Quality, Productivity, and Speed are intertwined and impact each other. Most managers create this Venn diagram in their mind [for image, See PDF or View in Full Issue]. We often hear:
“First we need to work on efficiency before we can focus on quality.”
“We can’t afford to take the time to do it that way.”
“We have got to get these trusses out and delivered regardless.”
“Those rules are just a guideline, right?”
“We are focused on reducing cost!”
Really what this graphic is trying to justify is the mindset that high-quality products delivered quickly to their customers will always be at a higher price and products delivered quickly and at an affordable price will be low-quality. If this is your mindset, you are reading in the right place.
Rethink Your Mindset
Instead of that limiting diagram, let’s think about quality, price, and speed from a different perspective. For the sake of this discussion, let’s include Safety with it, and let’s broaden the idea of Speed to consider Productivity and Service. [For image, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] Now, ask this question:
“Should there be a trade-off between the speed of delivery and quality or price?”
The answer is: “No.” Maintaining quality and focusing on Value should be your keep objective. Improving quality starts with implementation of the ANSI/TPI 1 standard—and, with that process, you will improve proficiency and speed. Controlling wasted efforts and rework of product will reduce your costs too. Identifying and correcting poor workmanship will improve everyone’s efforts and will improve stream.
Accepting poor quality, inadequate safety, or low productivity creates an atmosphere of tolerance. This will impact your workers with great habits too. They will eventually follow the poor achievers or will leave because they will become unfulfilled. High standards achieve high results. A focus on Value will shift everyone’s perspective to gauge their efforts to improve Value. So, let’s look at each element.
Quality – Improving quality will improve Value. Clients can and will perceive quality. They might not be able to articulate the code, but they know when the trusses work correctly and produce a quality installed product.
Speed or Productivity – Improving productivity will improve Value because it reduces the effort required to complete the task. Working smart rather than hard is the key and deserves a discussion on its own.
Price – Decreasing price can improve Value by making your product more desirable to the consumer. Improving the process, flow, and methods will decrease cost. Reducing risk reduces cost.
Safety – Improving safety will also improve Value. It reduces liability and risk to the employee and the plant owner. Workers work better, have a higher work ethic, and produce more in a safe and cost-effective environment.
Maintain Your Value
The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.
Broken, vandalized, or inoperable equipment makes workers contribute less personal effort. It makes them less effective. It increases risk and reduces the ability to make a quality product.
When toxic employees’ negative behaviors are tolerated, it can have a hugely detrimental effect on the company’s culture, decrease collaboration between teams, affect how customers are treated, and so much more.
People in leadership positions will often look for a quick fix, but reality is not that simple. It takes creating a culture of quality, efficiency, and excellence. To use a sports analogy, if a team is having problems on the field it is rarely the individual player but the coach. In the truss business, the “puck” stops with you. You create or define the profile as the person who sits in the leadership position. You need to take full responsibility for your department’s low morale or order and urgently address the situation before all the good employees are impacted.
Focusing on adding Value is crucial!
An ANSI/TPI 1 3rd Party Quality Assurance Authorized Agent covering the Southeastern United States, Glenn Traylor is an independent consultant with almost four decades of experience in the structural building components industry. Glenn serves as a trainer-evaluator-auditor covering sales, design, PM, QA, customer service, and production elements of the truss industry. He also provides project management specifically pertaining to structural building components, including on-site inspections and ANSI/TPI 1 compliance assessments. Glenn provides new plant and retrofit designs, equipment evaluations, ROI, capacity analysis, and CPM analysis