Issue link: https://industrialengineer.epubxp.com/i/920036
January 2018 | ISE Magazine 41 est exercise machines, workout facilities, coaches and personal trainers, diet and nutritional al- ternatives, and accessories such as shoes or clothing choices, they get overwhelmed. Instead of making healthy choices, they're likely to head to a fast food restaurant for a bacon cheeseburger (790 calo- ries), large fries (500 calories) and Coke (310 calories). This may defy common sense, but there is good science under- lying these actions. The dorso- lateral prefrontal cortex, a region behind the forehead, is respon- sible for making smart decisions and controlling emotions. With too much information, this re- gion switches off, emotions run uncontrollably and frustration and anxiety soar. With too much information, people make mistakes. For example, in the 2010 BP oil-well blowout, the incident com- mander estimated that he received 300 to 400 pages of emails, texts, reports and messages every day. The torrent of informa- tion may have contributed to the mistake of not closing off the air space directly above the oil well. Improvement teams also hold on to Six Sigma tools because executives fail to realize the power of small changes or fail- ures, instead considering magnitude more important. To put it in financial terms, if three out of four stocks in a portfolio gain value, but the fourth earns enough to more than cover the losses, the total portfolio is considered to have performed well, even when most of the stocks did not. Executives often approach Six Sigma programs the same way. They highlight successes of a few Six Sigma projects but overlook failures of many other Six Sigma projects. Executives give their thumbs up to Six Sigma, and improvement teams hold on to Six Sigma tools against all odds. For example, in the companies modeled in Figure 5, mul- tiple Six Sigma projects were identified and run simultane- ously in different departments (let's say departments X and Y, for example). Typically, once projects were completed in one department, the focus shifted to another department for imple- mentation. In this manner, without getting overwhelmed with im- provement efforts, the companies effectively deployed Six Sig- ma resources (e.g., black belts). As shown in Figure 5, the first seven (1 to 7) projects were implemented in department X, and then five (8 to 12) projects were implemented in department Y. As described before, projects from department X went through the introducing and the struggling stages and were in the dying stage. In comparison, projects from department Y were in the introducing stage and had not reached the other stages. Specifically, three projects were doing very well, but five projects were failing miserably. While evaluating the improvements portfolio, the execu- tives considered the magnitude of improvement successes more important than the frequency of improvement failures and continued to give these improvement programs the go-ahead. Executives often promote a magnitude of improvements or big changes because they equate small changes to trivial changes, but this is simply not true. The cumulative effect of small changes makes a huge impact over time. For decades, many world class operations (e.g., Toyota, Matsushita, Nis- san or Canon) have emphasized small improvements to their employees. This practice of performing small improvements every day is known as kaizen. While kaizen literally translates into "change for the better," it often is used as a surrogate for continuous improvement. The continuous improvement process is a simple concept that appeals to common sense. It involves many man- agers and workers who take small steps to reduce or eliminate waste, including waste from the traditional seven forms cited by lean manufacturing experts: Transportation, inventory, mo- tion, waiting, overproduction, overprocessing and defects. Small steps could include a companywide program for sug- gested improvements. The cumulative effect is undeniable. For example, in one year Canon generated an average of 78 sugges- tions for improvement per employee. To motivate the employ- ees, Canon paid out the equivalent of $2.2 million in prizes but saved more than $200 million as a direct result. It may sound like a cliché, but how can a company that doesn't have such a program compete with one that does? FIGURE 4 Thy employees' cups runneth over Improvement team meetings and their attendant communications can consume half of an employee's day.