Tag Archives: integration

Progress

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“Does it ever end?” Conrad shook his head.

“How so?” I asked.

“First, I was dealing with Joe. Joe was weird. It took me a while to figure Joe out. And, finally, when I did, Fred came on the team. Not only did I have to figure out Fred, but now I had Joe AND Fred to deal with and how they work together. I finally get Joe and Fred in hand, then Sally came along. I have three individuals and six working relationships if you don’t count me.”

“That’s it?”

“No, that’s not it,” Conrad replied. “I now have eight people on the team. We finally figured out the best sequence, created a system in which to do the work. I thought I had it all figured out.”

“So, what happened?”

“We had the system working well, when we determined there was more than one system, lined up side by side. We have a marketing system, a sales system, a project management system, purchasing system, an operations system, quality control system. And, these systems no longer worked independently, they impacted each other with work handoffs and capacity mis-matches.”

“What have you learned, so far?” I wanted to know.

Conrad smiled. “As time goes by, you get to trade in one level of problems for another level of problems.”

“And, that, my friend, is progress.”

Scale This Thing Up

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“You made it halfway through the year. You should have your numbers by now. How did it go?” I asked.

Max grimaced. “You know we have done pretty well in the past, so we wanted to see if we could scale this thing up. We had a firm target, and we were firing on most cyclinders. But we only made 75 percent of goal. I can’t put my finger on one specific thing, seems like a bunch of little things.”

“Let’s start with sales,” I said.

“Sales were good, contracts in hand, but a good portion of the projects sit in backlog. We just couldn’t get the work finished so we could bill it.”

“So, let’s look at project management,” I nodded.

“That’s where some of the problems began. There were mistakes in the handoff meeting between estimating and project management. We didn’t discover the mistakes until we were in the field. We were short some materials. Man hours were estimated too tight, so we had crews that got stuck on one job, when they were supposed to start another job. Once the schedule started piling up, we got further behind. Then a permit didn’t come through. None of this is dramatic, but it all adds up, and so here we are.”

“One of the biggest problems in a company trying to scale is handoffs,” I nodded. “You can have one or two core systems that do great, but you have to get ALL your systems in sync. Work moves sideways through the organization. First place to inspect is the handoffs, where work moves from one function to the next.”

The Hidden System Defect

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“So, you all agree on a path forward,” Sam continued. “This is your problem to solve. We have everyone in the room. Marketing, sales, customer service, production and accounting.”

Marketing began. “We are very proud of our pay-per-click ad campaign. We are delivering more leads at a lower cost than last year and total marketing costs are under budget.”

Marketing went on to highlight the improvements made in targeting specific demographics, especially families and adults seeking services like dentistry. By focusing on local searches and refining the clinic’s online presence, they ensured the right patients were seeing the right message at the right time. Conversions from online inquiries to actual appointments saw a notable increase, confirming the effectiveness of this refined strategy.

To bolster their digital footprint further, the team had recently partnered with The Dental SEO Group, a specialist agency in optimizing dental websites for search visibility. With this collaboration, the practice saw better placement on local search results, more traffic to their service pages, and a measurable uptick in organic leads—patients who were actively looking for dental solutions and ready to book.

Sales stepped up. “We have more leads, but our closing ratio is down, way down.”

Production was next. “We know that sales are sluggish. We had finished goods back up on the production floor, so we had to find room to store the excess inventory. Lucky, we found on old warehouse that the real estate group was trying, unsuccessfully, to sell. They were happy we took it off their hands, so that’s where we put the inventory.”

Accounting, always cheery, gave the next report. “Yes, putting that warehouse back in service helped our balance sheet, eliminated a non-performing asset. We saw our holding costs on the inventory were going up, but, that is to be expected if sales are sluggish.”

“There is still a problem,” Sam declared. “Individually, you all, each of you is doing a good job in your respective departments, and I am glad that I didn’t see any finger-pointing. And, we still have a problem. Sales are still sluggish.”

Customer service, Mary, who had been quiet the whole time, finally spoke up. “I was looking over our customer satisfaction surveys yesterday, in preparation for this meeting. We have been getting EXCELLENT responses, especially in our return department. The problem is, we have triple the responses, meaning we have triple the returns. So, in addition to sluggish sales, our product returns are up.”

Sam probed, “And? Why do people say they are returning?”

Mary nodded. “I know this sounds silly, but our customers are saying they found a substitute product with higher quality from another company. And, its a company I never heard of before. We have always had a problem with one of our catch levers, it’s been our biggest customer complaint. This new product doesn’t have any catch levers. It’s designed differently.”

It was Sam’s turn to nod. “So, our sluggish sales and inventory problem looks like it may be a design problem. Why isn’t anyone in here from engineering?”

Service System Capacity

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From the Ask Tom mailbag – Related to Integration is a Fancy Word. The illustrative example described an imbalance of systems in a manufacturing model, where there is a build-up of finished goods inventory (unsold).

Question:
Can you provide an example of an anemic sales function in a service industry. What would you get instead of an inflated inventory?

Response:
Thanks for the question. In a service industry, say you have 20 trucks, 20 technicians, optimized to average three service calls per day. The daily average capacity is 60 calls.

If sales only sells 55 average daily calls, you have excess unsold capacity of 5 service calls. You may not even notice. If the average drops to 50, you may begin to notice, and so do your service technicians. How long does it take a service technician to complete two assigned service calls vs three assigned service calls? The answer is 8 hours, no matter which. Parkinson’s law – work expands to the time allotted.

This is functional integration work, to monitor the capacity of each function, to make sure the impact of one function doesn’t outstrip or adversely impact the capacity of its neighboring functions.

In this service example, the math is pretty easy, 20 technicians x 3 calls = 60. Sometimes the service work has more subtle variations where the math is not so clean. That’s why system capacity makes for fascinating study.

Slide Food Under the Door

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“Why, do you think the company made you a manager, last week?” I asked.

“I am not really sure,” Maggie replied. “Many, on my team, have been here longer than me. They are smarter than me. They are older than me. And most of them are men.”

“All true,” I smiled. “So, why you?”

“My manager told me, things run better when I am around.”

“And, why do you think that happens?”

Maggie paused. “These guys are really smart. Engineers, you know. But, they don’t seem to work together very well. It’s not like they fight, they just focus on their own work, without thinking of what is going on around them.”

“And, you?”

“I knock,” Maggie laughed. “I knock and slide food under the door. Not really. I pull them out of their shell, get them to talk to each other. In that instant, they can be quite helpful to each other. Doesn’t seem like a big thing, but, bigger problems get solved when that happens.”

“So, why do you think the company made you a manager, last week?”

The Struggle for Emerging S-IV

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
It took a long time, but our company has grown. Our business model is a distributor, it’s all about supply chain for our customers. Because our business model is driven by the logistics of incoming and outgoing material supply, we recently promoted our warehouse manager to VP-Inventory Control. For us, it was more than just a change of role title. Our warehouse manager took us through re-binning our inventory, bar coding SKUs, RFIDs on serialized product. He is a really bright guy. But his promotion to VP-Inventory Control seems to have gone to his head. With his new-found power, he has emerged as a prima-donna. In our executive team meetings, he believes that inventory control should be the deciding factor in every business decision for the company. If he keeps this up, he is going to get fired.

Response:
Indeed, the move from a Stratum III (S-III) inventory manager to an (S-IV) is a dramatic change in level of work.

  • S-III – System (creates the system, monitors the system and improves the system)
  • S-IV – Integration of multiple systems and sub-sytems (attention to dependent systems, interdependent systems, contingent systems and bottlenecks)

The focus at S-III system level is internal. We demand each of our systems be efficient, profitably leveraging its resources for maximum output. Your inventory manager did just that with a bin system, bar codes and RFIDs. Kudos.

The focus at S-IV is integration. With an internal focus on inventory management, his new role is to assist in the integration of inventory with all the other systems in the company. It is no longer a matter of profitably leveraging resources for maximum output, but optimizing output with the other systems in the company. It is a matter of how one system’s output (reinforcing system) is impacted by another system’s output (balancing system).

This requires the focus for the new S-IV to transition from internal to external. You don’t have a prima donna personality conflict. You have not clearly defined and communicated the new role, nor its differences from the prior role.

You also skipped a step. How did you know if the inventory manager was ready for these new accountabilities? You didn’t. You blindly promoted and now you have a bit of a chocolate mess. The step you missed, prior to the promotion, was assigning S-IV project work, coaching and evaluating the output. Team members should NEVER get a promotion. They earn promotions by successful completion of project work similar or identical to the work in their new role. -Tom

The Danger of Missing Stratum IV

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Registration continues this week for Hiring Talent in the Heat of the Summer. Find out more – Hiring Talent.
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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
We have silos. Everybody is in a power struggle. We used to have a great reputation, but I think we outgrew it. The company seems lopsided. Sometimes sales outstrips our ability to fill orders, so some of our sales orders turn into back orders, some of our back orders turn into canceled orders and some of our best customers defect to the competition. Other times, production outstrips our ability to sell, so our finished goods don’t get sold, they stack up in the warehouse. The warehouse gets full, so we rent another warehouse. We carry inventory so long it turns obsolete and costs to hold, eat up our profit. We are like a monster machine. Just read a book by Ken Blanchard Be a Silo Buster. Do we really have to bust up the company and start over?

Response:
With all due respect to Ken Blanchard, you created those silos for a reason. Do NOT bust them up. You need efficient, profitable internal systems. It is not a matter of busting up silos, it is a matter of integrating them together. This is a classic example of a company growing into Stratum IV. This is similar to the chaos we see in Stratum II companies, but on steroids. This is not a few individuals stepping over each other. This is whole departments, internally focused, head down, nose to the grind stone without care or consideration for the other functions in the company.

But, the fix is not to tear them down. The fix is integration and requires capability at S-IV. This is not finding the constraint in a single serial system (S-III), but understanding the impact of one system on another system (S-IV). This is not root-cause analysis, but systems analysis. We have reinforcing systems and balancing systems. This requires, not serial thinking, but parallel thinking.

This is not multi-tasking (because humans cannot multi-task), but truly seeing the dependency, inter-dependency, contingency, and bottle-necks that exist among out multiple systems and sub-systems. This requires a parallel state of thinking. Two specific things to look at –

  • Balance of each system output, optimized to its surrounding systems output.
  • Handoff of work product from one system to the next system as work output flows through the organization.

Optimization
Sales has to be optimized to production. There is no sense selling inventory that cannot be produced timely to the sales order. There is no sense producing finished goods that cannot profitably be sold timely to the market. The output of both systems has to be optimized so they work in sync. Reinforcing systems and balancing systems.

Handoff
A department, head down, will work to their own internal efficiency. The state of their work product may be incomplete or carry a defect for the next stage in the work flow. Work does not flow up and down in a department. Work flows horizontally through the organization, output handed off from one department to the next.

  • Marketing hands off to sales.
  • Sales hands off to estimating
  • Estimating hands off to contracting
  • Contracting hands off to project management
  • Project management hands off to operations
  • Operations hands off to QA/QC
  • QA/QC hands off to warranty
  • Warranty hands off to research and development
  • Research and development hands off to marketing, and so the cycle goes

Each handoff must be inspected and improved. This is the role at S-IV.
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To read more on system constraints, theory of system constraints, The Goal by Eli Goldratt.
To read more about reinforcing and balancing systems, The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge.

The Danger of Missing Stratum II
The Danger of Missing Stratum III
The Danger of Missing Stratum IV

Market Responsive

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“You improved your quality, so your warranty program became a competitive advantage instead of a liability. Your lead time was down to four weeks. You lowered your cost structure. Your output and unit profit was consistent and predictable, systems focus. And then the rug got pulled out?” I asked.

“Yes,” Arianne reluctantly explained. “Everything, up to now had been internally focused. Efficiency, pace, quality. Then, the market fell out. Our customers would shrug their shoulders and buy from someone else. At first we thought they didn’t understand what a quality product we had. We even sent out our engineers with our sales people to explain why our product was more durable, lower cost and could be delivered faster. But, it was us who didn’t understand.”

“What do you mean?” I quizzed.

“We had been so internally focused that we didn’t notice a shift in the market. Our market moved. Our product was fine, but our market wanted something different. Our competitor smoked us. They had re-tooled a number of features based on user-feedback. We had no clue.”

I nodded my head, “Market responsive.”

“Yes,” Arianne confirmed. “It cost us a million dollars in stagnant inventory and months of development time to catch up. We had been so internally focused, we almost lost the ship.”

Spinning Wheels

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
In your Time Span workshop, you describe the friction between various departments, Ops-Sales-Customer Service-Accounting. You suggest this is a structural issue. In my company, we absolutely see this friction, but to me, it looks more like a personality conflict.

Response:
Most managerial issues look like a symptom, that’s why they are so difficult to resolve. The two most often cited problems (symptoms) are communication breakdowns and personality conflicts. You can have all the communication seminars you can afford, you can give everyone a personality test, the problems will remain.

The friction you describe between your departments is structural. Each department works from an internally focused agenda, with little consideration for other agendas in other departments. The exterior looks like a breakdown in communication. Not so.

Why is the agenda in each department internally focused? Simple. We, executive management, told them they had to be internally focused. We told each department they had to be efficient, profitable, no waste, no scrap, high utilization rates of internal resources, we told them they had to be internally focused.

In the heady days of growth, as these departments were emerging and developing, this internal focus was necessary, to gain those efficiencies, to make the output predictable. Absolutely normal. But now, that internal focus works against us. For the organization to move to the next level, those departments have to work together, support each other, cooperate, trade inside information, share planning, cross-train personnel.

You can spin your wheels with personality tests, but the fix is Integration. We have to integrate our systems and sub-systems together into a Whole System.