Lean Six Sigma Source

Hello there! This is Monique here with LeanSixSigmaSource.com and the topic of today’s blog post is, “Are Your Technical Service Goals in Sync?” Now this particular blog post has to do with my recent experience and visit to MW Windows in Rocky Mount, Virginia. MW Windows is a manufacturer of windows and window products. After my visit, I will never look at a window the same again. It’s not just a pane of glass. This is much more involved in the particular windows. Different sizes, different shapes, different insulations, sashes, the whole works. It’s a very, very involved process and I am very pleased that allowed me the opportunity to visit their facility.

Now what stuck out on that visit was the fact that they indicated to me that they do something a little differently, then what I’ve heard of in the past. And what they do is they have a technical services team. That team is comprised of process engineering, quality professionals, and also the maintenance staff, so that is all under one umbrella at MW Windows. And I find that very fascinating. You know before I actually went to visit the facility, I shared this particular detail with my father because he is a production supervisor at a manufacturing plant and when I told him that he was just like in awe, like really. So, hearing his feedback from a supervisor’s prospective, um – why is that so important? Well, the issue here is that when it comes to technical services, you have internal and external customers. Your internal customers are gonna be the people that are directly involved with the process. That could be fabrication, that could be within your assembly area, like my father. That could also be quality, in terms of quality of materials and things you receive into the plant. So, technical services touches a number of different areas, but the bottomline is that you want to be able to provide the best services to the customer. Is it a disservice to assembly, if they get bad parts from fabrication? Yes! Does that fall under [the] technical services umbrella? Yes! Is it a disservice to your external customers, if they have to return a product because it doesn’t function properly? Yes! Does that fall under technical services? Yes!

And the issue here is that when you have them separate, you often find that there are separate agendas. When there are critical issues that are directly impacting your customer, those particular functions support each other. They have a very interdependent relationship okay. So a lot of times you’ll find out that maybe your drawings don’t have the proper tolerances on it or something. Or maintenance needs to check out an equipment issue to make sure the equipment’s operating to specification. Or your particular process has not been designed to be capable of performing the process the customer desires. So, they are really, very closely related to each other.

Now the issue comes in when you have them separate sometimes you have to break through red tape to get things done and bottomline if the plant manager comes in, operations manager or whatnot comes in and has a particular issue, they don’t really care who gets it done – they just want it done. And when you have separate agendas, it just causes confusion because you’ve got one group working this way, one group working this way and not everybody’s on the same page or even aware that their services are needed to help push a particular issue toward a resolution. And that’s the bottomline a resolution. So, of you’re thinking to yourself – how would I go about encouraging this type of organizational structure where I work. The best thing that I would recommend, it’s a technique that I learned in the book, I think it was Kanban Demystified about pitching the team approach. If you have them separately you may have some Senior positions involved, but the bottomline is that you want to be able to work together to help that customer. Having high visibility of what everyone’s working on, is going to make your process more capable and prevent you from having all those unnecessary approvals, barriers to implementation and things like that. So, that’s one thing that you can do to empower the group to tackle the issue amongst themselves and also have the authority to do so based on the organizational structure, so you don’t get people on separate agendas, separate objectives and things of that nature.

So, when you think about the root causes of issues, you can drill down to methods, materials, people, equipment, measurement technique, or the environment. So, it just makes sense to have process engineering, your quality professionals, and then your maintenance staff all under one umbrella. Tell me what you think. This is my opinion, but tell me what you think. Please feel free to leave me a comment on my blog here. I want to thank you for listening. This is Monique here with LeanSixSigmaSource.com.