A lean competitive advantage comes from mastering lean.  A few 5S Kaizen projects will not produce a competitive advantage.  Lean mastery requires a dedication and discipline just like a professional sport, the Olympics, or a concert virtuoso.  Most people do not want to put in the hard work that it takes to join the 1% club.  Today the kids in America do not want to go into science and engineering because it is too hard.  It is easier to move manufacturing to China than to implement lean mastery.

Lean is a path to world class status.  It should be sold to your organization based on being the best and not based on saving some money on a project basis.  People that are focused on being the best will do whatever it takes t and will receive the rewards that being the best delivers.  People focused on money are involved in the politics of money, which is not what lean is about.  Lean can save a few dollars, which is what the surveys show.  But, saving a few dollars is not lean mastery.  Dominating your industry is lean mastery and that is worth more than a few dollars.

To learn more about using process improvement programs for your organization, attend the next Implementing Lean Thinking class. If you are eager to learn more about creating more order out of the chaos you are feeling at work, then the How to Create Well-Defined Processes class is right for you.  ISO 9000 Quality Auditor classes are forming now for Internal Auditor. Call for information on having your own private in-house classes today.

How about Management by Walking Around?  Management is a contact sport not an objective setting exercise.  You have to get out into the field in order to see or “Check” what’s going on in your company (check is part of the Plan Do Check Act cycle of learning).  Lean thinking managers naturally walk around to get ideas for new kaizen improvement events, to see the work being performed, and to understand if the right work is being performed.  We call these Gemba Walks (Gemba is Japanese for the place where work happens).  In a Gemba Walk you want to observe your processes in action and look for signs of lean waste that need to be removed.

Management by Procedures is how McDonalds or other successful franchises manage their business.  You start by defining your process using a process map to build visual communication and understanding.  Next, write down what needs to get done, by whom, and when.  Then deploy and practice the procedure.  Perfect the procedure until you have a consistent process just like a franchise would need to roll this out to hundreds of others.

Managing by procedures is not a paper exercise.  It requires basic goal setting from the Management by Objectives crowd and also process checking from the Management by Walking Around group.  What’s different is that you will have process documentation that includes a process map, policies, procedures, and objectives that are clearly posted.  Systems are put in place to ensure your employees do not make mistakes.  And as a manager, you are actively involved in making sure your systems are working.

A franchise is built with consistent procedures.  Franchise owners are trained in the process and systems are put in place, by the franchise organization, to ensure that the franchise delivers the same consistent quality that the brand has built.

You too can start practicing how to Manage by Procedures by ordering the Office Procedures Bundle that is now on sale for 50% off during the month of December.  You will save $300 and receive 110 procedures, 124 supporting forms, and other supporting Word files that explain how to write procedures and use the manual.  You will receive this extensive set of policies, procedures and forms.

Easily editable policies and procedures for multiple departments:

• Accounting
• Administration
• Customer Service
• Disaster Recovery
• Engineering
• Environmental
• Finance & Credit
• Information Systems
• Manufacturing
• Personnel
• Sales and Marketing
• Security and Operations
• Shipping and Purchasing

Download a sample procedure template right now and see for yourself how this amazing bundle can help your business build greater consistency for success.

Fist you have to ask yourself what does HR do?  HR’s function is to support hiring and termination, training and development, benefit programs, HR compliance-safety and their own improvement projects.  There are five topics to discuss.

Next you have to develop a Lean Daily Management System.  I believe you need daily ten minute meetings to maintain the discipline of lean.  Daily meetings are the cornerstone of a Lean Daily Management System.  That does not mean you need to talk about the same things every day.  If your transaction volume is low then focus on different areas each day.

Your lean system should be focused around a visual management board.  The daily discussion should be about the data collected, the trend charts that you are updating, any noconformances that are occurring, and what your HR progress is towards your HR objectives.  Of course this implies you have sat down and developed your objectives and understand what the purpose of HR is in your organization.

Some believe that HR has nothing to talk about daily.  But wait; if HR has nothing to talk about daily then what exactly do they do every day?  I suspect they are thinking about the big HR picture.  They need to break it down into smaller elements that can be charted and tracked daily.  Keep in mind, if your company is big enough to have an HR department, then it is big enough to have something to talk about daily.

For example, if you are hiring one person a month then you must have a process that requires oversight, has defects, and also has opportunities for improvement.  Yes, HR has daily things to talk about…

Questions to ask in your daily ten minute lean meetings are:

• What is employee turnover, what’s the goal?
• What is the competency level for each employee, what’s the goal?
• How many people are using benefit programs, what is the goal?
• How many compliance/safety nonconformance, what’s the goal?
• How many kaizens, what’s the goal?
• Overall, what are the results of the HR department services?

Yes, you can implement lean in HR.  You can implement lean anywhere.  The issue is having goals and then collecting the right data to lead the discussion to motivate everyone to get lean.

Have you gained quality improvement expertise over the years working with many manufacturing, information technology, and service organizations?   Bizmanualz understands your ongoing challenges of building a Quality Management System, implementing Lean Thinking, or the day-to-day struggles to maintain your ISO registration.   ISO 9001 assistance is close at hand.  Bizmanualz can provide quality management support either with onsite or remote assistance.

Policies, procedures, and forms documentation.  Now you can develop a simple ISO system in as little as 12 pages that requires less overhead using Lean ISO 9001:2008 conforming policies, procedures, and forms documents.  Each document is easily editable in MS-Word to customize to your situation.

Procedure management software. Once your documents are drafted you can simplify your document version control and management tasks using online software that ensures document reviews and approvals are completed prior to release.  Deliver relevant documents to every point-of-use or to your auditors via the internet.  Improved document access control, search and retrieval ensure your users have what they need.  Using an online procedure management software means no more back-up, retention, and document control findings too.

1^st and 2^nd Party audit support.  You don’t need to have a full-time internal or supplier audit staff.  Just contract experienced auditors to oversee the internal audit process, schedules, and audit plans, as needed.  You will receive timely audit reports for your supplier audits, pre-assessment audits, internal audits or full system audits.

Quality Management Support. Obtain fast answers to your quality management system questions from experienced, certified quality managers that can lead management reviews with complete records of results, follow-up on management review action items, and oversee nonconformance, corrective and preventive action processes.  Technical advise on quality policy, quality objectives, and overall QMS performance is readily available.

Continuous Improvement Support. Trained and experienced Lean / Six Sigma facilitators are available to organize, lead and document Lean / Six Sigma improvement events (like 5S, Preventive Maintenance, Set-up reduction, line balancing, etc).  Contract for a only the ISO quality, lean, and six sigma training you need.  Having problems with SPC, calibration, FMEA, control plans, customer feedback processes?  Training programs, advise, and guidance can be yours.

Using Bizmanualz provides competent and cost effective resources that reduce common audit findings and management stress related to the quality management system.  Now you can quickly resolve common audit findings related to:

• Qualified personnel and training
• Working document and record control
• Timely internal audits and management reviews
• Viable Nonconformance, Corrective and Preventive Action system

Bizmanualz maintains competent, qualified (ASQ Certified) personnel available as Lean / Six Sigma facilitators, part-time quality managers, and part-time lead auditors.  Now you have a cost effective solution using less than a full time quality staff that are available as need demands and you pay only for what you use.

Bizmanualz quality system services offer less stress for management using a working QMS to retain your ISO Certification.  Your management just reviews and approves actions on a scheduled basis.  Now that’s easy.

The Five Areas Bizmanualz can Help with Your Quality Management System

1. Policies, Procedures, and Forms Documentation Examples
2. Document Version Control and Management Software
3. 1^st and 2^nd Party Audit Support
4. Quality System Management Support
5. Continuous Improvement Support

Call us to find out how Bizmanualz can help you with your Quality Management System today.

Now, what do you think of when you hear the term “lean“? Are you thinking “no fat”, as in Jack Sprat?  Do the words “efficient”, “effective”, or “no waste” come to mind?

If we put the two terms together, we get Lean ISO 9001, which means a quality management system (QMS) with no fat…an ISO 9001 system that is efficient, effective, and reduces waste within your organization. Who wouldn’t want that?

So, tell me…why do so many organizations implement huge ISO 9001 quality management systems, with hundreds of pages of policies, procedures, and forms, seemingly limitless bureaucracies, and ?

Few organizations are satisfied with the ISO 9001 systems they’ve built for themselves, yet they typically don’t want to change them. Why? Why stick with a system that causes more pain than it removes? Why not throw the old system out if it’s that bad, and replace it with a lean ISO quality system? Think of this: a lean quality management system — one that’s a mere dozen pages or so of easy-to-follow procedures, rules, and requirements, a minimum number of uncluttered forms, and no bureaucracy, which means you spend much less time maintaining your ISO 9001 QMS in top shape.

Easily Create a Lean ISO Quality System

It might be easier than you think to create a lean ISO quality system: mix one part ISO with two parts lean and you get a great quality system. Really, ISO is pretty straightforward once you introduce lean thinking into your organization.  Add lean kaizen improvement events for your corrective and preventive actions, lean standard work to create lean procedures, lean value stream mapping to define your processes, a lean dashboard to track your quality objectives, and a lean quality policy focused on your customer.

Starting with lean makes a ISO 9001 quality system implementation simple — certainly, much easier than trying to introduce a Six Sigma (DMAIC) process into your organization. Once you get lean, you’ll get ISO 9001 as well. Both are aimed at producing the same result — more satisfied customers.

To sum it up, don’t get started on the wrong foot by trying to design and implement a quality management system without Lean. Think of “a QMS without Lean” as something like “building an airplane from scratch”. It could be done, buy why would you?  Start with lean thinking and make getting your ISO 9001 registration a piece of cake.  Lean ISO quality is the way to go.

* * * * * * *

Need help “leaning out” your ISO 9001 Quality Management System?  Contact Bizmanualz to learn how you, too, can have a Lean ISO Quality system of your very own.

Required Policies Procedures

Only company policies and procedures required by standards, regulations or company strategy must be developed.  ISO 9001 requires only six procedures, so why do many companies feel they need to write 40 or more procedures to achieve control?  Occasional users need procedures as a reminder of procedure steps that they do not perform very often.  Frequent or regular users do not need, and often times do not use, the procedure.  So how are those other 34-plus procedures used?  Most procedures are used to train infrequent users.  For training purposes you may only need a process map.  Are you using your procedures to make up for a weak training program?

Your Policies Procedures Template Design

When you do write procedures you will need to standardize on a procedure template design.  Start your policies and procedures template design by thinking through your document and record control procedures.  Your procedure template design should make room for a header block to ensure your procedure communicates your purpose and scope.

Add a Title, Policy, Purpose, Scope, Responsibility, and Definitions section to help people understand your procedure. Clear department responsibilities identify who does what and helps to declare which positions are mentioned in your procedure with a synopsis of what is expected for each position. Key term definitions reduce confusion; industry jargon should be explained in the definitions section of your procedure to help new procedure users.

Writing Policies Procedures

Before you start writing procedures from scratch, look around for examples, or templates, that you can copy.  Pre-written procedures will speed up your development, reduce your research time, and turn writing procedures into editing procedures.  I’ve found it’s a lot easier to edit a procedure than to write one from scratch, depending on the procedure.  Many procedures are really common using business best practices, so why reinvent the wheel?

If you have to write a procedure from scratch, start writing procedures using active voice construction to reduce task confusion. Subject, verb, object provides clear active voice construction for your procedure.  For example, “Accounts Receivable invoices customers” is clearer and contains fewer words than “customers are invoiced by Accounts Receivable.”  The extra “are” and “by” make the sentence longer, put the subject last, and force the reader to stop and reread the action.  Be direct and to the point — use the active voice.

Add references to related documents to improve your procedures’ usability.  Clearly note when your procedure refers to other procedures or forms.  There’s nothing worse than following a procedure and coming to a passage that refers to a company form and…that’s it. You don’t know what the form looks like, where you might find it, or what version of the form you need.  Putting an example of the form, with an explanation, in the procedure will save you and your users time during procedure training and implementation.

List applicable laws or regulations: clearly communicate your company’s need for compliance.  If you’re implementing a records retention procedure, references to IRS or equal employment opportunity (EEO) passages, for example, provide a brief synopsis and help you implement your procedures.

How to Write Policies and Procedures

Policies Procedures Overhead

Large organizations have a large number of procedures.  They have a lot of staff, business operations, and economy of scale to make their procedures work.  Smaller businesses should remember — the more business procedures you write, the more business procedures you have to edit, implement, train, audit, and review.  More procedures may also produce more audit findings in addition to more updates, more documents to control, and more administration overhead.

Many companies fail to plan for this administration and procedure overhead, so it should come as no surprise that their procedures don’t work as well as expected.  Every procedure becomes outdated, eventually.  Also, due to infrequent maintenance and use, some procedures are overlooked when it’s time to update them.  This can result in repeated procedure audit findings or, worse, repeated waste, fraud, and abuse which the procedures were intended to reduce.

The lean thinking solution is (a) to write only procedures that you absolutely have to write to conform to requirements and (b) to improve your training program to build competent and skilled employees instead of writing procedures you don’t have the time or budget to maintain.

Next week, we’ll cover policies and procedures implementation and training.  It’s much easier to comply with standards and train employees when you’re working with written procedures.  If you’re interested in learning more about your procedures, call or e-mail us for a procedure review of your written procedures.  We’re happy to provide feedback on what you’re using and tell you how you can improve your processes.

St. Louis, MO – June 18, 2009 – Bizmanualz, Inc., a business publications, training, and consulting company based in St. Louis, MO, today announced the release of the updated ISO 9001 Policies and Procedures Manual. The company has greatly improved its product by modeling its policies and procedures on the Deming (“Plan-Do-Check-Act”) Cycle.

“The updated manual reflects our lean philosophy in multiple ways,” said Christopher Anderson, Managing Director of Bizmanualz. “For example, rather than borrow the text of the standard verbatim in the quality manual, we stripped it to the bare essentials. Putting in a lot of verbiage not required by the standard can make your Quality Manual less user-friendly, less useful, and less likely to be improved.”

The updated ISO 9001 Policies, Procedures & Forms Manual conforms to the ISO 9001:2008 standard, which was updated for the first time in eight years and released in November, 2008. ISO 9001 requirements for procedures and records are clearly identified throughout the updated manual. Recently ISO 9001 certified by using lean principles, the company has used a similar approach in the update process.

“We carried procedures over (from the old to the new ISO 9001 QMS manual) that most organizations consider critical,” said Steve Flick, Bizmanualz Product Director. “Similarly, we removed procedures that customers didn’t consider a high priority, or had little-to-nothing to do with 9001 requirements, or didn’t amount to more than simple work instructions.”

Twenty-three QMS procedures are included in the updated ISO 9001 manual. A forms list at the end of each procedure points out if the filled out form is a “required record” and which ISO 9001 clause requires that record. Bizmanualz redesigned its ISO 9001 QMS manual to help companies easily establish an effective quality management system, as well as to simplify the certification journey for organizations wishing to comply with ISO 9001:2008.

Bizmanualz also offers manuals for Accounting, Finance, Computers & Networks, Sales & Marketing, Human Resources, ISO 22000, Disaster Recovery, and Security. All of Bizmanualz® Policies & Procedures manuals are available via instant download or in hard copy form, with easily editable MS-Word documents included on CD.

Each manual provides prewritten policies, procedures, and forms that enable executives to create and maintain internal controls and implement best practices for all departments in their business.

Bizmanualz® ISO 9001 QMS Policies, Procedures, and Forms: How to Quickly Create an ISO 9001 Quality Management System with easily editable Policies, Procedures, and Forms. (400 pp/trade binder/$495.00) is a Knowledge Management title from Bizmanualz, Inc. It is available through the company’s website, www.bizmanualz.com, or by calling the publisher at 800-466-9953 (outside the USA, call 314-863-5079), faxing your request to 314-863-6571, or by e-mailing sales@bizmanualz.com.

St. Louis, MO (April 24, 2009) - Bizmanualz, Inc., a business strategy consulting and quality publishing company based in Clayton, Missouri, today announced the successful certification to ISO 9001:2008 for the design, development, realization, and delivery of its policy and procedure publications, training courses, and consulting services.  The certification demonstrates the Bizmanualz commitment to continually improve its ability to assist business owners achieve the growth they envision. 

“We developed a Lean visual management approach to implementing our Quality Management System (QMS) to dispel the notion that an ISO system requires a lot of paperwork,” explained Chris Anderson, Bizmanualz, Inc., Managing Director. “Now we can show clients the benefits of a working ISO-compliant quality system using Lean visual techniques to streamline the operations, focus employees on the objectives, and reduce wasted efforts.”

Bizmanualz ISO 9001:2008 Registration

Bizmanualz received its ISO 9001:2008 certification on April 10,2009, from Platinum Registration.  Auditor Colin Gray noted particular areas of excellence, including Bizmanualz customer feedback, corrective action, and internal communication methods, which involve morning staff meetings around the company’s “scoreboard” — a bulletin board listing the company’s main processes, projects, action items, and metrics.  Mr. Gray also praised the Bizmanualz Internal Audit process, saying in his report that the company’s internal audits are “thorough, effective, and meaningful.”

Kaizens/Corrective Actions are posted on the Bizmanualz "Kaizen Wall"

With the new lean implementation, Dan Davison, Vice President of Sales and Marketing has noticed a difference, saying, “clients are seeing tighter project definition, project management, status reports, and budget forecasts by job for the coming weeks. Tracking tasks posted on the wall increase our communication’s effectiveness.”

ISO 9001:2008 is an internationally recognized QMS standard, which ISO Secretary General Rob Steele said has “an estimated one million users worldwide.”  Certification is obtained through independent registrars that audit every aspect of a company’s QMS.  Lean is a quality system approach that seeks improvement through the elimination of waste, a focus on the customer, and systems of visual management.

Bizmanualz has been at the forefront of deploying business best practices since 1995, delivering Policies and Procedures publications, Lean ISO Quality Management Systems, and strategic marketing implementation services to help business owners achieve growth and expansion.

Bizmanualz Policies and Procedures publications are available through Amazon.com, calling Bizmanualz at 800-466-9953 (outside the USA, 314-863-5079), faxing your request to 314-863-6571, e-mailing sales@Bizmanualz.com, or by logging onto store.bizmanualz.com.  Bizmanualz® is a registered trademark of Bizmanualz, Inc.

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Thought-leadership on tough business issues

In recent articles, we explored how to complement your sales efforts by keeping in touch with prospects with valuable, relevant information. Check out the introduction to our Sales & Marketing Manual, and learn how to grow sales without adding sales staff. Learn how a content and communications service can keep your company top-of-mind with buyers and increase the speed and number of deals.  Or call our sales and marketing group, at tel. (314) 863-5079 x23.

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For a deeper understanding of process improvement programs for your organization, attend the next Implementing Lean Thinking or How to Align a System of People and Processes for Results class. If you are eager to learn more about creating more order out of the chaos you are feeling at work, then the How to Create Well-Defined Processes class is right for you.

One way that business people find goods and services is to search the web. It’s up to you to optimize your site to make it easy for search engines to serve up your site when prospects go searching.

Think you can get people to contact you by just writing about your new technology, great ideas, or by giving away white papers? If what you do is new, what makes you think prospects are searching for it? Rather, consider what prospects are thinking, and typing, when they are in a frame of mind to care about what you offer. You need a strategy. Otherwise, your site will become just one more dark corner on the Internet.

Search engine optimization: Your competitors aren’t doing this!

Now that you’ve got a website with great marketing content, how is anyone going to find it? What exactly are your prospects searching for? How can you get search engines to show links to your website in the first few results pages? Find out how you can get ahead of your competitors in search results.

Search engine optimization is part of a managed lead-generation program.

Getting noticed on the web takes know-how, and work. The fifty-cent term for it is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Your competitors may not be using SEO, which presents you with an opportunity for competitive advantage. This article gives you a few tips to help your site be found before competitors’, the first step if your web site is going to generate sales leads.

Learn more about search engine optimization as part of a lead-generation program

You need execution. Structuring pages and documents correctly, eliminating common mistakes and getting links on related sites is all part of a managed lead-generation program that includes search engine optimization.

Contact us if you want to learn more

Want leads from your web site? Learn how to get noticed!

Each of your pages has an opportunity to attract prospects. To assign relevance and give your pages top position, search engines look for frequent keywords and phrases, textual patterns, how much competition there is for keywords, length of copy, links from similar sites, among other factors. Here are a couple ways to optimize your web site:

Develop relationships with organizations relating to what you do. Ask them to add links pointing to your site. This is called off-page search engine optimization.

Find out what words and phrases your prospects are searching for, and use them liberally throughout your site. Keep in mind that the name or description of your product may be unknown to prospects. So do some research to find out what prospects are thinking before they know about you. This is called on-page search engine optimization.

Meta Tags
Not nearly as important as they once were, search engines still examine these index terms associated with your pages.

Page Titles
Most search engines assign extra weight to page titles, which can help your pages land on top.

Navigation
Good navigation helps the search engine find the information you placed in the site, and efficiently pass it to searchers.

Effective use of search engine optimization can greatly enhance the performance of your sales and marketing process, and provide you a competitive advantage. Better lead generation, in turn, also means an improved sales and marketing pipeline.

For a deeper understanding of process improvement programs for your organization, attend the next Implementing Lean Thinking or How to Align a System of People and Processes for Results class. If you are eager to learn more about creating more order out of the chaos you are feeling at work, then the How to Create Well-Defined Processes class is right for you.