Inspirational Business Plan: Successful Innovation

Targeted Market: "We know where most of the creativity, the innovation, the stuff that drives productivity lies – in the minds of those closest to the work." – Jack Welch... More

Three Stages of the Suggestion System

1. Encouragement. In the first stage, management should make every effort to help the workers provide suggestions, no matter how primitive, for the betterment of the worker's job and the workshop. This will help the workers look at the way they are doing their jobs... More

Deming's 14 Point's Plan for Total Quality Management (TQM)

Point 7: Institute modern methods of supervision. The emphasis of production supervisors must be to help people to do a better job. Improvement of quality will automatically improve productivity. Management must prepare to take immediate action on response from supervisors concerning problems such as inherited defects, lack of maintenance of machines, poor tools or fuzzy operational definitions... More

The STRIDES model was developed by the Quality Support Council of Fidelity Investments. This model provides employees in every part of the corporation with a common language and process for implementing Kaizen – a strategy of continuous improvement. As stated in Fidelity's Models for Quality Improvement, STRIDES is the approach to use "where the problem is more complex."... More

 Case in Point  Using the Best Practice at GE: The Trotter Scorecard

Many GE business units employ a tool called the Trotter Matrix to check on their use of best practices. The scorecard was developed by Lloyd Trotter, who ran the Electrical Distribution and Controls side at GE. He listed six desirable attributes for each of his plants and then scored each attribute... More

 Case in Point  GE: Lessons from Jack Welch

Jack Welch's goal was to make GE "the world's most competitive enterprise." "We now know where productivity – real and limitless productivity – comes from. It comes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people," he said. Welch knew that the current business environment requires an energized, energizing leader: "You've got to be live action all day. And you've got to be able to energize others. Your cannot be this thoughtful, in-the-corner-office guru. You cannot be a moderate, balanced, thoughtful, careful articulator of policy. You've got to be on the lunatic fringe."¹... More

Building Trust To Improve Productivity

Research indicates² that there is a strong correlation between components of trust (such as communication effectiveness, conflict management, and rapport) and productivity. Cultural differences play a key role in the creation of trust, since trust is built in different ways, and means different things in different cultures... More

TPS-Lean Six Sigma

TPS-Lean Six Sigma is like a ‘turbo-charged’ Lean Six Sigma program.

TPS-Lean Six Sigma is a revolutionary, holistic concept. It actively has human capital embedded in Lean Six Sigma in a manner that not only stimulates commitment, integrity, work-life balance, passion, enjoyment at work and employee engagement but also stimulates individual and team learning in order to develop a motivated workforce and sustainable performance improvement and quality enhancement for the organization... More