action the moment a defect is detected.  The worker who discovers the defect pulls a red cord and the entire assembly line stops.  Co-workers and the supervisor rush over to that worker forming an ad hoc problem solving team.  The team, led by the worker who pulled the cord, quickly works to resolve the problem to prevent any defects from reaching the next operation.  Using Jidoka and other tools Toyota became the quality leader in the automotive industry, admired and respected by customers, competitors and the media.  Unfortunately Toyota's reputation for quality has become tarnished due to the well-publicized sudden unintended acceleration problem and the associated recall since October of 2009 of over 10 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

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Zenjidoka

A Simple Tool for a Complex Problem - Solving Toyota's Quality Problems

by Norman Bodek

President of PCS Inc. and the author of How to Do Kaizen,

and Jeremy Green, PhD

I have long-admired and respected Toyota.  I have been to their factories, published and written books and articles about their revolutionary production system r, known many of their brilliant people, and taught their methods to thousands of students.  Like many of Toyota's admirers, I was shocked and saddened by their disastrous unintended acceleration problems and its tragic results.  My students and friends have continued to ask me, "How could Toyota have let this happen?"  Where did the world's quality leader go wrong and how can Toyota and YOU ensure that problems like this will not manifest into millions of recalls - billions of dollars of losses?

After studying the recent problems at Toyota, I haveeached this conclusion: Had the tools of the Toyota Production System been extended from the factory floor worker to every employee who makes contact with the customer, Toyota could have dramatically reduced the resulting financial impact and human tragedy. This article is the first in a series to address this idea in some detail.

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When Customer Rebellion Becomes Open Revolution

3:19 PM Friday April 1, 2011

What if your business isn't just fundamentally ill-equipped to survive and thrive in the 21st century — but is actuallyunequipped for it?

Indulge me for a paragraph, if you will. Imagine that there was a country in which bailed-out bankers announced extravagant bonuses. OK, that part's eminently realistic — even mundane. But then imagine that people (not activists, or even dreadlocked sign-waving hippies — just regular folks) began to express their dismay, anger, even outrage, everywhere from Twitter to the local bar, and that served as the spark for a self-organizing movement. And because people had the courage, self-belief and just plain orneriness to self-organize, their parliament was forced to do what just mere months ago might have been unthinkable: to tax those bailed-out bankers' bonuses at 100%. And not just going forward — but retroactively, since the beginning of the crisis. Poof: kiss that fleet of supercars, that fourth vacation home in Bermuda, and that closetful of handmade Swiss watches goodbye.

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Otto’s Motor - History and basic technology

First a little history.  Back in the middle of the 19^th Century a traveling salesman named Nicolaus Otto was reading about the new invention of the Lenoir gas powered motor.    His sales area was all of western Germany and most of the traveling he did was by horse drawn coaches.  Otto was a fastidious man and he was repelled by the thousands of tons of horse manure on the roads everywhere.    He had a dream of developing a motor which could be fueled by liquid fuel like gasoline and small and powerful enough to propel a road vehicle.    The Lenoir motor ran on town gas and was big, heavy, and stationary.


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1/19/2011

“Energy Plus” school

Bosch Thermotechnology is involved in a showcase project dedicated to the energy-focused renovation of school buildings.


The division is supporting the Uhlandschule project in cooperation with the local authorities in Stuttgart (Germany) and other partners from the industrial and scientific communities. The Uhlandschule is one of the few schools to be remodeled as an Energy Plus building as part of the energy-efficient school research project “EnEff:Schule” sponsored by the German Ministry for Science and Technology (BMWi).

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2/28/2011

100th educational partnershipBosch Solar Energy and the Arnstadt public high school sign cooperation within the context of the Wissensfabrik.

The Bosch Solar Energy business division and the public high school Staatliches Gymnasium” in Arnstadt, Thuringia have signed a cooperative agreement to promote an early career orientation of students. For Bosch this is the 100th educational partnership within the context of the Wissensfabrik. The goal of this association – founded by German firms like BASF, Thyssen-Krupp und Trumpf – is to trigger enthusiasm for technology and business among boys and girls as early as kindergarden on through high school. As emphasized by Dr. Wolfgang Malchow, board member for human resources at Bosch, "In Germany I consider it a duty for companies in particular to promote interest in technical occupations through active interaction with children and youth. This is the only way we can win over qualified junior staff for tomorrow and beyond."

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