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President's Message

The great industrial visionary and quality expert Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa who developed among other things the idea of the quality circles as well as the cause and effect diagram (the Ishikawa diagram) was a great believer in the “happy workplace”. In his forty years as an inspirational leader for many of the ideas that find their way in to modern day “Lean” manufacturing he believed firmly in making the workplace a place where you actually want to go each day..

My official guess is that few of us are currently working in that atmosphere. Why is that? Unfortunately part of that is driven by the focus of short term profits as opposed to long term gains. Those efforts usually result in what Dr Ishikawa noted as the “slash and burn” approach to management. In order to provide a quick profit management slashes to the bone and instead of making the products and services better usually results in a lowering of the quality of an organization. The long term effect was the company would produce products less desirable than their competition, which would in turn make the company less profitable resulting in another round of slash and burn management. Has anybody worked at a place like that? I know I have.

Dr Ishikawa found himself in square opposition to the “Taylor System”. Now Fredrick Winslow Taylor developed what we know as “The Principles of Scientific Management”. In truth his methods were at one time a great step forward in terms of managing the factory floor. The problem is that it evolved into the ideas of “Taylorism” which in essence is; workers work and managers manage (and never the twain shall meet). Dr Ishikawa felt that in order to have a company that was internationally competitive that the involvement of all personnel in the “art of thinking” from top management all the way down to the factory floor was essential in producing the best products.

The opposite of short term management is developing an organization which places it’s focus upon developing products and services that are designed to be increasingly more competitive in the long run. It’s understood that this will not happen quickly. However by designing, manufacturing and distributing quality products and services with the application of state of the art operations management techniques a company will surpass their competition.

A contemporary of Dr Ishikawa’s was a man by the name of “Dr. Yoshio Kondo” a Professor and Dean of Engineering at Kyoto University in Japan who believed in the importance of creativity in the workplace. He felt that it was essential in the development of motivation within the workplace. He wrote that,

"The people must be given as great a degree of freedom as possible in the means and methods by which they can achieve the aim.” He also said, “We know very well that, under such conditions, people doing the work often display great creativity in a positive way. Utilizing people’s creativity work is indispensible for motivation."

He was influenced by the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset that human beings take absolutely no pleasure in simply “existing in the world;” but they take pleasure in “existing well in the world”.

It was Dr. Kondo’s belief that, “creativity was the key to the joy of thinking”. Basically when employees are given the latitude to think creatively in the process of solving the challenges in the work place it resulted in not only satisfied and happy workers but it supported Dr Ishikawa’s ideas about achieving higher quality and producing more competitive products.

The reason we consider these points is that in order for our companies to survive in today’s challenging business climate we must transform, not only the way we do business but also the way we think about doing business. The application of creativity and creative ideas is essential to the manufacturing base here in Tucson as well as service industries. The value of APICS as an organization to you and me in the workplace is more important than ever. We must reinforce our partnership. APICS and especially the local chapter, needs your companies support for APICS to provide you the chapter members access to our products. By the same token your company (and you as an important player in your organization) need the influx of ideas that are a part of the APICS experience.

We all will need to change and challenge ourselves in ways that we have not previously considered. It will not be easy. But working together we have the means and the knowledge to develop our invocations into what Dr Ishikawa would term, “the happy workplace”.

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Education

Next CPIM Workshop

Master Planning of Resources
Starts Sep. 13, 2009 - Ends Oct. 3, 2009
Workshop Day:  Thursday
Instructor:  Emily Swartz, CPIM, CSCP
Time:  5:30 to 8:30 PM
Class Location: TBD
 
 

Next Fundamentals Class

Fundamentals of Planning
Starts Sept. 1st, 2009 - Ends Nov. 24th, 2009
Class Day:  Tuesday
Instructor:  TBA
Time:  5:30 to 8:30 PM
Class Location:
   Spectra Physics
Registration Deadline Aug. 18th, 2009
Register Here.
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APICS Tucson Chapter to host the APICS Southwest District meeting

The APICS Tucson chapter will be hosting the APICS Southwest District Meeting on August 7th & 8th, 2009.

For more information go here.

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