CSR without CSR

With my title I mean why we have created so many business methods and practices....when our society in worldwide state becomes worst and worst....I think we need to activate our values, our vision and to be lean...what is better to do?... to do exactly what the CSR do without things complex....I mean to be responsible for the society, environment, economic sustainable without to follow guidelines and standards....of course we are in business environment and we will not be non-profit organization but we can share our values with actions without marketing...without to advertise our efforts to improve the matter of course.

As example in Greek language we have a word which is untranslatable and unique 'filotimo', means that appreciate your friends but we used this word for a lot of various situations. So in my mind the CSR is to appresiate your community, your environment, your sustainability general.....so we need to have 'filotimo' between our members (no conflicts), ;filotimo' with your leader (no office politcs), ;filotimo' with the environment......etc.....it doesn;t mean that you will be an 'angel' but mean that you understand the whole system (look Deming) and you take your responsibilities based on your values....without to tell you the others what you need to do...and in this aggressive and with problems which becomes again and again....if you want to achieve the excellence we need to add the word 'filotimo' in our daily professional life as company as leaders!

I think 'filotimo' is the characteristic which my country and I mean as society no as politics or as system....is 'live' even now after the most serious economic crisis after the great depression in USA in 1930...and my mind is in Venezuela and Ukraine now...

So CSR without CSR that means sustainable business sustainable society sustainable country...far away from CSR which gain money and value in the same time....and create economic scandals!

Kleanthis Katsikas : 21 Feb 2014 00:22 |  Tags: L&E Mbe |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

An incomprehensible business world

After yesterday's introduction in DFSS and the basics about it, we had an introduction in QFD today. A tool which we use in DFSS. Paul told us that a few number of companies used the QFD and a big question created in my mind..WHY???...

After the basics of QFD, it is a crucial tool and we can see it that into an only one diargram you have thousands pages with information about the correlation with your product and the needs of customers but they do not use it. Companies develop their products based on the trend of technology and marketing guides without to give a serious approach on the developing with the QFD. OK, it is a difficult tool and they need to have a full job employees to work with it and to be facilators with other departments but the organization will produce real add value products for the society and new jobs of course.

But it doesn;t happen..why...maybe again..the target is the profit...they (companies) thought...how we will produce products and we will create new needs for the customers..no how we will satisfy the existance needs in high level....

An other tool which we will give fight in an organization to teach them to use it correctly!

Kleanthis Katsikas : 07 Jan 2014 20:03 |  Tags: Mbe Peuss Qfd |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Lean in a lab!

I just visited some friends in the lab of Chemistry, here in Warwick and I had in my mind the Lean approach. So I watched them to develop their experiment. They calculated their amount of elements, they used the suitable tools and methods to develop their experiment. They waited to complete the experiment and they have a lot of movements into the lab. They used a lot of tools from different spaces, they had tables full of materials and tools and papers. While I was a passive watcher, I had in my mind how the Lean approach could help them to eliminate in the 7 wastes. Maybe, it will be useful and helpful for them to use a Lean approach to save time, money and to have a better lab management. As an example, they can use the five principles of Lean and to re-organize their space. To use different colors depends on the risk of the materials. To use labels in their cabinets, to use a planning board for the process of the experiment, to have a common space with the results of the experiments and a lot of things. All these will help them to focus on the experiments and to give add value in chemistry.

It was a just of my thought when I was in the lab and the connection with the Lean, also the smell of the lab brought in my mind my first year in my bachelor degree with a lot of lab days.

Kleanthis Katsikas : 14 Dec 2013 16:21 |  Tags: Mbe Piuss |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Nelson Mandela…John Lennon…MBE

The previous Thurday died a great worlwide personality Nelson Mandela...I think everyone knows his achievements not only for South Africa but the reflections where shared in all the world for the freedom and the equality. I have given attention in a very famous Nelson's quote 'education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world'.

In addition, today, is a day where have been completed 33 years from the murder of John Lennon. One of the most creative artist until now. If you read the lyrics of his songs, you will understand the significance influence of his deep searching about the life, the freedom, the peace, the equality. Especially the best-known song 'Imagine' become an international anthem of peace.

I think, we can connect the achievements of these two great men with what we have learnt until now and what we will learn in the rest of the course. The journey to achieve the excellence is something which needs effort, knowledge, patience, persistence and willingness. And all these are connecting with our conscious and subsonscious part of our mind. We take decisions every day and as leaders we will need to see the view from a different angle and maybe we need to dissolution the angles and to see the all system at once. The cogination needs to be part of our life, to clean our minds, to have our purification and finally to create new ways of thinking...more lean..more efficiently..to engage people...to make the difference in our society.....I think these two man make this thing...they combine the art (Lennon), the patience and persistence (Mandela) for the peace...not for the personal gain...and these is the way for the excellence to have a long journey where the winners will be everyone in the organization and in the society.

And in this strong business world, I believe the emotions should have big impacts when the desicions making.

So we need to have deeply knowledge of philosophy, arts, history knowledge and general to leave our mind in the freedom and to thinking without limits..... to overcome our future resistance.

'Imagine'

Imagine there's no heaven

it's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say i'm a dreamer

But i'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world live as one

Kleanthis Katsikas : 08 Dec 2013 14:07 |  Tags: Mbe Video |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

SPC for an excellence society

I am reading and I am wondering.....can we use SPC in our life...to fix and to find the causes for our problems and to have a more sustainable society and to achieve the excellence.....what do you consider like excellence in life?...

In my view,we were born without property and we will die without to take together our expensive cars or houses or everything where we will buy during our life...So the only thing which we can do in this time in our lifes maybe 70-80-90 years (it is nothing if you can see how we calculate the time in space) is to give add-value in the world, to add a small stone in all this architecture of thousand of years existence.

How we will do this?...This is something personal for everyone maybe a first step is to find our personal mastery (see Senge) but we need to live in a sustainable society. But we are far away for this, we can see in the middle of economic crisis that the rich increase their fortune and a rapidly increase of poverty for the middle class families...the gap becomes bigger and bigger!!!

So according Deming view and his meaning of stable states...i think, the fist step is to establish a SPC in our salaries...in our fortunes...so if we will have points out of control, it means that we need to fix it, to correct this situation...because a stable economic situation will give the opportunity for everyone without preclusion to have a better healthcare system, a better education system and equal opportunities to claim democratic rights and etc...

If we have a small variation in our salaries, we will have more opportunities to live in a sustainable society.

The distance between rich and poorer classes will be not important and our society will have a stable state. The first step to achieve the excellence....

Kleanthis Katsikas : 04 Dec 2013 19:44 |  Tags: Mbe Piuss |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

5 module day…PIUSS

The last day of PIUSS module closed with a presentation for experiences in Six Sigma organisations. I understand that if an organization wants to develop a Six Sigma project, the organization needs to have an strategic approach in six sigma because it will spend time and money in the training and in the consulting services. And without continuously, all this will be aimless. So, the six sigma is a short-term methodology but the organization needs to have a long-term philosophy around it. When one six sigma project will finish, an other project will start.

Also, I like the storyboard because it is an easy way to show your project in one slide and to do focus in the positive aspects because when we will present a six sigma project in the executive committee, they will haven't knowledge around the six sigma and they will want to see only the profit after this. So a nice visual storyboard and an analyse for economics benefits will be good points for the project.

Kleanthis Katsikas : 22 Nov 2013 22:44 |  Tags: Mbe Piuss Sigma Six |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

4 module day…PIUSS

Today, we did our DOE based on our data from helicopter design. We found the factors, we design our experiment, we completed our orthogonal array, we found the best combinations, we estimated the optimum and finally we found the S/N ratio. All this process will help us to robust our design of the products or our processes. I think this phase of the Six Sigma, Improve and Control stage, is a very important for all the project because if you will do a good design experiment you will have a lot of benefits, like you will gain time, effort and you will achieve the scope of all project. I think the DOE is one of the most important tool in every Six Sigma project.

In the second phase of the day, we had a presentation about Lean. The examples with note paper and the ball help us to understand the meaning of lean, and to imagine how useful is this in a huge production line. The purpose of Lean is to eliminate the waste time, to reduce the variation and to achieve the customer's requirements. I had started to read the book 'The Toyota Way' the previous summer (I don;t have finish it) but I remember a chapter 'why companies often think they are lean but aren't' and discribes why Toyota production system is the world's best. So Lean seems something easy but it is not.

My thought is that the combination between Six Sigma and a Lean thinking is the best way to be in the road to excellence.

Kleanthis Katsikas : 22 Nov 2013 00:00 |  Tags: Doe Lean Mbe Piuss Sigma Six |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

3 module day…PIUSS

Today...we had an introduction of Taguchi Methods about the Design of Experiments...We had a game which we could simulate the factors and to design experiments as a result to find the best interaction. General, the DOE method is a crucial method for every six sigma project because you can see which factors have interaction and this can help you to design better your process. It is a complex statistical tool but we need to understand and to know this because our six sigma project will become more efficient and based on data as a result we will gain money,time and effort.

Kleanthis Katsikas : 20 Nov 2013 18:36 |  Tags: Mbe Piuss |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

2 module day..PIUSS

Today we had to develop our plan about our production line for the airplanes. We had extremely good production time, the most of airplanes developed earlier than we need to do. All members worked perfect, with focus on their position and with passion. However, the results wasn't well. Of course we won the team A but we had a lot of waste money because our production was too fast. So, we need to have our concetration in the balance of all the system and not only in the fastest way.

After, we had a presentation-video for the Japanese control chart. We could see that exist a lot of similarities with Six Sigma approach because they used the control chart and after they analyse the defects...so it seems like a simple six sigma project. Also, we saw that the Lean Six Sigma has the opportunity to use for everything and the only difference between the use of six sigma in manufacturing and service sector is the way of collective the data, nothing else.

Kleanthis Katsikas : 19 Nov 2013 20:11 |  Tags: Mbe Piuss |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

1 module day..PIUSS

18/11 was the first day of the module PIUSS...It was an interesting morning with a lot of airplanes. Altogether took part in the process of the production airplanes, actually lego airplanes. We had operators, assemblers, quality inspectors...it was easy to understand how useless is the role of quality inspector, he is in the last phase of the production and the only thing which he does is to examine the product and to note the defects. This is a huge mistake for the production, we need to find it and to fix it just in time, without to wait the final product. It is waste time,money and effort.

After we separeted out two teams. In my team B, we made a fishbone diagram to find the causes and the process map. Also with the use of pareto diagram we found that we have two important causes, big fingers and a lot of defects. After we analyse the causes and we decided to have one less operator and to make more training and to change operators with others with smaller fingers. We did this process and calculated what we completed all production cycle in less minutes than before.

The cooperation, communication and the plan are the basic things if we want to understand the causes of the problems.

Kleanthis Katsikas : 19 Nov 2013 19:52 |  Tags: Mbe Piuss |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem