Pinnacle Strategies

Industrial Automation: "Rapid Analysis and Throughput Improvement Team Drives Double Throughput"

jthompson — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:28:00 +0000

RABIT process results in double throughput for Reliable Machinists Corporation as reported by Industrial Automation. In just 3 months of the RABIT implementation, output increased from 60 to 80 valves per month up to 130-150 valves.

eBook "Blindsided! Five Invisible Project Threats Successful Managers Must See"

jthompson — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:53:45 +0000

Discover the most common invisible threats that are preventing you getting a true picture of your projects.

eBook "Achieving Top Performance Under the Worst Conditions: 7 Lessons Learned from a Disaster"

jthompson — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:53:01 +0000

Our new eBook is available for download. The publication reveals – for the first time – key lessons gathered during Pinnacle’s participation in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill recovery effort and poses the question, “if this is what can … Continue reading →

MoldMaking Technology: Three Ways to Cut Waste in your Shop

admin — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:41:02 +0000

Among all industrial sectors, the Department of Labor suggest that customers of moldmakers demand the most in scheduling, accuracy and project completion speed. Here are three recommendations for
cutting the waste and giving your customers what they want.

Mass-producing Frustration: Why “Good Planning” Often Leads to Failed Projects

admin — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:31:44 +0000

In engineering offices and construction trailers all over the world, projects suffer delays, cost overruns and missed output projections. In response, the collective finger of blame points to everyone’s favorite excuse: “bad planning.” But if bad planning is responsible for … Continue reading →

New From Quality Digest: Keeping Lean Initiatives Lean - First Apply the Theory of Constraints

admin — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 21:20:16 +0000

Manufacturers are struggling to squeeze 5 to 7 percent from operational cost reductions. Often, those that fail don’t survive: More than 1,000 North American plants closed last year. Quality Digest uses a real-world case study involving a major automotive manufacturing company to illustrate … Continue reading →

Whitepaper: 20% More Production in Two Months

admin — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 05:07:26 +0000

It really is possible to increase your manufacturing productivity by at least 20% in two months – without adding more workers or machines!

FACT: When systemic problems remain unaddressed on the production floor, every deadline is in constant jeopardy.

Download this new whitepaper and discover a breakthrough approach to manufacturing production called Rapid Analysis Bottleneck Improvement Team (RABIT).

If you have an underperforming shop floor or production team that you suspect could do better, this report is a must-read. It reveals how just one RABIT can deliver these benefits:

- A process output and productivity improvement of at least 20% in two months

- Process improvements that are completed and sustained

- Performance measurement that tracks results and provides immediate feedback to workers and managers

- …All without adding more workers or machines!

“I wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed your whitepaper!! If there was ever a paper that mimics the methodology I use, it was this one. I plan to share this with my friends and clients.”

– Bob Sproull, author of Epiphanized: Integrating Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma

An Excerpt from Projects in Less Time; a Synopsis of Critical Chain

admin — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 04:22:00 +0000

An Excerpt from
Projects in Less Time; a Synopsis of Critical Chain

Why Projects Take Too Long

Mark Woeppel

Back at the Executive MBA program class for project management, the students were to have completed their assignments documenting why employees at various levels in their companies build safety time into their projects. There is, however, only one paper turned in and it appears that nobody has any real answers because the students all had trouble getting anyone at their companies to admit that safety time was actually being added to estimates.

Professor Rick probes. The class finally realizes that they really do have the answer after all. It is revealed that the vast majority of employees expect they have at least an 80% chance of finishing on time as long as they are 1) not delayed by others or 2) loaded up with too much else to do. They also discover that the boss adds his own safety time cushion on top of theirs. When numerous layers of management are involved, each layer adds more safety time. Then, top management makes a global cut in the projected time it will take for the entire project to finish � a cut that managers had already padded their estimates to absorb. Professor Rick concludes that there are at least three reasons excessive safety is added to time estimates:

1.��Estimates are influenced by previous negative experiences.

2.��The more layers of management there are, the bigger the final estimate will be.

3.��Global cuts are anticipated, so time estimates are increased to absorb them.

The professor also concludes that safety time makes up the lion�s share of the estimated time it will take to complete a project. The class then determines that delays that occur during one step get passed on to the next step, but the converse is not true � extra progress made during a step is rarely passed along. So, delays accumulate but advances do not. Professor Rick equates guarding the performance of each step to �cost world� philosophy while he equates acknowledging the performance of the project as a whole to �throughput world� philosophy..

One class member attributes �wasted safety� to �students� syndrome.� Another says it is �bad multitasking� that impacts negatively by inflating lead times and wasting set up time. Self-fulfilling prophecy is mentioned as a negative contributor, too, because if one thinks a project will take longer, the project will expand to fill the time allotted. Concern that there will be times when people are not working steadily and efficiencies may drop (especially when dependencies between steps are involved) also plays a role.

For the next class session, Rick asks his students to be ready with an example for each of the three devices that people use to increase safety and three for the devices that waste it.

Commentary

In spite of the fact that task durations are often conservatively estimated to begin with, the presence of certain behaviors can cause them to increase even more. Three important behaviors make project durations longer than necessary. They are:

Deliberate Padding

Once the people doing the work have conservatively estimated their tasks, the estimates are then passed through several layers of management where they are increased even more. Because managers feel they must protect their own performance, in many organizations task estimates are not treated as �estimates,� they are treated as �commitments.� People don�t want to be late on commitments, thus, they �pad� their estimates of how long a given task will take.

Student Syndrome

�Student syndrome� is a term that pertains to the psychology of procrastinating, something students are particularly pro
ne to do. The analogy is to students who are going to take a test. When do they study for it? The night before! Why? Because they have much more important things to do! Often in projects, people start too late, using their safety time to work on other things, thinking they still have enough time to complete the task on time. After they begin the task, they run into problems, causing it to take even longer than the original padded estimate. The student syndrome causes longer durations because some of the time needed to complete a task is lost when it�s started too late or even when it�s started �just in time.� Then, Murphy causes the task to take even longer.

This �Murphy� is really two things: common cause process variation and special cause process variation.� The two types of variation are not differentiated in the text, but in the implementation, must be treated differently.� Common cause variation can be predicted and managed using the CCPM approach.� Special cause variation must be treated separately in a risk analysis process.

Bad Multitasking

Multitasking occurs when an individual is working on more than one task at the same time. There are two kinds of multitasking: good and bad. Good multitasking is moving two or more tasks along together smoothly, such as catching up on customer calls while heading to a meeting. On the other hand, bad multitasking is anything but smooth. It�s the dropping of work on one task before it is finished in order to start another, only to stop and begin yet another task or go back to a previous task. All too often, people aren�t able to complete a task without getting pulled off onto something else, so �task time� grows each time a change is necessary. Goldratt wants you to see that the majority of task completion time is not used for the actual work, but is waiting or queue time. Tasks ready to be worked on cannot be worked on because there is no available resource. If the estimates are too long, during execution the actual time will grow even longer! No wonder projects consistently finish late and over budget.

Parkinson�s Law

Parkinson�s Law states the amount of work rises to fill the time available to complete it. In projects, it means that early task completions are never reported. Resources will continue to work on �improving� their task or will simply find something else to do until the due date of that task. In any case, the result to the project is that only the late finishes are recognized, so the only way a project timeline moves is out.

These two behaviors, student syndrome and multi-tasking, have the same root cause � the lack of clear priorities. Student syndrome occurs when you believe the real due date is distant relative to the amount of time needed to complete the task, while bad multitasking is caused by not recognizing the real priority of tasks until they become late relative to the �need by� date.

Why Do Projects Take So Long?

1.��We add too much time to the original plan.� We allow x amount of time, so it takes x amount of time.

2.��Our resources multi-task, adding unnecessary work (additional setups) to the project

3.��The Student Syndrome causes us to waste whatever buffer we�did�have, adding more time to our already generous estimates.

4.��Parkinson�s Law blocks us from taking advantage of any favorable variation (tasks finishing early) the project experiences.

Implications for Management

Critical chain seeks to reduce / eliminate these behaviors, and therefore they are not planned for in the project. We can overcome deliberate padding, student syndrome, bad multitasking and Parkinson�s Law through better management and communication.

If we can eliminate these behaviors from our projects, the time to finish the project is reduced.� For example, looking at our project with the critical path (A, C₂, & D), you see the length of the path is 15 days.

After removing the safety time from these tasks, the critical path is shortened significantly, to 8 days.� This is one of the reasons that critical chain projects consistently finish in less time than projects that do not use this approach.

Glossary

Bad Multitasking�� The dropping of work on one task before it is finished in order to start another.

Common Cause Variation���a source of variation caused by unknown factors that result in a steady but random distribution of output around the average or mean of the data

Special Cause Variation���variation caused by known factors that result in a non-random distribution of output; also referred to as “exceptional” or “assignable” variation.

Parkinson�s Law�� The satirical statement that work expands to fill the time allotted to it expressed as a law by a British economist in the early 1900s.

Students� Syndrome�� The type of procrastination students are prone to when they are assigned a project or are facing a test.

Whitepaper: Three Secrets of More Projects in Less Time

admin — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:02:15 +0000

According to the Standish Group, 75% of all projects are completed late, and a staggering 39% with budgets over US $10 million fail completely.

Is your project at risk? It is if you see symptoms like these:

Late deliveries, excessive changes, and rework
Priority and resource battles impacting delivery times
Unsatisfactory budgetary performance
Making compromises to make deliveries for instance, on-time and over-budget

At Pinnacle Strategies, we believe that all these problems stem from a common set of causes, and can be fixed by applying the Three Secrets of Project Management. They have worked for many of our clients.

Find out what it can do for you.

Automotive Picture

admin — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 16:40:55 +0000

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