This business management system IEE book preface provides a summary of what will be available in this book when launched on Amazon. In addition to a Kindle version, the book will be available in audio and paperback formats.
Many well-respected companies such as Circuit City (Galuszka 2008), GE (Bloomberg 2019), K-mart (Egan, M. 2015), and Sears (Colvin, G. and Wahba, P. 2019) have experienced a major decline or completely collapsed.
Other esteemed corporations such as Dell (Hess 2010) and Wells Fargo (Wolff-Mann, E. 2019) made news headlines because they set and gave focus to the achievement of organizational measurement goals that led to unhealthy behaviors.
Companies have replaced their CEOs with an expectation to improve the company’s bottom-line but instead experienced problems, including a short-term tenure. (Sullivan 2007 and Wiersema, M. 2002).
BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill (Broder 2011), and Blue Bell Ice Cream’s listeria contamination (Axelrod, J and Rand E. 2015) are two examples of the dreadful consequences, including death, which can occur when esteemed companies do not respond to operational issues in a timely fashion.
Why did I write this book?
The business management system IEE book preface provides an answer to this question…
Management at these companies had good intentions and many highly skilled people, but they lacked an objective, repeatable, and focused set of processes that would have shown management the true state of their business. They had either used ad-hoc management or used processes that were incapable to drive toward predictable business improvements.
There are some major ‘elephant in the room’ business management issues that no one has been addressing. In my opinion, this not-talked-about elephant is an underlying component of many past and current organizational business management issues that are frequently encountered. To overcome these problems, something needs to be done differently. This book addresses the issue head-on.
Presented in a story format, many commonplace, business management issues that I have observed over the years are discussed. Included with this dialog is what could be done differently to have an effective resolution of past unhealthy, if not destructive, organizational practices.
This book provides a no-nonsense next-generation business management system that both minimizes the risk of organizations doing bad things and at the same time provides direction for establishments to move toward achievement of the 3R’s of business. That is, everyone doing the Right things and doing them Right at the Right time.
Written as a novel, the book describes an enhanced business management system called Integrated Enterprise Excellence, which has an abbreviation IEE and is pronounced I-double E.
IEE provides a detailed 9-step system that CEOs, Presidents, executives, managers, leaders, practitioners, and others can use to resolve frequently encountered management issues such as:
- Business goals not being met.
- Scorecards leading to unhealthy, if not destructive, behaviors.
- Persistent day-to-day firefighting problems.
- Business strategies that are very generic and/or difficult to translate to organizational work environments.
- Lean events and other improvement projects which consume a lot of resource but often do not have much, if any, quantifiable benefit to the business as a whole.
- Lean Six Sigma process improvement deployments that have improvement projects, which are either not completed in a timely fashion or worse, report large financial claims that often cannot be translated into true financial benefits for the business as a whole.
Part one of this two-part book follows four successful friends who met in graduate school while pursuing their MBAs. Now they meet for golf outings to continue their friendship, discuss their careers and compete in a friendly golf game for the price of dinner. The challenges they face in business and in their personal lives are all too familiar. Golf provides an intriguing metaphor for the game of life, with its complexities and challenges, changing conditions, chances for creativity, penalties, and rewards. Moreover, golf is the game most often associated with business.
As Hank, Jorge, Wayne, and Zack share their experiences and pursuit of improvement in their organizations during golf outings, they discover powerful new insights that help them see how they can improve their games, both in business and in golf through the IEE business management system.
Part two of this book is a follow-up story to Part one. In this portion of the book, one of the golfers, Jorge, and his wife have an automobile accident, in which Jorge’s wife is critically injured and transported to a hospital near to where the accident occurred. This hospital has many process problems, which could impact her survival. During his wife’s recovery, Jorge reflects on what was done in his Harris Hospital (Part 1 of this book) to address similar business performance metrics and process improvement needs.
This book’s story line includes many application situations for IEE; however, there are more IEE concepts and metric reporting applications that need sharing in this writing. Rather than bog down the book’s storyline, an epilog is included, which contains additional application illustrations of IEE techniques and information.
Instead of simply providing a theoretical description of IEE and its benefits, included also is a description of how organizations can use an enterprise performance reporting system (EPRS) software methodology to implement the book-described techniques.
Book Overview from Business Management System IEE Book Preface
This business management system IEE book preface provides an overview of the book:
Many traditional business practices give focus to the achievement of vague but well-intended executive-retreat-developed strategic statements that are often worded like ‘expansion of production capacity’ or ‘focus on the development of global logistic capabilities’. Common-place business management methodologies that target the execution of hard-to-get-your-arms-around, organizational-handed-down strategies can lead to unhealthy, if not destructive, behaviors.
Whether documented or not, an organization has processes for executing work. These processes have output responses (Ys) and input (Xs). This relationship can be expressed mathematically as Y=f(X); i.e., a process Y response is a function of the X’s that impact a process-output response. Organizations often give focus to managing the Y’s without giving much attention, if any, to improving the X’s or the process that can lead to the enhancement of a process’ output response. Y management can lead to very unhealthy organizational behaviors, including playing games with the numbers to make situations appear better than they are.
Leadership often has the desire to improve their organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs). This metric performance enhancement aspiration can lead to the setting of specific measurement goals, which are to be met at some point in time; however, often these measurement objectives are arbitrarily set and not linked to improving the underlying processes that lead to the performance measurement responses. This meet-the-numbers style of running a business is Y management, which can result in many forms of unhealthy-organizational behaviors.
Everyone knows that organizations need to improve in order to survive. Because of this aspiration, a business may undertake a process improvement program such as lean or Six Sigma; however, often these process improvement program undertakings are not long-lasting. The reason for this occurrence is that when leadership does a program self-assessment they often find that they cannot see a true positive financial impact from the undertaken process improvement program’s efforts. If care is not exercised, process enhancements from an improvement program can be occurring in silos, where there is little, if any, positive impact to the big picture.
This book also describes organizational issues that commonly occur with tried-but-not-so-true techniques like strategic planning, the balanced scorecard, red-yellow-green scorecards, table-of-number reports, hoshin kanri, and lean Six Sigma programs. Fundamental issues with statistical control charting, process capability analyses, and acceptable quality level (AQL) sampling quality tools are also explained and what should be done to address the problems.
The tools in an automobile mechanic’s toolbox can be very useful; however, a mechanic must know not only how to individually use their tools but also be able to apply the right tool correctly at the most appropriate time when addressing a vehicle issue. Similarly, many business management and process improvement tools can be very useful; however, not unlike an automobile mechanic, the people in an organization must know when and how to use specific tools at the correct time for the management and improvement of an organization.
This book provides a roadmap for the wise utilization and execution of business management and improvement tools, both at the enterprise and process-improvement-project level. Described, for both manufacturing and transactional processes, are the use of traditional statistical and non-statistical techniques so that there will be whole-enterprise benefits. Proven techniques for improving an organization’s bottom line and better address customer wants, needs, and desires include analysis of variance (ANOVA), analysis of means (ANOM), brainstorming, cause-and-effect diagram, design of experiments (DOE), 5 whys, gemba walk, general linear model (GLM), hypothesis testing, kaizen event, kanban, lean, muda, Pareto charts, plan-do-check-act (PDCA), poka-yoke, regression analysis, total productive maintenance (TPM), value stream mapping, visualization of data, work in progress (WIP), and wisdom of the organization (WOTO). Chapter 9 of this book provides a discussion between Jorge and Hank about the use of a webpage, which links these tools and more in a clickable format, through an enhanced IEE lean Six Sigma process improvement Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control (DMAIC) roadmap.
Described in this book are the benefits and usage of the 9-step Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) business management system. Among other things, IEE provides a means to create and report 30,000-foot-level operational and satellite-level financial performance metrics, which separate common-cause variability from special-cause events. When only common-cause variability is present in a process-output response, the IEE high-level 30,000-foot-level performance-metric reporting methodology automatically utilizes data from the recent-region-of-stability of a process’ output response to confidently provide a predictive statement. When a provided 30,000-foot-level futuristic statement is undesirable, this metric enhancement need ‘pulls’ for the creation of a process-improvement project. This IEE approach for improving a Y response gives focus to enhancing the associated X’s and processes that impact the magnitude of a Y’s response level.
Section 22.3, Webpage 13 provides access to software for creating 30,000-foot-level and satellite-level reports that are described in this book.
In Chapter 7, a “Positive Metrics Poor Business Performance” article is walked through, where a generic, high-level view of the IEE system is provided. In this article, the described IEE value chain provides a means to structurally link, in a clickable format, organizational 30,000-foot-level and satellite-level metrics with the processes that created them. Organizations can use the book-described Enterprise Performance Reporting System (EPRS) software to provide automatically-updates to high-level IEE value-chain performance metric report-outs throughout the business, as described in Chapter 18 of this book.
Described in this book is an analytically/innovatively methodology for creating an enterprise improvement plan (EIP) that identifies organizational 30,000-foot-level IEE value-chain metrics that, when improved, will enhance an organization’s overall satellite-level reported financials. Figure 7.12 shows a generic organizational EIP to improve an organization’s profit margin; however, an alternative financial metric for targeted improvement could be EBITDA. In IEE, all IEE value-chain metrics are to have an owner who is responsible for their performance metric’s response and associated process enhancement efforts.
IEE offers an operational excellence management system for providing a product or service. IEE provides a framework for orchestrating and supporting an integrated management system (IMS) and quality, health, safety, and environment (QHSE) management. IEE not only can work in conjunction with standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 45001, and ISO 14001 but also provide a holistic infrastructure that supports compliance and continual improvement for these programs. The IEE system can be used as the framework for ISO 9001 certification and total quality management (TQM) implementation.
The IEE system offers a vehicle for implementing Deming’s management philosophy and achievement of the Baldrige Award and Shingo Prize. IEE can be used to enhance an organization’s Toyota Production System (TPS) and Quality Management System (QMS) implementation efforts.
The many provided website linkages provided in Section 22.3 offer much additional how-to information about application of the book-described techniques, including utilization of software for applying many of the book-described techniques.
Comparison of IEE to Other System from Business Management System IEE Book Preface
A graphic that compares the IEE system to what is taught in a typical MBA program, presented in traditional Six Sigma and lean training, and what is provided in the original balanced scorecard methodology is shown in the figure.
For each of the ten list attributes, the chart scoring quantification is:
- Two pluses to indicate the attribute was included.
- One plus to indicate either partial or incomplete attribute inclusion.
- A minus to indicate the attribute was not included.
In this chart:
- IEE received two pluses for each of the listed attributes.
- The methodology taught in a typical MBA program received only two single plus attribute indications.
- The traditional Six Sigma methodology category received two pluses for two of the ten attributes and a single plus for one other attribute.
- The traditional lean category had one two-plus attribute item and two single plus attribute items.
- The original balance scorecard methodology received only one plus for a single listed attribute.
This business management system IEE book preface chart nets out the benefits of IEE when compared to other business methodologies.
Main Characters in the Book, as Described in Business Management System IEE Book Preface
This business management system IEE book preface provide a description for the main characters in the book:
- Hank is one of the four golfing MBA friends. As a VP, he works at Hi-Tech Computers, which has been using its lean program to execute kaizen events to reduce organizational waste.
- Zach is one of the four golfing MBA friends. As a VP, he works at Z-Credit Financial, which has been using the balanced scorecard to improve the execution of their strategic statements.
- Wayne is one of the four golfing MBA friends. As a VP, he works at Wonder-Chem, which has been using lean Six Sigma to execute improvement projects to reduce costs.
- Jorge Santos is one of the four golfing MBA friends. As a VP, he works at Harris Hospital, which discovered Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) business management system.
- Sandra Santos is Jorge’s wife, who was critically injured in an automobile accident.
- Janice Davis has an MBA degree and is the CEO of Harris Hospital.
- Ron Wilson facilitates IEE deployments in organizations.
Author Comments
Process improvement and other business practitioners often state that IEE concepts look great and they believe their organization could benefit much from utilizing the methodology. These individuals then continue stating that the problem that they have is that IEE concepts need to be presented to people much higher in their organization’s hierarchy than where they reside.
To address this valid point, I have created, in addition to a low-cost e-book and paperback book offering, an audio-book version of this book that IEE proponents can suggested to others for listening of this book’s content, including business leadership and executives; e.g., on their commute to and from work.
Another asked question is how to receive more information about implementing IEE. To address this need, Section 22.3 was created to provide supplemental information about the implementation of the book-described techniques. In addition, Section 22.4 is also provided to describe how to obtain books that provide IEE methodology implementation details.
Mentions
This book is a derivative work of Wisdom on the Green: Smarter Six Sigma Business Solutions (Breyfogle, Enck, Flories, Pearson, et al. 2001), Integrated Enterprise Excellence Volume I (Breyfogle 2008), and Lean Six Sigma in Sickness and Health (Breyfogle and Salvekar 2004).
The organizations, Harris Hospital, Hi-Tech Computers, Z-Credit Financial, and Wonder-Chem, presented in this book are fictitious. As the author, I have created many situations that these four company’s employees, Jorge, Hank, Zack, and Wayne need to smartly resolve. The described circumstances may be fabricated; however, I have observed all the basic presented scenarios at some point in time in my career.
Except for the four permission-granted organizational scorecards, randomly generated data were used to create the illustrative organizational report-out figures.
Symbols, Glossary, References and Registered Marks
The glossary and list of symbols near the back of this book can be a useful reference for the understanding of unfamiliar statistical and golfing terms. Book and publication references are also located near the back of this volume.
The phrase ‘(See Figure __)’ will be the syntax used for the first mention of a chapter’s figure, while other mentions of the same figure and other figures not in the chapter will use the phrase ‘(Reference Figure ___)’. For the audio version of this book, the book’s figures, symbols, glossary, and references can be downloaded from www.smartersolutions.com/TBD.
Integrated Enterprise Excellence, IEE, Enterprise Performance Reporting System, Satellite-level, 30,000-foot-level, and 50-foot-level are registered service marks of Smarter Solutions, Inc. In implementing the programs or methods identified in this book, you are authorized to refer to these marks in a manner that is consistent with the standards set forth herein by Smarter Solutions, Inc., but any and all use of the marks shall inure to the sole benefit of Smarter Solutions, Inc. Smarter Solutions is also a registered service marks of Smarter Solutions, Inc.
Purchasing a Book for $0.99
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Author
The author solicits your comments and improvement suggestions for this book. He is also available to discuss application of the described techniques, which is his passion.
Forrest W. Breyfogle III
Smarter Solutions, Inc. (www.smartersolutions.com)
[email protected] +1 512.918.0280