Ahead of the LMJ Conference on May 29, we asked some of the speakers to answer a few questions to shed some light on the subject of their presentations.
Ahead of the LMJ Conference on May 29, we asked some of the speakers to answer a few questions to shed some light on the subject of their presentations.
Bill Bellows of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, discusses resource management and what prevents businesses from seeing themselves as end to end systems.
Your presentation will focus on resource management. How important is it in today’s economy?
Observations of how organisations manage resources have provided me with great insights on the degree to which companies suffer from a mis-alignment of resources, with similarities to discoveries in the landmark book, The Machine That Changed the World, yet new discoveries as well. In today’s economy of more and more diverse corporate networks, the blind spots I will shed light on are all the more valuable.
How can thinking together provide for better and more seamless resource utilisation?
The essence of thinking together is to reveal that our individual efforts in any organisation are never disconnected. Further, a focus on reducing scrap and rework, zero defects, non-value added work, and the elimination of waste only serves focus our collective efforts on parts and thereby move organisations away from seamless resource utilisation. Seamless resource utilisation results from realising that the parts we produce, from hardware to software to reports, are always “part of” something bigger.
What are the most common constraints preventing people from gaining a proper understanding their organisation end to end?
In my research over the past 30 years, I find the most common constraints preventing us from gaining a proper “end to end” understanding of our organisatons include the belief that our efforts have a beginning and end and not that they are circular in nature; that what goes around comes around. Such is the “Production viewed as a System” model that W. Edwards Deming described to the Japanese in 1950 and then formed the foundation of his efforts to inspire companies such as Toyota to adopt a new approach to management.
What will attendees leave your presentation with?
Attendees will leave with the awareness that how we think affects how we see the world and that the development and refinement of such an awareness opens the door to drastic improvements in how organisations manage resources, from ideas to hardware to time and money. As noted by Professor Tom Johnson, “Profit Beyond Measure” results from such an extraordinary attention to work and people.
