Booklets - Proven Strategies

48 Ways To Faster Design Changes
Second Edition By: Frank Watts, BSME, CCM
Copyright EC3 Corp, June 2000
A few of the 48 ways to faster design changes are quoted below. The bound booklet is available at a very low price. Ask "For More Info"

Introduction: Time Is the Next Frontier in American Business:
Most documentation control / CM professionals understand importance of fast change processing. Of course, most people understand that "time is money". But they tend to think of time as doing a task faster, thus saving money. This booklet isn't about speeding up the tasks that need to be performed. It is about taking the dwell or queue time out of the process. It is about taking the non value added steps out of the process.

1. Measurement in and of itself, tends to performance.
Measure the thru-put time of ECOs at a few key points in your process. Place the date & time for each key point on the ECO form. Sum and average the time weekly.

3. Precisely identify the START point in your change process.
It should be the time when the responsible engineer took ownership of the problem ­ the end of the request process. Place that start time on the ECO form for all to see. This is the beginning of the change process time measurement

7. "ECO Process Time Is Critical To Profitability"!
Put this reason for expecting fast process time right on the ECO, reports, etc. Give the people in the process a constant reminder that speed is important. Hold some twenty-minute training sessions and let them discuss why speed is important.

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54 Trolls Under the CM Bridge (Top of Page)
Frank Watts, BSME, CCM
Copyright EC3 Corp, June 2000
A few of the 54 Trolls under the CM bridge are described below. The bound booklet is available at a very low price. Ask "For More Info"

Introduction:
The Configuration Management (CM) discipline can be described as the bridge between Engineering and the rest of the company - Manufacturing, Field Service, QA, Materials, Sales, etc. To achieve best in class or world class manufacturing any product manufacturing company must achieve fast, accurate, well-understood, systematic and efficient CM. There are many pitfalls (Trolls) preventing excellence in this important strategy. This booklet contains the most significant Trolls.
Trolls under a companies CM bridge do not prevent ISO 9000 certification - document the trolls and do what you document - but they certainly prevent significant improvement. Continuous improvement can be defined as the elimination of trolls. Your company may have a few trolls under the bridge and still manage CM fairly well. Too many trolls however, are a formula for chaos. The purpose of this booklet is to help you do a "Troll Search" in order to improve this very important company strategy.

General:
1. Failure to recognize symptoms whose root cause is in the CM processes or lack their-of. Finger-pointing to and from Engineering, high field repair costs, scrap/rework/bone-piles, high retrofit/repair costs, fixes to the fix are just some of the symptoms. Another symptom is when people point to the change process or any other CM process and say with resignation; "Everyone knows how screwed up that system is!" Since many different functions are involved in the CM processes, they sometimes become a convenient excuse for problems such as releasing new product or making changes. The first step toward solution/improvement is recognition of the problem.

2. Believing that ISO or similar certification means that the Documentation/CM processes are in just fine shape. In fact, such certification doesn't necessarily mean that the processes are fast, efficient, productive, measured, or systematic. Certification is a good first step out of chaos. The next step up is efficient and measured processes, then best in class and then world class. The benefits are staggering in terms of real cost reduction and customer satisfaction. Why not go for efficient, best in class or even world class CM?

6. A conscious decision as to which parts and assemblies will be spared (service parts) is not made. Service parts people make lists and exploded views of all the parts in the product. The result is that by default you have effectively promised to "spare" all items in the product. That is, the customer expects fast turn around time on any part or assembly they order. If not careful you will end up setting spares packaging and prices on all items in the product. Only those items subject to failure, wear and damage need be designated as service parts. This will likely result in sparing perhaps one fourth of the total items. Save three fourths of your listing, exploding, packaging, stocking and pricing activity on parts that do not need to be available on a quick turn-around basis. Does this mean that the company won't furnish the non-spared item? No - it only means that price and delivery will have to be negotiated.

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