Understand the terms: Digitization , Digitalization, Digital Transformation

The next industrial revolution is going to be on Digital 

Let us understand the difference between Digitization, Digitalization, and Digital Transformation and we can relate with our organization.

Those terminologies are sometimes are used interchangeably, but there is a clear difference in each of the terminology.

Digitization :

Digitization means any effort towards converting analog information into a digital format so that computers can store, process, and transmit to anybody when it is required.

This is just converting physical format to digital format

For example, 

scanning of daily logbook information to digital format and sharing 

scanning of invoice to digital format and sharing 

taking photographs of a daily plan to digital and sharing 

Digitalization :

Digitalization means adopting digital technologies for increasing personal and business benefits.

This effort is for more than storing, processing, and transmitting the data..

For example,

 when you collect your machine utilization, performance, quality data through OEE embedded software or SCADA system, then it is digitization.

The benefits could be the elimination of paperwork, dependence on manpower to collect and record the data manually(then transferring the same data to excel), and improving the accuracy of the data collection process.

Similarly, other examples could be using barcode and scanning technology, reducing the manual effort of entry in invoice preparation and inventory recordings etc.

also, the example of employee entry and exit data, through digital scanning and software system. It brings the benefit of reducing administrative efforts of maintaining the records manually and using it for payment processing.

Digital Transformation:

Digital transformation is more than digitalization effort in the sense that this effort is a completely new way of doing process or business transaction and it is driven companywide at all levels and thereby getting higher benefits like new business opportunities, drastic reduction in the cost, or increase in employee, customer experience level. Adoption of digital technologies will be on a larger scale and the effort of change and benefits would be on a higher scale.

Sometimes, this digital transformation disrupts the current business model and new opportunities emerge. For example, the transformation of the stock market from floor auctioning to digital is an example of digital transformation.

In my opinion, the small, emerging organization has to go a long way in the digital transformation step as most of us are in either digitization or in digitalization drive only.

Just think about where your organizational efforts are in digital!

Leveraging Low cost automation for Cost Effectiveness

Even though the challenges for both large and small organizations are broadly same like increase in labor cost, non-availability of people, pressure on pricing, increase in expectation on quality standards and service, the large organizations are adopting automation of processes to some extent to mitigate the challenges, the small organizations are struggling to get most out of the automation.

While some of the SME business heads are getting exposed to innovative automotive trends like robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and industrial 4.0; either they become scared of those developments, or some people are feeling guilty of not being updated in the organization and trying to look for automation.

In my view, those innovative trends are catching up and need to be evaluated on the investment and adaptability to small size organizations. Even large size organizations are in the investigation and preliminary implementation stages in the organization except a few, who leveraged the benefits mostly on the robotics application. We need to learn and watch the trend, and as far as small size organization is concerned, a lot of opportunities are yet to be explored in low-cost automation itself.

In this article, i have tried out to give an overview of leveraging low-cost automation possibilities in small, emerging organizations for cost-effectiveness.

Level of Automation in SME organization

I can classify the automation implementation  in SME's in 2 phases viz

• Basic Automation Implementation
• Advanced Automation Implementation

Basic Automation can be defined as the creation and application of technology, which makes equipment, process or a system operate automatically with or partial involvement of people.

Advanced  Automation systems represent a level of capability and performance that surpass in many ways the abilities of humans to accomplish the activities. 

Most of the SME's are in the stage of leveraging basic automation only and i dwell more on the basic automation and its application areas, challenges, and solution approach in implementing organization-wide basic automation system.

Why business head is reluctant to automation so far?

There are many factors that contribute to low-level interest in automation and in my personal experience, the following are the reasons

1. Lack of shifting the focus on people dependence on automation:

Most of the SME's are still comfortable and dependant on manpower even though the realization started on the need for automation wherever the repetition of the process, need of skill requirement. The business heads are feeling more comfortable and convenient to hire and deploy people than looking for automation solutions and upgrading to unknown subjects.

2. Investment:

some organizations are reluctant to the investment and comfortable with the recurring expenses.

3. Lack of supporting system:

Even though the organization is ready to move from manual to automation and for the investment, they are not getting the required support in terms of reliable sources for automation, after service and support, internal people training, irregularity on the power source, inconsistency in the parts.

Now things are changing in all the above factors thanks to compelling pressure on the competitive pricing and the change in the ecosystem for automation. But we need to go a long way in bringing in awareness and creating an environment for thinking towards automation and successful implementation.

some organizations in SME have consistently focus and investing in automation, and hopefully, this will continue, and there will be a widespread focus on automation.

Opportunity areas for automation in small, emerging organizations

Conditions under which we should consider automation?

1. Massive material movement by manually or semi-automatic  which leads to accidents, fatigue or delay or low efficiency
2. Too much dependant of human intervention in ensuring process parameters which leads to quality problems like defects and defectives, rework
3. The repetitive and standard process where fatigue seems to exist

Primarily, when there is a need for

1. Accident prevention and ensuring safety
2. Improving manpower efficiency
3. Ensuring process and product quality

Typical application areas for automation

1. Movement of materials through material handling systems ( trolleys, hand pallets, stackers, conveyors, cranes, etc
2.  Reducing the dependence on manual intervention in a repetitive process like 100 % inspection or sampling inspection, where it is unavoidable to bring it under process quality through test rigs and scanners etc

3. Reducing the dependency on manual intervention where process consistency is important like molten metal pouring, chemical, powder mixing and in some cases automating loading and unloading the components in the machine

4.Avoidance of human intervention in mere data collections like attendance, machine utilization data, people efficiency details through software, data capturing devices 

Should we give strategic importance to automation initiatives or let it be operational initiatives?

In order to bring holistic achievement in the automation, the business head should give strategic importance to the automation initiatives. I mean, the business head should look at the business processes and manufacturing process in a holistic way for optimizing the resources through the automation route. 

Instead of trying automation in a localized, opportunities areas, if the business head looks at the overall opportunities in the system, identifying potential areas, forming core groups, evaluate the cost-benefit analysis, partnering with right solutions providers, involve all the stakeholders and implement as an important initiative, the benefit would be huge compared to the standalone, ad-hoc way of initiating some automation in the system.



How to identify opportunities for automation projects?

Automation opportunities can be identified at the overall business process level and within the process, in each elemental level, automation can be identified.

This can be done using process mapping techniques and micro elemental analysis.

Process Mapping Techniques:

for example, you consider one commodity or RM, and you can map the process from the moment it enters the security gate for GRN entry to final FG dispatch as shown in typical process mapping.

In each business process, the team should ask the following questions.

1. Is there a possibility for automation to improve the safety, efficiency, and accuracy of the process?

the team should look at each process only from the lens of AUTOMATION to get the benefit of quality, efficiency, and improving safety aspects. Most of the time, we are using a different lens like waste elimination, variation reduction, people interface etc, sometimes we overlook the possibilities of automation. of course all the waste elimination and reduction methodology may ultimately lead to automation, but when we go through the process only from the automation benefits like efficiency improvement, safety practices improvement, and quality improvements, there is a high probability to find automation projects.

After identifying the potential projects, the team can do the techno, commercial benefits evaluations to select the highest potential automation projects.

Micro Elemental Analysis for identifying the  Automation opportunities:

Another approach is using micro elemental analysis in which the engineer list down the operations into elements and each element is being questioned for the improvement through low-cost automation possibilities.

For example, in one of my client operations, they engage in press shop operations and when the process engineer lists down the elements like Picking the comp, loading, pressing, ejecting and unloading the component, they identified opportunities to eliminate ejecting and unloading by providing low-cost automation which takes cares of ejecting and unloading into the container automatically once the pressing operation is over.

The point is for the small organization, we need both approaches to identify the potential opportunities for automation.

Levels of Automation :

1. Fixtures / simple low cost mechanical/ Hydraulic / Pneumatic  setups
2. Material Handling facilities
3. Low-cost Special Purpose machines
4. Standalone High-cost automation
5. Integrating multiple machines and human interfaces

A typical checklist for successful automation projects

In most of the SME organizations, one common pattern i am seeing is that the organization is not getting the benefit of the automation even though the concept or the intention behind the automation projects was clearly thought-out and articulated.

The success will be materialized only when the team ensures some of the factors right from conceptualization to operationalizing the automation in line with customer's demand or flexibility.

The following factors need to be considered in the planning and execution stage to get the full benefit of the automation.

• Clarity on the objective of automation, whether the automation is meant for efficiency or safety or quality or the combination of all.
• Conceptual idea or drawing about the automation before discussing with the external service provider
• Desirable cycle time and matching with existing and future takt time requirements
• Selection of reliable source who is having integration experience in electro, mechanical and digital space
• Ergonomics consideration
• Availability of spares requirement
• Basic maintenance guidelines and adherence
• Meeting return on investment as per organizational guidelines

Like any other initiative, when the automation initiatives are conceptualized holistically and executed correctly by involving all the stakeholders, any automation will give more significant benefits to the organization.

Why portfolio clarity is required among family members in the small ,emerging organization?

In most of the family business, one of the common patterns I see is that all the family members use to get involved in all the business matters. Still, at the end of the day, either decision never gets taken or decisions deferred as no one will have the final say. In this process, the organization remains mediocre, or the growth opportunities are not leveraged as supposed to be.

There is no doubt that the organization had grown from startup to significant size due to the mew hardworking family members. However, if you want to take the organization to the next level growth or if you want to make the organization more of the professional firm by bringing external talent, the first step would be restructuring at the senior leadership level, ie family members level.

One of the restructuring processes is bringing clarity on the portfolio among the family members

What does Portfolio clarity mean?

• For each family member, define the roles and responsibilities according to their qualification, strength, and experience.
• Assigning the particular functions or set of functional deliverables 
• Empowering an individual to make decisions in their respective functions or domain. To continue the inherent, inclusive way of working, the information to be shared among family members periodically. 
• Making people accountable for the result

Benefits of portfolio clarity among family members:

1. Mainly, organization growth can be accelerated as inherently, and the business has resources. Still, due to a lack of clarity on portfolio clarity, resource's time is getting wasted by involving in all business matters and enriched with only information.

2. Duplication of roles and responsibility can be avoided, and the resources can be utilized effectively

3. Gives clarity to the people of the organization on whom they should report for what purpose. The clarity at a higher level will remove the ambiguity among the employees, and also we can avoid the manipulation of communications by the employees.

4. The decision can be taken faster which helps the organization to respond quickly to the external world.

5. Bring out the extraordinary talent of the individual when they work under pressure to deliver the results


When the business is growing from small to large size, professionalism will help to accelerate the growth and for the benefit of the organization's growth, relationship and accountability need to be balanced through portfolio clarity among the family members!.

Step by step process in implementing organization wide performance management system

One of the dreams or visions for most of the business head of the small, merging organization is to make the organization a system driven and to implement performance-driven management.


As we discussed the need for an organization-wide performance management system, now let us learn the step by step implementation step to make the performance management throughout the organization.

Step1:

Implementing Business performance management, keeping the second level reportees as stakeholders.


Business  Level Performance Management :

When the organization is small, or the first time, the organization is getting into the performance management system, the logical step would be determining the important business key performance metrics along with some of the functional key performance metrics and start measuring. Key performance metrics can be measured and tracked by the business heads and his/ her second level reportees, mainly functional heads. 

For example, some of the business KPI's like sales turnover, inventory cost as a % of sales, Plant effectiveness, attrition rate, % of NPD contribution over sales can be measured and tracked. This set of performance metrics can be reviewed along with functional heads, and they can be encouraged to work on the action plan to improve the business performance.

This process implementation duration can be one year. 

Benefits of  business-level performance management :

1. Senior leadership team becomes familiar with the process of performance management even though they are not feeling fully accountable for the result and but they feel they are part of the process.

2. Enhances the engagement among functional heads or second level reportees o when the business head reviews along with them every month or weekly 


Step 2:

Implementing Business performance management as done in the first year and arriving suitable functional level performance management, keeping the second level reportees and their team as stakeholders.


Business +Functional Level Performance Management 

Since the organization already familiarizes itself with a business-level performance management system in the first year, now the organization can have Business performance metrics that can be set by the business head and tracked along with the functional head.

In the second level, detailed functional level performance metrics can be set and assigned to the second level or operational head level. The functional performance parameters can have more functional oriented and some of the business metrics as derived from business KPI's from the business head.

For example, the supply chain function can have more functional metrics like no of vendors developed, inventory level at different levels, freight cost as % of sales, and so on. Similarly, for all functions, we can have more functional level metrics which can be assigned to respective functional heads and their team.

The functional heads and teams can be encouraged to present the performance metrics trend and a detailed action plan for the business head every month.


This process implementation duration can be one year. 

Benefits of business + functional performance management :

1. The focus will be given in-depth to the functional effectiveness, by the way, measurements are extended to all functional key activities

2. Since we involve functional heads and their team, their involvement and focus is improved on functional effectiveness

3. Most of the organization covers under different functional metrics and performance measurement system, eventually, there will be an improvement in the communication process, visibility of issues and the solutions approach, understanding the pains of cross functions enhances significantly.

4. Eventually, engagement enhances across functions


Step 3 :

Implementing  Individual-level performance metrics which is derived from business and functional performance metrics 


Business Performance Management  + Functional Performance Management + Individual performance management :

Since the organization already familiarize itself with the business performance management system in the first year and the functional team engaged in the functional performance system in the second year, now the organization widens the performance management net to all the people in the organization. Ideally, it can be extended to executives, first-line supervisors level.

In this process, each individual is given a set of performance metrics that will have linkage with the functional parameters, which is derived from business metrics.

Each individual is accountable for improving their metrics and report the progress. The review period can be once every quarter or monthly basis, depending on the bandwidth of the organization. It is the responsibility of the functional head to review the progress of their team members. 

For example, the individual depending upon the level in the organization can be given performance metrics that are related to his/ her functions. Also, some of the development plans can be added.

By the way, almost the entire organization is governed by performance metrics related to business and functions.

Benefits of  organization-wide performance measurement system:

1. Since the direction is set for the organization at business, functional, and individual levels; it improves the focus and engagement.

2. Eventually, the organization gets clarity of performer and non-performer, and this will help to focus on people developmental efforts 

3. When the rewards and recognitions are based on the performance, it brings visibility, differentiates the performers and non-performers, improves the culture towards self and organizational performance improvement

Overall, performance management brings engagement among people, eases the communication, improves the focus on results or solutions, and thereby culture would become more of winning than blaming or complaining.

Implementing the organization-wide performance management system is a long process and needs to be implemented in a phased manner for sustaining the results and involving all the stakeholders to create performance-based culture!

paradigm shift required on the role of operator in small, emerging organizations

In some of the small, emerging organizations, operators who are working in machines or assembly lines are still perceived as Unskilled, and capability is restricted to loading and unloading of components. The other aspects of machine operators like quality checking, machine basic conditions monitoring, tool setting, and parameter monitoring or adjustment are taken by other teams like quality functions, programmers, setters, maintenance crew, and so on.

Here, more than the operator's skill and development, the mindset of supervisors or shopfloor managers needs to be changed. They believe that if we ask more from the operator other than necessary loading and unloading activities, the operator will not do or leave the organization. 

The flipside of this scenario is the operator will soon lose interest in the job as he/she is not learning anything new other than loading/ unloading. For any human being, the inner desire is to learn and contribute and get recognized for the contribution.

when the operator is not given an opportunity to learn more about quality, setting, and machine, he feels the lack of learning and looks for alternative or sometimes accept the situation as it is and becomes complacent.

From an organization perspective, when we have many people responsible for ensuring quality of the product and process adherence, machine basic condition monitoring, the ownership is totally shifted to someone, and they are not fully accountable for the causes of poor quality or poor maintenance. And the cost of manpower also increases, and engagement to the product or process quality becomes low at the operator level. That becomes a waste for the organization.

Since the operator is close to the job, he must be made accountable for OUTPUT, QUALITY AND BASIC HOUSEKEEPING OF THE SURROUNDINGS AND MACHINE. 

when we made this condition as a rule and develop the operator as one point source for improvement, this will enable the operators to learn the skill about quality and machine basic requirements monitoring, and the organization also benefits from waste elimination and reduction.

The starting point is how the organization defining the roles and responsibilities of the operators and the change in the belief system that the operator is capable of developing the required skill if it is warranted.

Cultivating winning culture in small, emerging organization

Who is cultivating culture? In one of my client organization, the CEO starts his monthly review meeting first by reviewing the employee engagement aspects like safety issues, employee participation levels, recognition, and then only he reviews other business deliverables. Over a period, "employees first" becomes the culture of the organization. The people under him also are giving first preference to employee engagement aspects. Similarly, in another organization, the business head always keens at delivery performance irrespective of any factors. His team also oriented to the practice. Now the culture of the organization is to deliver target" somehow" irrespective of profitability, quality level, or process adherence. Even in the home, if parents watch TV while eating, then the children also follow the same, then, over a period, it will become a culture of that family. The point is that the person at influencing level cultivates the culture either good or bad, not the other way around as followers cultivate the culture. Irrespective of title, you are the leader in your work or home. Influence positive, right things consistently, that will become a practice & culture.

In the personal front, what you do consistently becomes a habit. Similarly, in an organizational setup, what you do always becomes the culture.

culture is nothing but how people behave, relate to your business challenges in the organization.

It is the leadership team that is establishing the culture. When I say leadership team, not only CEO, senior-level managers, whoever is leading a team are leaders. When they demonstrate consistent behavior in some aspects, that will become the culture of the organization.

For example, if the leader believes in data transparency in everyday interaction, then the team also start thinking in data collection, analysis, sharing, and taking decision based on the data.

is it difficult to change the culture?

At the outset, anything is difficult in life, but possible with conviction. That is applicable in organizational culture setting and change the culture as well !!

Framework for bringing synergy among people in small, emerging organization

When we complete 12 months transformation intervention with small, emerging organization, the foremost question asked by the business head is " How can we sustain the improvements going forward?

The answer lies in establishing the daily management process in the organization at each level viz CEO& Senior leadership level, Middle-level management team, and operating level. Once if we implemented the system across all levels and executed on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, it creates an opportunity to build the organization as agile and vibrant.

also, it improves the engagement level of people with the organizational objectives, and this creates an opportunity for each individual to bring out the potential.

Target / Agenda / KPI's

In any level, what we measure, that gets focussed and get improved. We need performance metrics for individual/functions and the overall business as such. Measurement drives people behavior.

Right People / Cross functional Team

We need to identify the right people and place them in the right position. That itself solves most of the organizational problem. sometimes to solve the business challenges, we need a cross-functional team

Review forum / Communication 

We need to establish review forums to discuss the challenges. Status and facilitate the team towards the solution. Meeting or review forum is an excellent place to facilitate the solutions.

also, we need to establish different communication process like Management information system/groups for sharing and updating the live information.

when the organization sets the above process and does the cycle more frequently and effectively, the concerns on sustainability, people engagement, speed of response can be addressed.

Shifting the focus from Product Quality to Process Quality

In most of the small and emerging organization, we are observing that people spend enormous time, energy, effort in ensuring product quality through inspecting(in some cases 100 % inspection!) the final component both on functional and aesthetic aspects, segregation, rework and documentation.This kind of focus on a product only leads to “somehow” pushing the product to the customer with high manpower cost and long lead time. Moreover, this will set the belief in the organization that defects are unavoidable and the role of quality function to detect, correct and send it to the customer. Ownership also shifts from production to quality function on both delivery and quality. Eventually, the organization does not improve its problem-solving capabilities and culture of problem-solving at the source.

Instead, the organization can shift the focus more on the process quality than product quality. This shift can be demonstrated by ensuring the product quality at the source of production like pre-inspection of material before the process, providing process parameters through standard operating procedures,implementing mistake proofing devices either to prevent or detect the error at source of production, applying statistical process control, making the operator responsible for production and quality.

This focus on process will help the organization to reduce time, effort, energy in reactive product inspection processes, improve the problem-solving competency across the organization and reduce the lead time.

Shifting towards process quality from product quality, to start within the manufacturing process will be the first step towards total quality management in the organization.

How do you measure organizational maturity in terms of problem solving competency?

One of the differentiators between the organization is people and their problem-solving competency inside the organization. Developing the organization towards performance culture or problem-solving orientation is the biggest challenge for the business head and also the responsibility of the business head.

Unlike, capacity enhancement or technology upgrade, bringing the culture of problem-solving will not happen overnight as this calls for systematic, consistent people development and creating an environment inside the organization.

Any organization can be measured by maturity level regarding problem-solving competency using the below framework.

Level 0: No data availability
Level 1: Availability of data
Level 2: No structured Analysis
Level 3: Gaining Insight from Analysis
Level 4: Converging  into solutions approach
Level 5: Implementation focus
Level 6: Track performance through metrics

Relook at your organization' problem-solving competency based on the above maturity framework. Be aware of your current status and actions required to move to the next level!

When does your organization need external help?

     Each organization undergoes different growth cycle, and each growth cycle calls for different management practices, business processes, and employee engagement practices. For example, the systems and processes followed by the organization when it makes 5 cr~10 cr sales turnover may not be suitable when the same organization makes 25 cr or 100 cr turnover. The leadership team and the organization have to change in line with market/customer / external expectation. If the organization does not cope with the expectation, it will perish eventually.

Fortunately, a few organization adopts to the requirements on its own and managing the change thanks to the vision, growth mindset, flexibility of the leaders. However, most of the organization needs external help in bringing the necessary changes in business and management processes and inculcating the winning mindset among the people.

The purpose of seeking external people like consultants or coach is to look at the business in a different perspective, guide and handhold the team to implement the new practices and bring confidence to the organization by showing the business results.

Typically organization needs external help in any of the following situations. 

1. The business is not growing regarding sales turnover for last three years, or the growth is only incremental
2. The business is growing regarding top line, but the profitability  stagnant or downward trend or negative 
3.Both top line and bottom line stagnant and no clarity on the direction to take 
4. Increase in sales demand and product line/varieties, but struggle to cope up with growth. (struggling to meet the delivery, cost, quality, and efficiency requirements)
5. To transform the organization towards performance-based culture  by reorienting the old and new people 

Relook at your business performance and determine the right time to seek the external help for timely growth!

Typical symptoms of poor management practices in (SME) Organizations?

Whether small, emerging medium  or large size organization, most of them have common  macro-level challenges like

1. Improving profitability
2. Sustaining the growth & Future fit
3. People Engagement towards growth

However, small and emerging organizations have other typical challenges apart from the macro level challenges. Those challenges arise due to lack of proper management practices and business / functional processes.

Let us list down some of the symptoms of poor management practices or processes that result in mediocre performance or survival challenges.

1. Struggle to meet the given delivery schedule on time and qty. This will be regular scenario every month
2. There is no structured planning on customer's orders. Most of the time, serving the customer based on the urgency of the customer on a daily / weekly basis.'
3. One of the complaints or frequently listened word (FLW) is " our planning person is not effective, or are planning is very difficult in our industries.
3. Inventory (RM+WIP+FG) accounts for more than a monthly requirement, still manufacturing lines come to a halt for want of material
4. Rework / segregation is part of daily activities  and those  are considered as  essential activities for delivery
5. For any quality problems, quality executive or quality manager  is expected to own and solve it
6. Quality is ensured through Inspection 
7. Making the operators to run the machines. Checking the quality aspects and taking actions are considered as idealistic and impossible
8.A permanent imbalance between feeder shop and final assy line. Neither aware of the imbalance nor the actions to improve
9. Typically the first week would be low production achievement and gradually increased to last week. During month end, all are busy.
10. Sometimes, previous month billing execution would continue even after first 5~7 days of the month and this continues forever
11.No clarity and communication about monthly billing/production target and actual at any point of date. That information restricted to the senior management team only
12 No performance drive on improving business / functional deliverables.
13.No structured reviews mechanism between the business head and the next level
14 Functionally I am right; but as an organization, we fail mentality across the level 
15 No Monthly business performance review by the business head
16 ERP system is either tried  or hold  for correction
17.Thinking that  ERP system will solve all our today's communication issues
18 No structured  HR policy on recruitment and compensation
19. New product development is given least priority. No structured cross-functional team reviews
20. No time for a celebration of small success and always  firefighting mode to serve the customer

The point is to relook at your organizational symptoms and work on eliminating or reducing the intense to prosper!

My thought process on initiating lean manufacturing in small and emerging organizations

         Lean is achieving “more with less.” That is, making more production with

given resources or increased efficiency or achieving with less cost.

      Lean manufacturing system can be understood by relating to a human body. If the person is lean means general understanding is that he is free from unnecessary FAT in his body, hence free from unnecessary side effects like BP, Pain in joints, laziness, and the person is perceived as healthy, more flexible, and active.The same way if the organization is lean means, it is free from unnecessary fats like high inventory, high rejection, high breakdowns or line stoppages factors, etc  which leads to more flexible in delivery, less lead time , low cost of manufacturing and free flow of communication ( This is the way I introduce lean to new forums in my consulting workshop).Hence making the organization ( across all functions), extended supply chain system, any functional units (like machining, assembly, painting) need to be lean for increased efficiency, low cost, quality at first time and reduced lead time.

Lean is not a tool for cost reduction or cutting manpower or increasing efficiency alone, it is a culture building process or way of thinking and running a day to day business activities.When the lean is understood only as an application of tools like 5S, SMED, Visual management, poke yoke, it results in short-term impact in a particular cell or unit on a short time basis. It becomes difficult to sustain. Most of the organizations are keen on learning the tool and applying without understanding the big picture of linking with business objectives or culture building process.

Any lean initiative must start from CEO or head of the organization and more importantly, it has to be linked to the business need or goal.Moreover, lean should not be driven as separate initiative without linking with the business / functional objectives.When we drive as a separate initiative under one lean champion, lean efforts will be continuing as long as the champion is intense and driving as long as the entire team is undergoing a lean period in production or sales. Once demand /volumes pick up, the lean initiative takes back seat as it is perceived as EXTRA work for the organization.That is the reasons a few organizations are not taking the lean-to next level from grand inauguration ceremony and except few improvements on housekeeping and visual systems. 

In my consulting role, I am insisting lean implementation when there is full conviction from CEO, and there is a compelling need for driving efficiency, improving the bottlenecks for business growth and management agrees to work with us minimum six months to 2 years.
In some organizations, we failed to bring the momentum when the leadership team looks at lean initiatives as a quick remedy for their inherent problems.

To summarise, key ingredients I used in all lean initiatives are

1. Form cross-functional team
2. Involve CEO in reviews
3. Develop Business / Functional KPI's which are important for business / CEO to drive
4. Educate the team to see the waste in the system through VSM workshop or interviewing process
5. Make priority list along with the team to focus on waste elimination
6. For the identified waste, apply suitable lean tools starting from housekeeping (2S), Visual management, SMED, Best Maintenance practices, Daily work management like tracking hourly, daily output/quality issue tracking and reporting
7. Create forums for review meetings with operating team, cross-functional meeting among heads and weekly review meeting with CEO or business head
8. Review, Update KPI and tracking 

Becoming a lean organization is not a one-time event, it is a continuous journey.

How SME's transformation are different from large size organization transformation?

SME 's are mainly different from large size organization based on the investment and sales turnover they make. Even within SME's , there are further classication as micro, small and medium size organization.

Recently Govt of India proposed to redefine SME's based on their annual sales turnover, replacing the current definition that relies on self declared investment on plant and machinery

According to the government’s new definition, businesses with revenue of as much as Rs5 crore will be called a micro enterprise, those with sales between Rs5 crore and Rs75 crore will be deemed as small and those with revenue between Rs75 crore and Rs250 crore will be classified as medium-sized enterprises. 

The above classification clealrly differentiates large size organization from SME's from turnover point of view.

However, apart from sales turnover, there are some other charactersitisc distingusihes the SME's from large size organization.

1. Most of the SME's are supplying to large size organization either as Tier 1 or Tier 2 vendor
2. Adding value to product with partial manufacturing content or assembly
3. Mostly scope is limited to manufacturing only
4. No banddwidth to design / development / procuring material at own identified source or reengineering on product design and material selection
5. Not much bargaining power on pricing 
6. Not much affordability to get the right talent and developmental efforts

Given the above context of SME's, the business transformational efforts are mainly on

1. Ensuring profitability or sustaining profitability through business process reengineering

2. Helping to stabilise the organization for sustainable growth by twisting business model and people engagement initiatives

Why is business (head) transformation equal to business transformation, especially in SME’s?

There are several factors contribute to the success of the business regarding profitability and growth. Those factors could be type of products or services, talented employees, competition, positioning, market, economic environment and so on.Those are all common factors prevailing for any business in which some organizations are doing successfully, and others are struggling.The crucial differentiating factor between a progressive organization and stagnant or struggling organization is a business head especially in small, emerging medium size (SME’s) organizations.The business head could be the founder or the director of the firm.The business head's beliefs, quality of thinking, business practices and leadership style determines the organizational success amidst the common factors as listed.

As I had a privilege to work with more than 100 small and medium-size business heads on different occasions, one profound truth that I have realized.That is, irrespective of industry, business nature, product, manufacturing process, marketing environment and competition, the growth of the organization primarily depends on the business head ‘s thinking process or mindset, leadership style, his business practices or daily management processes and how he is directing or guiding his team.

Predominately his belief or how he looks at the business determines his leadership style, enables him to choose the right business practices or processes and ultimately reflects on the profitability and growth.

Most of the business heads as I observed, look at their business with either one of the two beliefs like survival orientation or growth orientation.

In survival orientation, he looks at his business and customers as a mean to make profits; he tends to make a profit somehow, with little or no emphasis on adhering to process, ethics, considering the interest of all stakeholders, future growth aspects and long-term sustainability of the business.Those organizations struggle with profitability issues, low employee engagements, frequent customer's turnout.

In growth orientation, he looks at his business and customers as a purpose to enhance the value of all stakeholders, including his motivation. This mindset will improve his thought process towards long-term sustainable business decisions. When he has the purpose of the business, his approach and thought process would be on building a solid foundation for the process, systems, technology and talent management, in turn, his visionary approach would be long-term oriented even though sometimes he loses in the short term. His growth mindset enables him to choose a set of business processes or practices on a day-to-day basis, which promotes positive organizational culture, business results, and long-term growth.His enhanced mindset enables him for creating sustainable wealth creation from his business to meet all stakeholder's expectation.

In our business transformation engagements, we have witnessed that whenever the CEO or business head understands the desirable behavior gap or the business process gap and then works full heartedly along with us, the business results used to be extraordinary. 

In my opinion, business success factors like technology, effective asset utilization, expanding into new markets, managing the competition, talent management and fulfilling the customers’ requirements are relatively easy tasks if the CEO or business head tune up his mindset and thought process towards growth orientation.

The real transformation has to happen at a business head level from mere survival mindset to a growth mindset.Business transformation starts from an individual and that too from the head of the organization. If that change happens at a business head level, I firmly believe that business is also equally transformed.

What must every SME business head know about his business?

As we are working with more SME organizations, we are observing two kinds of business heads or owners.One type of business owners involves themselves almost full time on managing all aspects of operational activities on a daily basis and not giving much focus on the business aspects of profitability and growth.The other type of business owners or heads delegate entire activities to second levels and not much familiar with business aspects. In both types of personalities, we see benefits and drawbacks as well. Only a few smart business heads able to balance the priorities between survival and growth-related activities.

The point is irrespective of the personal style of management, the business head must know some of the aspects of the business at a macro level, and in a fixed interval he must review along with his team. His macro level business acumen and reviews will help the organization to prepare proactively for any uncertainties or opportunities which impact profitability and growth.

The following business aspects the business head must be familiar and review frequently.

1. Profitability
2. Cash flow
3. Capacity constraints 
4. People capability and development
5. Next level growth plan 

1. Profitability :

He must have a practice of reviewing P&L once in a month along with the team. Reviewing P&L will give a fair idea about the healthiness of the organization regarding cost, product mix, and pricing

Also, he must be aware of his cost structure or value chain and its impact on the profitability.

He must have a clear idea of the product mix or customer mix which gives maximum profitability. This clarity will help him to focus on customer or product rationalization

2. Cash flow : 

One of the pain areas for most of the SME organization is poor cash flow management result into affecting day to day operations, sometimes, finding difficult to pay even salaries on time. This delay seems to be a regular event from the management point of view as multiple transactions happening across the supply chain, but from an employee point of view, these delays some time affect the morale and engagement. Better cash flow management is required to avoid hand to mouth situation of cash flow.

The business head must know his breakeven point, cash flow transactions, and payables/ receivables outstanding in a regular frequency through MIS so that he can intervene at right time with right people to mitigate the risk before it occurs

3. Capacity constraints : 

One of the competitive edges for the organization is speed and delivery flexibility, and this is going to be a major expectation from customers. The business head must know his organization constraint points and work continuously on debottlenecking or improving the capacity to stay ahead of the competition. The constraints could be anywhere in his operational and business processes.

Meeting the customer’s expectation on time must be one of the key performance indicators of business head

4. People capability and development : 

Today one of the significant challenges for SME’s is people management. It includes selecting the right people, compensating them at par with industry and retaining them. As most of the organizations realize the cost of replacement and training the new entrants, it is one of the critical priorities for business head to identify the people talent on time and develop them for cost efficiency and future fit point of view.As a business head, he must continuously invest in people capability development initiatives. 

5. Next level growth plan  : 

Since most of the team members in SME’s are working on operational issues and someone must think about sustainability, the growth of the organization. It is the responsibility of the business head to think ahead and work on the growth opportunities. To work on growth, he must be aware of the external environment, trends, customer’s expectation.

Organizational profitability and growth depend on the amount of time, the energy the business head spends in all aspects of business !!!

Business (Head ) Transformation - New Book

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How to develop problem-solving competency inside the organization?

Irrespective of industry and size of the organization, one of the common scenarios we observe in most of the organization is the inability to converge into the solutions approach for the chronic problems. Alternatively, we can say that most of the organizations lack on the problem-solving competency. When we say competency, it encompasses the knowledge of recognizing the problem, analyzing the causes from the reliable data, proposing the actions plan, implementing the measures and ensuring the problem does not recur.

Organization differs on the level of competency steps. If the senior management brings this one competency across levels and functions, then the organization sails through any business challenges.

In most of the organizations, we observe that lack of problem-solving competency prevails not due to lack of awareness on the problem-solving methodologies or tools and techniques. In fact, most of the organizations are aware of structured problem-solving methodologies like QC tools and its applications, 8D approach, A3 approach, six sigma methodologies, etc.

In my opinion, the inculcating problem-solving competency is more of mindset and culture building issues rather than on awareness issue. It is due to the lack of conducive environment or winning mindset culture as developed by the senior leadership team.

Clarity on the term “problem.”

Any gap between the target or desired status and reality or current status is a problem. The problem can be into tangible targets vs. actual as in sales turnover, profitability, launch timeline, etc. or in intangible areas like people expectations and the reality.

Whatever may be the gap or problem case, people across the functions and levels of hierarchy in the organization must have the mindset, competency to solve the problem. But in reality, in most of the organizations, senior leadership team struggles to bring the culture of continuous problem solving inside the organization.

Reason for not able to create the problem-solving culture

Some of the factors or behaviors of senior leadership team do not allow the people to get into structured problem-solving mindset.

1.    Not realizing the problem or trend 
2.    No structured, authentic data 
3.    Culture of jumping to quick solutions, once problem is identified
4.    Busy in firefighting and “somehow” resolving issues
5.    Hesitate to conclude the solutions approach or options
6.    No facilitation on arriving solutions approach
7.    No risk taking or rewarding risk takers

Solutions approach to create problem-solving mindset and culture inside the organization 

Obviously, the people have to be given education exposure to different problem-solving methodologies, tools, and techniques. Assuming that education or awareness part is taken care, the senior leadership team has more responsibility to create a conducive environment or demonstrate consistent behavior towards solving problems. The following solutions approaches are recommended

1. Building an environment to collect authentic, consistent data from source
2. Encouraging discussion based on facts rather than opinions.
3. Creating a routine forum or reviews to discuss the problems and solutions approach
4. Encouraging open debate and idea generation by keeping ego aside
5. Allowing others to talk and listen more for insights
6. Encouraging people to take risk and experiment with solutions approach
7. Differentiating and recognizing problem solvers 

In today’s competitive environment, one of the differentiators and competitive edge for the organization is to create more problem solvers and to create a culture of problem-solving mindset across levels and functions!