Manufacturing - Policies and procedures

Quality control

Policies and procedures are where all successful business comes from. They underpin the quality control and improvement cycle. The most difficult task is to identify the work activities that need to have policies defined and then the procedures to be put in place in order for the policy to be met.

Even though you understand your business, outside eyes are often valuable in defining what you do. An outsider comes in and asks: "What do you do?" As you explain the process and sub-processes, more "What do you do if …?" questions start to uncover the labyrinth of procedures required to cover all eventualities.

The exceptions

Not unexpectedly, the most vital procedures are the ones that cover how to treat exceptions. Staff quickly learn how to do a job when it all conforms to the usual process; it is only when things go wrong that they look around for someone who 'knows what to do when …' And if that person has left, is sick or on holiday, then a process of trial and error … error … error begins.

An example

Carter Holt Harvey Packaging Case staff had been making sales since forever. Ad-hoc systems had been put in place and an informal system of checking and rechecking orders had been adopted. Unfortunately, even though most processes had been identified, costly ordering errors crept into the system.

The company decided to install new software that would reduce the likelihood or errors. But this presented them with other dilemmas:

• How could they persuade senior salespeople, used to doing things their own way, to trust the new system?
• How could they get everyone to use the new system competently?
• How could they ensure errors did not creep in outside of the automated system?

Individual 'solutions'

As in most big companies, different staff handled different parts of the conversion of a sale to production and on to invoicing. Each transfer of responsibility reduced the ownership of an order from one person to any or many. When things went wrong it was easy to blame 'the system' because there were no formal procedures to check against. Besides which, when things did not conform, individuals solved 'the problem' in a variety of ways that did not always get communicated to others at either end of the process.

Defining the problems

Initially managers got together with the Edutech KM project leader to define the normal sales process and what would happen if things went wrong. This led to quite a lot of debate about where key decisions were made and it also indicated a couple of points in the process where orders could be left cycling in a continuous loop. A list of potential separate procedures was drawn up. That exercise in itself was invaluable.

Uncovering variances

Next, Edutech KM staff worked with each member of the sales team to extract processes for everything they did. Even though several team members repeated the same or similar tasks, their input highlighted where variances were occurring.

At no time were we looking for sales staff error; we were looking for system error. Sales team members appreciated being asked and freely complained about problems in the system.

Staff involved to get agreement

As the procedures were written from these records of process, we were able to get agreement for the procedure. Draft procedures were submitted for comment to staff who had to use them, and were then amended, with general agreement from management. Staff would come back with ideas on how things could be improved.

Apart from the end result of a set of agreed procedures for reference, including the handling of all the exceptions, the exercise acted as training in the new system. In order to demonstrate processes, sales staff had to use the system many times, and so discovered its useful functions for themselves.

Click here to find out how E-learning may be useful in improving productivity.

Edutech KM Ltd

PO Box 25-241, Victoria Street, Christchurch;
phone: 64-3-337-0234
fax: 64-3-337-0235
info@edutechkm.com
Copyright to Edutech KM Ltd 2008 Privacy Statement