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While
touring Cape Canaveral, John F. Kennedy asked a man he met in
the hall what his job was. He answered, “Mr. President, I am
helping put a man on the moon”. The man was a
janitor.
Thirty years of leading change has taught a
fundamental lesson: If everyone doesn’t get it, the effort
is doomed. In a variety of cultures, labor unions, and ethnic
diversities, resistance to change melts away when everyone
understands 1) what’s in it for them, 2) what’s expected
of them, and 3) clearly how to meet those expectations.
Supply Chain integration operating strategies based on
Build-to-Order are challenging organizations as greatly as
J.I.T. did 30 years ago. And like the Toyota Production
System, the foundation for JIT, Lean, and continuous
improvement efforts, supply chain integration at its core is a
people centered organizational philosophy based on
collaboration.
In a previous newsletter, collaboration
was defined as the sharing of resources, tasks,
responsibilities, and goals throughout the supply chain. We
group supply chain collaboration into three categories:
Consequential, Parallel, and Strategic. Consequential relates
directly to maintaining the flow of work and parallel to
improving the performance. Strategic collaboration provides
the monitor that ensures outcome matches intent. Collaboration
is actually very straightforward to describe and exceedingly
difficult to achieve. Why is that?
Certainly trust is
an issue. Getting suppliers to work hand-in-hand with the
customer in an open and transparent relationship provides
opportunities for all kinds of negative backlash, ranging from
pricing pressures to demands inconsistent with strategic
direction. No successful collaborative effort will ever exist
without a clear “win-win” for all parties involved.
But
there’s more. For collaboration to work in a supply chain,
it must first be an integral part of YOUR organization’s
culture. Instilling it in an organization where it hasn’t
existed is problematic. It can be done but it requires
compelling focus.
To understand this point about
collaboration, let’s look at Lean. As much positive press as
we’ve heard about Lean, the fact remains that the majority
of Lean and continuous improvement iniatives don’t produce
sustainable bottom line improvements. Those initiatives that
do produce positive effects have something in common: everyone
understands the processes and their roles in the processes;
and can transfer that knowledge in a clear and focused way
throughout the organization.
Clear communication about
roles and responsibilities is one indication of a
collaborative, open organization. For a collaborative supply
chain to exist, everyone in every organization of the supply
chain needs to understand what’s expected of them, how to
meet those expectations, and what the value will be if they’re
successful.
If you want a collaborative supply chain,
make sure the janitor gets it.
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