January 2006
[Return to winoc.org/Newsletter]
by
Bob Meyer
The Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network (MAGNet)
The Key to Assuring a Safe Product
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Dr. Donald E. Plante
After co founding the greater Cleveland Lean Six Sigma Champions Forum at Tri-C's Corporate College in 2004, WINOC has moved on to establish regional Forums in Medina and in Strongsville, with others planned. The Medina County Manufacturing Forum had its first meeting on October 19, 2005, hosted by MTD and next meets on January 19, 2006, hosted by Sealy. The first meeting of the Strongsville Manufacturing Forum will be February 28, 2006 hosted by Demag Plastics Group.WINOC works with regional academic, political and economic development leaders to establish these forums.
To learn more about the Medina County Manufacturing Forum go to http://www.winoc.org/medina_county_manufacturers_forum.htm
To view the announcements for the January 19, 2006 Medina County Forum and the February 28, 2006 Strongsville Forum go to winoc.org.
WINOC's Annual Board Meeting was held on November 3, 2005 at the Fox Meadow's Weymouth Country Club north of Medina. This meeting was primarily a business update meeting for WINOC Trustees and WINOC Advisors. If you are interested in learning more please contact us.
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WINOC was incorporated in 1981 "to stimulate and assist the improvement of productivity and quality of work life and products in Northeast Ohio through the involvement and participation of management, labor, academia, and other individuals and groups." Through public education, advisory services and programs, WINOC has reached out to about 2,000 organizations... in business, education, government and healthcare. People have always been the focus of improvement initiatives at WINOC, through employee involvement and through labor and management collaboration. There have been many important milestones for WINOC over the last twenty-five years, some of which are captured in the timeline below.
1981 - WINOC is formed by Cleveland Tomorrow, area chambers and labor groups.
1982 - Formal educational, training and consulting services begin.
1986 - Founding member of the Ohio Labor Management Cooperation Program (OLMCP).
1988/89 - Two Fortune Magazine recognitions as "the outfit that spreads the gospel of cooperation throughout the region".
1990 - WINOC expands its services and programs to healthcare, education and government.
1993 - 1,000th client served!
1996 - WINOC is featured in Harvard Business School Case Study :"Leadership in Action: the Cleveland Turnaround".
1997 - WINOC publishes its book People Make the Difference, featuring several northeast Ohio clients.
2000 - Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) retains WINOC for agency-wide Baldrige initiative.
2002 - Initial Ohio Department of Education (ODE) contract to develop the School Improvement Rubric (SIR) for technical assistance to schools.
2004 - WINOC co founds the greater Cleveland Lean Six Sigma Champions Forum at Tri-C's Corporate College.
2005 - Regional Manufacturing Forums launched. WINOC joins The Cleveland Alliance. WINOC helps develop the Manufacturing roadmap for economic development in northeast Ohio.
2006 - 2,000th client served!
The Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network (MAGNet)
MAGNet (Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network) is an expanded and regionally focused organization built on the foundation of CAMP, Inc. Beginning in March 2005, a group of regional manufacturing executives (including WINOC's Chairman and Vice-Chairman) from large, medium-sized and small companies worked closely with economic development groups to determine what could be done to improve the competitiveness of manufacturing in Northeast Ohio. This effort, called the "Global Roadmap for Manufacturing in Northeast Ohio" project, identified a number of strategic initiatives, including the creation of MAGNet.
Among the responsibilities that MAGNet will assume are to:
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Serve as the "voice" of manufacturing in Northeast Ohio, advocating for manufacturers in dealing with the multitude of regulatory agencies at the local and regional level and in influencing public policy.
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Encourage NEO manufacturers to adopt the most modern business and manufacturing strategies and techniques.
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Provide a focal point for working with the region's colleges and universities to provide a comprehensive set of offerings meeting the needs of regional manufacturers.
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Provide a clearinghouse for individual manufactures seeking assistance in the areas of productivity improvement, product innovation and global access (sourcing and/or markets).
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Continue to offer CAMP's traditional productivity and innovation services (through a separate operating unit).
MAGNet will be launched in February 2006 with the appointment of a new Board of Directors that will be broadly representative of the region's manufacturing base as well as of the 15-county Northeast Ohio region. It is anticipated that there will be 18-20 board members initially. Besides providing overall policy direction to the organization and hiring its president, the Board will appoint the members of the Manufacturing Advocacy Council and the Manufacturing Education Council.
MAGNet will work closely with other key regional economic development organizations and regional chambers in order to maximize the positive impact on the regional economy. TeamNEO and NorTech will have representation on the MAGNet board to help sponsor excellent coordination among regional efforts.
MAGNet has received approval from the Fund for Our Economic Future to finance the startup of the organization's new activities (see related article here)..
With funding from CAMP, OLMCP and WINOC, the Northeast Ohio Center for Labor Management Cooperation (NEOCLMC) wrote three labor management case studies. The Mittal Steel and Zircoa Case Studies were summarized in the October 2005 COMMUNICATOR. The Colfor Case Study is summarized below.
Colfor Manufacturing, Inc. and UAW Local 4199
Colfor Manufacturing is a Division of American Axel & Manufacturing Company and is located in Malvern, Minerva and Salem, Ohio. Colfor, started in 1956, employs over 700 associates at three plants in Carroll and Columbiana counties. Organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 2000, it produces precision cold and warm machined forgings for applications in the automotive and light truck industries. The company has a five year labor agreement with the UAW and benefits from competitive wages and very good working relationships with union leaders and their associates. The company plans to expand its operations in the Minerva machining center and hire over 100 new associates. It utilizes progressive quality and Lean Manufacturing techniques to stay a competitive auto industry supplier.
[For further information on these case studies, contact Robert P. Meyer, WINOC, who is the principal researcher.]
The Key to Assuring a Safe Product
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Management of many companies view product liability prevention as just another quality fad, or engineering initiative, designed to add more unnecessary people to the company and generate more paperwork. Indeed, it is understandable that no company's executive management should increase their indirect labor force, or add more work functions, if it is not necessary. But to mandate a decision without fully recognizing the risk that might be involved could expose the organization to financial destruction.A recent survey by Strategic Quality Consulting, a quality management consultation firm located in Cleveland, showed that only 28 manufacturers out of 89 (32%) had a basic PFMEA (Process Failure Mode and Effect Analysis) as the extent of their product liability prevention initiative. And only 9 of the 89 (10%) had a formal product liability prevention activity. All nine companies having a full-fledged system were auto or aerospace manufacturers. These statistics are alarming considering today's exposure to the product liability risk of a potential product malfunction and the resultant litigation process.
But the question then becomes: "How much is needed beyond the basic Process FMEA in order to qualify as having an acceptable product safety initiative?"
Products can be hazardous because of intrinsic properties, manufacturing defects or design defects.
With respect to intrinsic properties, I suggest that no product is completely safe. A product may be made with virtually all the characteristic inhibitors to maximize safety features, and still exhibit hazardously destructive properties. Many consumer products have caused injuries because of their intrinsic hazardous properties; not because they were inadequately made from a process or design standpoint, and not because they had failed, but because of the application for potential harm. We can cite as examples a misused nail gun, a pocketknife, or a power tool that was misused. These examples illustrate misuse or abuse of the product.
These three defect factors (intrinsic, manufacturing, or design) all can contribute to potential failure of application, which may cause unsafe conditions to the user of the product or result in limiting the life of the product's usability. Therefore, it is critical that all three of these defect factors be addressed and well documented prior to the release of the product to the end user. Essentially the key to assuring a safe product, and not having to go to court to defend against a product failure is to be cognizant of the conditions and environment in which the product might be exposed and to eliminate the possibility of potentially harmful situations.
The salient factors to be cognizant of are:
- Always be aware of foreseeable and unforeseeable harmful events and eliminate those events.
- Always be aware of reasonable and unreasonable harmful situations and eliminate those conditions.
- Always be aware of abuse and misuse by the user and eliminate those conditions.
A formalized product safety initiative is an investment that no organization can just simply ignore today if they want to reduce or eliminate the possibility of being exposed to product litigation.
"Be a safe manufacturer by manufacturing a safe product."
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How do you do Baldrige?
Since the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence are non-prescriptive, there is no prescribed way to “do” Baldrige. Baldrige is a set of criteria against which an organization can evaluate its performance using world-class standards of performance excellence.
Baldrige can be put into the context of a quality tool,
one of many quality tools… yet unique.
Consider that all organizations perform at three levels (see graphic below): the Work Level where work gets done and problems get solved, the Process Level where work is passed along to users (sometimes called customers) who use or consume (the value of) the work and the Organizational Level where the organizing, strategizing and the like get done.
There are numerous quality tools available to aid an
organization to improve how well it performs at the Work, Process and
Organizational Levels of performance. But the one Organizational Level
tool that puts it all together from a systems thinking perspective (i.e., The Fifth
Discipline, Peter Senge) is the Baldrige (or Ohio Award for Excellence)
Criteria for Performance Excellence.
By assessing the organization against the Baldrige Criteria, using any of a number of internal and external (e.g., WINOC) means, an organization can determine a fairly exhaustive list of both its strengths and its improvement opportunities. The list of improvement opportunities usually exceeds an organization’s improvement capacity, requiring some meaningful and strategic filtering.
WINOC’s Strategic Improvement Planning methodology processes raw improvement opportunities data to arrive at meaningful improvement strategies and a goals road map for executing those strategies.
Work in Northeast Ohio
Council
445 West Liberty Street,
Suite 225
Medina, Ohio 44256
Tel. 330.725.4885
Fax. 330.721.2933
For prior issues of the WINOC COMMUNICATOR please click
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here. |
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Contact WINOC WINOC - Work in Northeast Ohio Council 445 West Liberty Street, Suite 225 Medina, Ohio 44256 Tel. 330.725.4885 Fax. 330.721.2933
Or email our staff at AdvServ@winoc.org Dee Holody for Sales and Marketing Bob Meyer for Labor Management and Programs Don Plante for Advisory Services and operations Maty Jo Lupica for financial matters |
About the Author of "The Key to Assuring a Safe Product"
Dr. Bud Gookins is President and Managing Partner of Strategic Quality Consulting, a quality systems and management consulting company. He has held top executive positions in small and medium sized manufacturing companies, led Corporate Quality for Fortune 100 companies and serves on the board of several companies. Bud holds numerous certifications and is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning expert and author in areas of quality systems, quality control and product liability.
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