Moving to Zero
In the 1990’s, we all got involved looking for “zero.” DuPont tried to lead the way in the slogan department. “Our goal is zero – zero accidents, zero wastes, zero emissions, and zero excuses!” I loved the last part. Despite all of the whoopla, DuPont and a lot of other companies are still searching for zero. This despite that the zero advocates set the null point as something “north of zero.” Consider six sigma, which some people referred to as zero waste. This term represents 3.4 defects per million operations. If you are a scientist, this is not zero. If you are an engineer, it is darn close.
Problem Solving Tools
Zero or not, everyone was dusting off the seven problem-solving tools. I was involved in helping companies with their pollution prevention programs. The process started with a round of hierarchical process mapping to better understand the process. Employees loved to critique those process maps and show us exactly where all the waste were coming from. Teams were created to look at root causes of those wastes. Brain writing (an effective version of what people called brainstorming) was used to help come up with ideas for addressing wastes. This is where all the arguments started. Bubble sorting was perfect for teams to try to rank order those contentious wastes. Finally, the team decided what wastes they would try to eliminate and create an action plan.
Opportunity Audits
Instead of using the term problem solving and decision making, it was more accurate to call this an opportunity audit. I became an opportunity facilitator. Managers never seemed to ask employees if there were ways to improve the process. It was working fine. They would use problem solving tools only when something did not go as planned.
Part of my job was to help employees to select opportunities for improving the process. I looked for the potential reception of the opportunity search by the management team. The managers would often bet against me. I would tell them that the employees would guarantee that they could deliver the opportunity using a cost-benefit approach that the accountant would figure out.
A one-year effort would enable the workers to pick some of the “low-hanging fruit” so they could gather some value in order to go after some of them more contentious wastes. All their time was billed to the project and was tracked in the preventive maintenance software. The costs for acting on the opportunities came from the operating budget – no capital projects were included in these efforts. Costs and benefits were reviewed monthly with the management team and the accountant.
Moving Beyond the Low-Hanging Wastes
This work used the easy waste elimination opportunities to fund the more difficult waste elimination efforts. If there was a need for a capital project, the employees would write the feasibility plan working with the plant engineer. These projects were not ignored. Workers always got the credit for the project. But you could tell that they were proud of their efforts. To them, managers finally “got it!” More on opportunities next week!
Bio:
Robert B. Pojasek, Ph.D.
Harvard University & Pojasek & Associates LLC
Risk Management & Organizational Sustainability
rpojasek@sprynet.com
(781) 777-1858 Office
(617) 401-5708 Mobile & Text
www.linkedin.com/in/bobpojasek
Organizational Risk Management and Sustainability:
A Practical Step-by-Step Guide
Now available as an e-book
http://tiny.cc/xz3fhy
Also available as an online action learning course
Expert as environment, health & safety, and sustainability professional with a record of providing leadership, training and operational support to all levels of the organization; Implements new and revised management systems to drive EHS/sustainability program conformance throughout the operation; Integrates organizational systems of management using the ISO harmonized high-level structure; Provides support for organizations implementing sustainability/risk management practices featured in my book.