HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Our book System Buster is now in it's Second Printing

It will be available February 2007!

Thanks to all of you who have seen the vision and come along on this adventure to totally systemize your companies. 

The journey will be well worth it!

Special thanks to the 8 companies in the US and Canada that have implemented System100 software in 2006, our first year.

USING DAILY ROUTINE CHECKLISTS

Many of you have asked us to include an example of a complete system using a Daily Routine Checklist, to show how they actually work. Every employee should have a Daily Routine Checklist, which is considered a system.  This is a list of every task an employee does each day.

      Here is a simple system for ordering supplies, using the Daily Routine Checklist, that will almost insure you will never be caught short (The example we will use here is a manual system, using a paper order form):  

      The Daily Routine Checklist should have an entry or prompt with a check box beside it to remind an employee to order his or her needed materials, as shown below in blue:

[X]  Materials have been ordered using Material Order Form (PA-343) and this form has been placed in the designated location.

NOTE: Each department has its own Material Order Form that has listed on it every item used on a regular basis in that department. Each Material Order Form includes a description of items with item number, quantity to order, etc.

     1. Taking a Material Order Form, an employee goes down the list of items on the form and puts checks in the boxes beside all his or her needed items.  The completed Material Order Form is then placed in a designated location for pickup later. Easy!

     2.  The Purchasing Person will pick up the Material Order Forms from each department and order checked items that day.  The Purchasing Person knows to do this, because they have an entry/prompt on their Daily Routine Checklist to do so. They will not have to look for the description, the item number, or how much to order, because all the information they need is already on the Material Order Form.  

[Have you ever wasted thirty minutes or more looking around your building for an old product box to get the description or product number of an item you need to order, because that information was never written down using a system such as a Material Order Form?]

     3.  Shipping & Receiving delivers ordered items to each department where it is placed in the designated location and the department is notified.  This is accomplished smoothly because an entry/prompt is on the Shipping & Receiving person's Daily Routine Checklist to deliver these items to each department when they receive them.

     Do you see how one system works with and can affect another system? A system should be designed to be easy to use and work consistently. Most importantly, it must be complete, like a circuit or circle. The easier it is to use, the more consistently people will use it.

     As you can see, this is a very simple system, but it works every time.  No running out of needed items because someone forgot...it was on their Daily Routine Checklist to remember to order.  The Purchasing person does not have to go to each department and ask what they need...no sticky note requests...and knows from his/her own Daily Routine Checklist when to order supplies. 

     An interactive system like this can be created for virtually every task, quality control or project in your organization.  I guarantee it will save you time, money and a lot of gray hair!

System100 software has eliminated paper order forms (as the example above) and now these Material Order requests are sent to the Purchasing Person in digital format. However the prompt to order, purchase and deliver materials to departments is still on a Daily Routine Checklist.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE, A MUST!

     Charles Edward Deming of the famed Deming Award for Manufacturing says, "You should not expect your employees to do the job the way you think they should, unless you have provided them the necessary tools and the time in which to complete it."  In other words, if your employees come running up to you every time you walk through the various departments to ask you every question under the sun, then you haven't given them the tools or the systems to do their job.

     One of the demonstrations Dr. Deming would do at his seminars with managers and CEOs of some very large corporations, involved bringing a group of them to the front of the room and giving each one a box of black and white marbles all mixed together.  He would tell them that their assignment was to separate the white marbles from the black ones.  They were each given one minute in which to accomplish the task.  Deming assured them it could be done in a minute or less, as he had done it himself.  He would then start the timer.

     Frantically, Managers and CEOs would start separating the marbles into different boxes while others were laughing and cheering them on.  After one minute, Dr. Deming would say, "Stop!"  Everyone would look around to see if anybody had completed the task and, of course, no one had.  "Why didn't you complete your job?" Deming would ask.  "You expect your employees to do jobs in a certain amount of time and when they don't you get upset!" He continued, "In a lot of cases, you have never tested the job to see how long it takes or if it can be consistently done in a certain amount of time.  Do you supply them with the correct tools or systems to do the job in a set time?  I gave YOU a job and you couldn't do it in the time I said it could be done.  The reason why you couldn't do it is that I didn't give you the tool to do it."  

     At that point, Dr. Deming would pull another box with drilled holes in it from under the table.  He would start the clock, pour the mixed black and white marbles into the box with the holes, and shake it around.  Because of the size of the holes and the slight difference in the size of the marbles, only the black marbles would fall through. Deming completed the job of separating the marbles in about thirty seconds.  The moral to the story?  Give your employees the right tools and systems and they will consistently complete the task to your specifications ... every time, on time!