While I was tempted to write the typical New Year Blog about "Let's do something new, bring in change," I will avoid using the same old pattern that you see every year. This presents another challenge for me on what to write…
An interesting alternate proposition is to ask --> "Why change? Why
not accept the Best practices that have been in place for a while?" Let's
build on this notion... The customer uses Japanese quality standards and
best practices which have been demonstrated to be the best in the world. Let us embrace and learn from this ongoing
theme.
Looking forward, in order to satisfy customer's exacting standards, we must implement Japanese quality best practices. At first, the requirements could seem overwhelming. But upon closer inspection, we see that it's for the account's overall benefit.
Let us look at the Japanese quality concepts of "horizontal
checks" and "vertical
checks". In quality control, "horizontal checks" examine a
single process across multiple departments or stages of production, analyzing
how different areas within the workflow interact with each other, while
"vertical checks" inspect all aspects of quality within a specific
department or function, looking at the entire process from start to finish
within that single area. Essentially, a horizontal check looks
"across" the process while a vertical check looks "down"
through a single department.
I acknowledge that the terms
“horizontal checks" and "vertical
checks" are a bit alien to most of us and add a bit of overhead. However,
if implemented diligently over time, it will improve the quality and,
eventually, our work-life balance. So, let's embrace the tradition from the
Best!
I'd like to conclude with Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem, which
summarizes the editorial and our focus for the upcoming year:
What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
