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Get R Done

By David Magistrelli

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 07Apr2008 Word count: 1278 Viewed: 246 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Get R Done!

You most likely have seen this slogan on license plates, bumper stickers, T-Shirts, or at roping contests and rodeos. It is a pretty popular saying right now and it certainly calls for one to take action.

Over the past nine months I've been intimately involved in coaching the world's largest supplier of a product on their journey to being a "Lean Manufacturing" organization. They have several plants around the world and it seems that each works a bit different then the other.

One would think that such a large supplier of this product would have systems in place that could be duplicated in each of their faculties. But, no, they let each run independent. Oh, they have a central financial and HR procedure, and their sale force and support services are more align than the manufacturing operations. But, each plant functions independent of the other. This decentralization is now standard operating practices in many industries and organizations and has helped get things done.

What becomes interesting and something for you to think about this month is that while this plant that I am working with opening buy into this slogan of "Get R Done!" they struggle each month to make it happen. They fail to hit their daily target numbers on the production line. They have production meetings each morning to review what happened the last 24 hours. They take immediate action when a support function needs to come into play with production. Yet, each day they look at their outcomes and they remain in the 55%-65% range. Once in a while they hit 100% or 105% of target, but more often than not they sit at the lower numbers.

Now, you might ask the same question I did..."What's getting in the way?" People are certainly working hard. The supervisors and line leads are putting in long hours. They have endless meetings. Upper management comes out to watch the lines operate. Maintenance has re-aligned their working hours. Results continue to fall short...and have for the past six months.

So what is the issue? What truly is getting in the way? Why can they on occasion hit above their production target but most days fall disappointedly short?

Before we can jump on the fact that they just are not "getting r done" we need to look at the SR2P factor. What in blazes is the SR2P factor? Well, I'm glad you asked because every business and organization that is serious about "getting r done" needs to have these elements aligned in order to ensure their success.

Strategy...that's the S! You would be surprised at the number of organizations I work with who don't have a clearly defined strategy on how they intend to accomplish what they want to achieve. When I get down into an organization it becomes even more obvious that individual leaders, managers and supervisors have no specific strategy developed as to how they are going to tackle the organization's plan.

Now one would think that coming up with a strategy is not a big deal. It should take only a few moments of clear thinking to come up with one and to begin following it. However, you and I have both gotten caught in just doing something to get some problem off of our plate. We are like zombies trained to take action right away so we don't stop and think about a strategy. Besides, isn't a strategy something for bigger problems....longer term goals, positioning of the organization in the market place?

Well, you better have a strategy for that, but the day-to-day activities we are engaged in require a strategy too, regardless of how simple the task or outcome might appear. See a strategy has to incorporate the R2Ps in order to be successful to move you to the outcomes you desire or need.

R is for resource(s). What resources are going to be needed to execute your strategy? I remember when a large international company wanting to go head-to-head with a firm in Germany that had the majority share of the market. The head of Germany's operations forecasted a strategy that showed a significant level of growth, penetrating the share held by its competitor. This certainly looked great on paper. However, when the deeper question was asked by senior management as how they were going to do this the answer was to increase the sales force. The next question was by how many? The answer, by a dozen or so. When asked how big the competitor's sales force is the answer was 300. Almost ten times the number they were projecting as having to penetrate this market. Clearly there was a need to either reconsider the over all strategy or put significant resources behind this forecast to ensure its success. So you know the end of the story the international firm decided on a new strategy rather than going head-to-head with their major competitor.

The 2 Ps stands for People and Process. Does your strategy take into consideration where and how your people are assigned? What they are capable of doing? What are their skill levels? What have they demonstrated in the past that can assure you that they can execute the strategy as developed? Often the strategy is developed without linkage to the capacity of the people who are expected to carry it out. Assumptions are made that the people will and can step up to the plate to fulfill the expectations.

And while this can happen, we find that when it does not, the company has to back down from their strategy because they had to re-train their people. So make certain you take into consideration where your people are and their capacity to deliver your strategy as you have it. Often, when an organization does their strategic planning they leave out what changes they have to make to their workforce so that the workforce is capable of delivering the strategy.

The last P - process- is one that is just as critical as all the rest, but again not looked at to the degree it should. Under the standards of LEAN MANUFACTURING, your processes are the key to eliminating waste and to increase turn-over of inventory, maximizing people's efforts, and to reduce handling of product so that it moves through its cycle as fast as possible.

Like you and I, too often our organizations assume that the way we are doing things today is the best way because it has worked for us in the past. And, it doesn't need to have any real changes made to it to fit our new strategy.

But as we are finding out in the company I am working with now, that while the strategy is clearly defined they have not taken the time to look closely at the R2Ps part of the formula for "getting r done!"

Because they are doing that now, I am expecting to see dramatic results over the next few weeks that show a significant upward trend towards hitting their production number. But, here is a kicker that you and I need to be aware of. And one that I'll address in a future article. What we need to watch out for is the execution of the SR2P formula. If we can't "get r done" the best plans stay on the shelf. We don't learn anything about what we have to change to remain competitive. We fall into blaming the economy, sales, customers not buying, etc. Failure to execute keeps your best from coming out. So as the slogan says....step up and "Get R Done!

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