Blended Digest 2

Crafting Your Continuous Improvement Strategy

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 14:41:24 +0000

This article was written by John Knotts, a Senior Coach here at Gemba Academy

Two months ago, we started our journey on building a culture of continuous improvement. We know that continuous improvement brings many benefits to an organization. We also know that leaders set the environment for a culture of continuous improvement.

Creating a continuous improvement culture provides a strategic advantage for any company and should be implemented by following a specific strategy.

I had a recent meeting with a couple of executives to discuss changing their organizational culture to one of continuous improvement. They started out by asking if we could build a one- to two-hour training program to provide awareness so that they could change the culture.

Yes, the belief out there is that if you tell people how important something is and give them a slight understanding of it, that it will happen. Let me tell you that, “If you build it, they will come,” only happens in the movies.

Building a culture of continuous improvement starts with developing a strategy that involves measuring work, improving work, and changing work. The strategy is only effective when your employees have commitment to the organization and understand how to be innovative.

The reason I say “strategy” is because this type of culture does not happen overnight. This can take years to build. The larger the organization, the more difficult it is to make it happen, and the longer it could take. Many people want to just jump in and start teaching classes, certifying people, building dashboards, and the like.

That is a program…not a culture!

The first step in building this type of culture is to identify the types of behaviors that you expect your employees to exhibit on a regular basis. Five years from now, if you were to come back to your organization, what would you expect and hope to see?

Here are some ideas of the potential behaviors of a continuous improvement culture:

Employees, at all levels, use daily metrics to understand their business and make decisions
All metrics, at the lowest level, roll up into aggregated measures that easily allow for pinpointing of problems
Employees, at all levels, know exactly what they do and how it supports their mission
All employees that do the same job, do the job the exact same way every time
All employees are continuously improving their processes based on data-driven decisions
Employees are fully engaged in organizational suggestion programs by submitting ideas and getting involved in discussing and implementing the submitted ideas
Clear and validated return on investment and benefits for all process improvements have been identified and are visible to all

Understanding what you want your organization to look like when the culture is fully implemented might benefit from a few company tours. In San Antonio, Texas, I have taken leadership teams to the Toyota Tundra Factory and we have also gone to the HEB Central Pharmacy. We additionally toured a print plant that we worked with that had poor quality compared to Toyota and HEB. This provided the leadership with ideas around things like visual controls, standard work, reporting, dashboards, automation, one-piece flow, etc.

Using appreciative inquiry, after the tours, the leadership discussed what they liked, what they felt they could apply, and what might work best in their organization. This helped paint a picture of the organizational culture they were looking for.

This is a great start for your organization – doing your research. Read books about building a culture of quality and understand different methods, like Continental and The Toyota Way. Understanding what you are trying to build is the important first step to your strategy development.

Outlining a strategy is done by determining the steps to close the gap between where you are today and where you want to be. Evaluating current behaviors of leaders, middle managers, employees, the CEO/President, suppliers, partners, and even your customers, will highlight the gaps that you might need to close.

Here is a general framework I would recommend you follow to build a culture of continuous improvement.

Let me briefly outline the activities that will occur in the strategy – specifics would be based on your gap assessment and your strategy decisions to close the gaps.

Foundation.

I already talked about most of this step above. Here you determine what the end-result culture looks like in your organization – Stephen Covey’s, “Begin with the End in Mind.” Do your research and figure out what behaviors you are looking to create through this culture. Understand what the current behaviors look like and then hold a strategy session to build out your plan. This provides you a foundation from which to launch from and gives you an idea of scope and time involved.

Approach.

Every good continuous improvement culture that I have seen, had a framework to operate in. They normally call it something special, they have an operating model, they have defined everything, etc. Look at The Toyota Way – they have their “14 Management Principles” and the “Toyota Production System (TPS).” Establishing your framework and operating structure or model is very important to brand your effort and align everyone. Just simply saying, “You’re going to do Lean Six Sigma,” will lose bluster quickly. You need something that will last and something that you can rally around. The Air Force had the Quality Air Force approach from the late 80’s to late 90’s. Now they use Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century (AFSO21).

WIIFM.

Once you know what it looks like (this step and the next can overlap with the previous step), you want to build an awareness of the changes and a desire to move toward the new behaviors. Many people feel that process improvement will mean they end up eliminating their jobs or doing more with less. These are negative messages that you must overcome. Understanding the case for change is a John Kotter basic change principle in his book, Leading Change. If you cannot define the need to change, then you will have trouble building an awareness in your employees. Desire is formed from an understanding of What’s In It For Me (WIIFM). If this is a way to cut resources, you will have a hard sell. If you can identify the positives for everyone, then you will work toward their desires. All change is normally seen as negative by most people, so you must always outline the positives.

New Habits.

Be prepared to take the next step as you build the awareness and desire because your early adopters will dive in and ask, “What’s next?” and “Where do I sign up?” If they are ready to go, but you have not defined how you are going to implement, you will stall out your most motivated change champions. This would be akin to not building it, and they still came – not good. Do you have appropriate levels of training, is the structure to run this in place, do you have leadership in line and on board to support, do you have required positions to do the heavy lifting, etc.? These basics need to be in place at the start, or well on their way through development, because when your people are ready, they are ready.

Drive the Change.

After you have defined the foundation, you need to establish repeatable ways to measure, recognize, reward, reinforce, celebrate, and communicate the activity. You should continuously leverage these methods throughout your culture change, and they should become the norm in your organization to sustain the culture. Every organization is different in how it does this, so you need to determine this while building the foundation. Some of the things you need to build might take time or need data and information. However, having the framework and an approach is a good start.

If you notice in the strategic framework I provided above, the last arrows continue. This means, at this point, you simply continue to work at the culture and refine your activities. Once it is built, you cannot simply put it on autopilot and walk away. You need to constantly manage, sustain, and evolve the effort.

Building this type of culture begins with a strategy. I have provided a strategic framework to help you develop your own culture change. Remember that this type of effort is long term in nature and very strategic. It is also a very deliberate action that requires a great deal of work. Anyone can put a program in place, but to really change behaviors requires a totally different level of effort.

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement is a multi-issue article that will span the next several months. Next month, we will focus on your organizational structure that supports your continuous improvement culture.

The post Crafting Your Continuous Improvement Strategy appeared first on Gemba Academy.

GA 405 | Elevating Constraints with Max Krug and Pavel Kuviarzin

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 10:00:54 +0000

This week’s guests are Max Krug and Pavel Kuviarzin. Max and Pavel gave us their take on the relationship between lean, processes, and The Theory of Constraints. They also touched on the dangers of falling too far into one particular CI “camp.” An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here.

In this episode you’ll learn:

The quote that inspires Max and Pavel (3:28)
Max’s background (3:59)
Pavel’s background (5:14)
What TOC is all about (8:17)
An example of using TOC (10:38)
Using Gantt charts (13:54)
Why the final editing is the constraint (21:57)
About “drum buffer rope” (24:23)
How they identify the root cause (27:52)
The dangers of CI “camps” (31:01)

Podcast Resources

Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3
Pavel on LinkedIn
Max on LinkedIn
Future State Engineering
The Goal

What Do You Think?

What has your experience been with TOC?

The post GA 405 | Elevating Constraints with Max Krug and Pavel Kuviarzin appeared first on Gemba Academy.

How Lean Practices Adjust the Difficulty Level of Work

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 10:00:14 +0000

One sentence caught my attention around the midpoint of the episode of Hidden Brain, titled Work 2.0: Game On! This was after setting the context of how people often view work as pointless or tedious, while enjoying playing games, even though they are equally “pointless.” It was Ethan Mollick, the co-author of the book Changing the Game: How Video Games are Transforming the Future of Business, who asked,

“Wouldn’t it be great if work adjusted its difficulty level to keep us in the perfect level of engagement, without either being too stressed or getting bored.”

Well-designed games keep people playing in various ways. The cycle of challenge and mastery is one. Games allow us to try, fail, try again, and eventually succeed. Many games then take us to the next level of difficulty. This is important so that we don’t get bored with it. We can keep striving for a higher level, new areas to explore, storylines to uncover, items to acquire, abilities to unlock etc. Why don’t we design work to “keep us playing” in similar ways?

Lean Practices to Adjust the Difficulty Level of Work

Two things came to mind when I heard that sentence. First, the phrase “Wouldn’t it be great if..?” is one we encourage learners to use during the kata process when defining their challenge. In kata terms, a challenge is something that seems hard, may take months, would bring great benefit, but we aren’t yet sure how to do it. By reviewing the results of their small experiments daily with a coach, a learner takes steps towards something great. The kata approach is well-suited for tackling problems with unknown solutions. A learner can take on a difficult challenge one knowledge threshold at a time.

The second thought was, “Lean management practices let us adjust difficulty level of work in many ways.” This is due to the interplay of standard work, continuous improvement, and the emphasis on developing people. While the terms “stress” and “boredom” aren’t often addressed directly in the lean literature, this is addressed by removing burden, unwanted variation, and non-value added effort. But this isn’t automatic. It requires that leaders design work and engage as coaches or “game masters” with their learner-employees.

Setting and Following Standard Work

Games have rules. That’s part of what makes them fun. We accept a set of constraints on what’s in bounds or out of bounds, how we can or can’t move, what conditions define winning or losing. Sure, we can do whatever we want, but it’s unlikely we’ll win consistently if we ignore a game’s rules and constraints. The same is true of how we do our jobs. In lean management, this is known as standard work. In discrete and repetitive processes, it’s possible to define standard work through takt time, standard WIP, and work sequence. In a more general sense, it’s the best way of doing something as we know it today.

Standard work is exacting. It’s intended to specify timing, sequence, outcome down to the level of gestures and seconds, in many cases. For people who are not used to following standard work, this feels uncomfortable. Many ask, “Why can’t I do it my way?” In fact, you can. But “my way” needs to be within the confines of what’s better than the current best way. There are rules to the game. There are an infinite number of levels to the game. Before standard work, we’re at level zero. Following standard work, it’s possible to master it, find ways to improve it, and level it up.

The Suggestion System Grind

Another analog between games, engagement, boredom, and leveling up is the grind. Many video games require players to repeat an activity or challenge over and over in order to gain in-game currency, items, or to level up. While this can be boring, it’s the price of gaining the reward. It’s also how game designers keep people playing longer.

When we describe work as a “grind” it suggests doing something dull and repetitive. The task requires grinding or chipping away. There is no shortcut, no easy way to leap ahead. Sometimes this is due to how we’ve designed the task. For example, when manual assembly tasks are short and repetitive, work feels like a pointless grind. When we connect processes so that a person can see the product come together, work is more satisfying.

In other cases, the grind is due to the nature of the work. In order to gain competence with a job skill, we need repetition. In order to discover flaws in our standard work, we need to adhere to it every day, every cycle. Even innovation can be the result of a grind. In the creative idea suggestion system, people are asked to come up with simple kaizens even if they only save a few seconds, every month, every week, or even every day. This gets harder as the years roll on. We pick away the low-hanging fruit, solve the obvious problems.

Finding a small improvement every day requires that we don’t become complacent. We must level up our expectations for processes that are safe, high quality, and easy to perform. A person who has found hundreds of simple improvements must look more carefully at their process, understand what makes it work, and study the data. What’s interesting is that this also works in reverse. A person new to a job may find a small improvement that a seasoned veteran can’t see. This is because what may not bother a higher-skilled person may be difficult or confusing for a brand new person. The perceived difficulty level changes, requiring that we level up the process, revise standard work, and give people a sense of control over their work.

The Kaizen Event Carry

There’s another interesting analogy between games and lean management practices. In video games, there is something called “being carried.” For example, a player with a lower-level character or level of skill will join a party of higher-level or more experienced players. These stronger players will “carry” the weaker one through a challenging area, to defeat a boss, to gain an achievement, or to level up. This may be done between friends, or even as a paid service with real or in-game currency.

Lean management practice analogies to the carry include the kaizen event, a QC circle in TQM, or any team-based problem-solving or improvement effort. When we need to adjust the level of work downwards to suit a novice, they may join a team that includes several members experienced in problem-solving. As they work through a framework and achieve concrete goals within a relatively short time period, the learner can rapidly level up. This type of learning-by-doing works well when problems and known solutions are well-matched, and it’s just a matter of doing it. In game terms, it’s learning the established mechanics of how to complete a level. While we can do this through trial-and-error, it’s often faster and more fun to be carried a couple of times.

Putting the Adjust Back in the PDCA Cycle

At the head of practically all continuous improvement practices is the plan-do-check-act cycle. The PDCA cycle is also called the PDSA cycle, for plan-do-study-act. Some prefer to call the fourth phase adjust. This is often explained as making adjustments to the plans and countermeasures, if the previous ones were insufficient to meet our goals. Likewise, when the previous PDCA cycle was a success, we set our sights higher for the next cycle, adjusting our targets and expectations. It’s also possible that we adjust the difficulty downward by breaking down the problem into smaller ones for the next cycle, or to temporarily loosen the standard if it’s unattainable under current conditions.

The key point is to view these practices not only from the process perspective but from the people perspective. From the process perspective, there is always room for improvement. One improvement leads to the next. We should pursue perfection in terms of safety, quality, speed, etc. even if it’s unattainable. From the people perspective, we need to make sure that striving for perfection is fun. The challenge should be invigorating and not a burden. We should pull people out of their comfort zone, but not all the way into the far zone. We need to adjust the difficulty of work upwards or downwards as required to keep people engaged and learning.

The post How Lean Practices Adjust the Difficulty Level of Work appeared first on Gemba Academy.

GA 404 | Leading in a VUCA Environment with James Newell

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 10:00:22 +0000

This week’s guest is James Newell. Ron and James talked all about what VUCA means, how James introduced his team to lean, and more. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here.

In this episode you’ll learn:

The quotes that inspire James (2:12)
James’ background (3:30)
What VUCA stands for (5:58)
Practicing lean in a volatile setting (6:40)
The two kinds of leadership (18:20)
Why the environment was VUCA (18:51)
How extreme interviewing works (21:10)
Handling work counsels (24:10)
Learning the practical parts of lean (26:35)
How it’s been going since James left (31:21)

Podcast Resources

What Do You Think?

Have you ever been in a VUCA environment? Describe your experience.

The post GA 404 | Leading in a VUCA Environment with James Newell appeared first on Gemba Academy.

GA 403 | Moving the Needle with Robb Holman

Thu, 23 Dec 2021 10:00:10 +0000

This week’s guest is Robb Holman. Ron and Robb talked about Robb’s most recent book, Move the Needle. Robb also shared some of the most powerful stories we’ve had on the podcast to date. Don’t skip this one. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here.

In this episode you’ll learn:

The quote that inspires Robb (2:36)
Robb’s background (3:46)
About “Inside Out Leadership” (6:30)
How to bring out the best in someone (7:37)
A profound story that changed Robb’s life (12:13)
The reason Robb starts with people (16:53)
The importance of first impressions (19:23)
Efficiency through effectiveness (22:28)
Leaving a legacy (25:43)

Podcast Resources

Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3
GA 305 | Building Trust and Leveraging Conflict with Robb Holman
Robb on LinkedIn
Robb’s Website
Move the Needle on Amazon
Move the Needle Website

What Do You Think?

Which of Robb’s stories moved you the most? Why?

The post GA 403 | Moving the Needle with Robb Holman appeared first on Gemba Academy.

GA 402 | Leading From the Jumpseat with Peter Docker

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 10:00:39 +0000

This week’s guest is Peter Docker. Speaker, author, and former member of the Royal Air Force, Peter had a lot of very powerful leadership advice to share. He and Ron also specifically discussed Peter’s book, Leading From the Jumpseat. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here.

In this episode you’ll learn:

The quote that inspires Peter (2:40)
Peter’s background (3:25)
His most intense moments in the military (5:38)
About his book, Leading From the Jumpseat (13:20)
What happens if the jumpseat pilot makes mistakes (18:20)
The third theme of belonging (26:45)
The story of Apollo 13 (30:32)

Podcast Resources

Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3
Leading From the Jumpseat on Amazon
Peter’s Website
Peter on LinkedIn
Peter on Twitter

What Do You Think?

How, as a leader, have you relinquished control? Share an example.

The post GA 402 | Leading From the Jumpseat with Peter Docker appeared first on Gemba Academy.

How to Think About Breakthrough Objectives

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 10:00:00 +0000

It’s the time of year when many organizations begin their final review of the past period, and begin looking ahead to the next one. Before setting goals for the coming year, it’s common to zoom out, looking at the big picture. We may ask ourselves questions related to vision and strategy. What game are we playing? What are the rules? How can we win? This may involve reviewing an organization’s vision, mission, principles and processes.

Once the long-term direction is clear, and we have derived annual goals from this, it’s important for everyone to hear the same message, and speak the same language. How will we deploy the strategy? How do we make sure everyone is working on the right things? How will we know if we are on track? Organizations on the lean journey adopt a set of practices known as hoshin kanri, or strategy deployment. Identifying a handful of breakthrough objectives is a foundational step in the annual cycle of setting the hoshin plan.

What Is a Breakthrough Objective?

It’s important to note that breakthrough objectives are more than hitting the numbers, however big these numbers may be. It’s true that breakthrough objectives tend to be stretch goals. But they are more than that. Breakthroughs should be customer-focused, or stated in customer language as much as possible. For this reason, they tend to be emphasized as capabilities rather than end results. An organization may want to grow revenue or retain clients. The necessary breakthrough capability may be a one-day response time.

A characteristic of breakthrough improvements is that even when it’s clear what we need to do, it’s not always clear how we will do it. Breakthroughs require exploring beyond the comfort zone, into the learning zone. For this reason, people may feel insecure about committing to a breakthrough objective at first. Fortunately, part of the hoshin process is the refinement of the “how to” through a process known as catch ball. On the surface this looks like a negotiation between the manager and her boss. In reality, it’s often a way of educating the leadership about where there is overburden, variation, and what it really takes to get the work done.

Breakthrough objectives should not be achievable by individual effort or by a single department. True, customer-focused, value stream-aligned breakthroughs require cross-functional cooperation, learning, and innovation. They should challenge our way of thinking, cause us to develop a new standard, and establish a repeatable competitive advantage.

Linking Kaizen Efforts to Breakthrough Objectives

One of the areas organizations struggle with on their lean journey is seeing direct financial impact for their continuous improvement efforts. One way to make sure we don’t leave this to chance is to link improvement management, policy (hoshin) management, and daily management by design. There are some questions to ask during this annual reflection period. How do our improvement priorities link to our strategic business priorities? What’s not on our improvement plan that we need to start doing? What’s on our plan that we need to stop doing?

Part of the beauty of the hoshin planning process is that it gives people the freedom to deselect things that take resources but don’t contribute to a breakthrough. Over the course of a year, it’s easier to expand responsibilities, customer requests, or problem-solving projects, than to strike them off or our list. Few people want to say no to a boss or a customer. Everyone wants to add value. Everyone has ideas, things they think the organization should do. Ideas are cheap, execution is dear. Deselection and focus on the vital few is key to success. Getting the breakthrough objectives right is important. It sets constraints on our understanding not of what we can do but of what we must do.

Focus Breakthroughs on Muri and Mura

When setting breakthrough objectives, it’s worth remembering the trio of muri, mura and muda. Muri is overburden or unreasonableness in how we work. Mura is undesired or excessive variability in a product or process. Muda is wasted time, effort, money, and so forth. Continuous improvement focuses on reducing all three, but muda often gets most of the attention. It’s the most visible and easiest to address at the superficial level. The risk is that we say, “Let’s achieve a breakthrough in reducing the waste of defects,” or another waste.

Whenever possible, I would suggest that breakthroughs should aim to address muri and mura, rather than muda directly. We are not ignoring waste. It is still the target of daily kaizen. It’s also addressed indirectly by looking at overburden and variation at the systemic level. These are often the result of business decisions, product-service configuration, organizational design and so forth. They are out of scope of most kaizen efforts.

Asking, “How does this breakthrough objective help cut muri and mura?” has the effect of forcing the leadership to look deeper at the systemic root causes of waste in their operations. I’ve seen organizations that set so-called breakthroughs of “10% year on year improvement” in such-and-such metric. That’s fine, but the impact of our improvement efforts is much more powerful when we stop trying to meet unreasonable requirements or excess variation in customer demand. Building capability to respond to these may be a breakthrough. It’s worth reminding ourselves, at least once every year, that when we try achieve targets without adequate resources, or place undue burden on people, we create processes that generate waste.

Finding the Right Balance Between Today and Tomorrow

Imagining the big things we could do tomorrow is more fun than the hard work of doing what needs to be done today. In the beginning it’s common for 80% or more of an organization’s kaizen activity to be tactical, immediate, short term and not linked to the strategy. Lean thinking encourages, “Try now, think later,” or a “Just-do-it” mentality. This is helpful at first to get out of analysis paralysis. It’s also designed to quickly engage as many people as possible in making small, positive changes.

There’s no guarantee that the other 20% of continuous improvement effort is aligned with the business strategy. Part of hoshin planning is to align improvement efforts by design, not luck. How do we mirror our PDCA cycles at the process level, in a daily cadence, with those on the strategic level, on a monthly and quarterly cadence?

In my observation, organization’s don’t spend enough time on hoshin, whether we call it strategy deployment, policy management, or something else. I don’t know whether the target balance between strategy-aligned improvement and bottom-up, hard-to-link-to-bottom-line improvement is 50/50 or some other number. It’s probably 80/20. Over time, an organization’s improvement efforts should be vastly more strategy-aligned than the small, opportunistic, fix-what-bothers-you type. This is a daunting task, requiring education, skill, awareness, analysis, visualization…in other words, new capabilities. It’s okay to start with daily kaizen, aka the easy stuff, as long as we follow a plan to shift in a more strategic, customer-focused, value-stream aligned, long-term direction.

The post How to Think About Breakthrough Objectives appeared first on Gemba Academy.

GA 401 | Continuous Improvement and the Future of Industry 4.0 with Juan Gomez

Thu, 09 Dec 2021 10:00:25 +0000

This week’s guest is Juan Gomez. Juan has an impressive continuous improvement background and a real passion for Industry 4.0. He and Ron talked about the history of industrialization, how we’ll adapt moving forwards, and more. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here.

In this episode you’ll learn:

Juan’s favorite quote (2:56)
Juan’s background (6:24)
About the history of industrialization (8:27)
What Industry 4.0 is (10:40)
Ron’s concerns with Industry 4.0 (12:39)
How Juan sees things playing out (16:45)
Why and how we will adjust to new technology (18:12)
How it’ll affect unemployment (20:58)
How this will affect continuous improvement (22:35)
Advice for those interested in Industry 4.0 (28:14)
About the Digital CI Workshop (30:15)

Podcast Resources

Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3
Juan on LinkedIn
The Digital CI Workshop (use promo code “Gemba” for 25% off)

What Do You Think?

What are your thoughts on Industry 4.0? Are you apprehensive at all?

The post GA 401 | Continuous Improvement and the Future of Industry 4.0 with Juan Gomez appeared first on Gemba Academy.

GA 400 | The Gemba Academy Journey with Ron Pereira, Kevin Meyer, and Jon Miller

Thu, 02 Dec 2021 10:00:51 +0000

This week we’re celebrating our 400th episode with some very special guests, the Gemba Academy Co-Founders. Joined by Jennifer, one of our Business Development Managers, Ron, Jon, and Kevin reflect on our journey as a company thus far. An MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How Kevin got started with lean (2:59)
How Jon got started with lean (4:19)
How Ron got started with lean (6:10)
Why they started Gemba Academy (9:21)
About the culture at Gemba Academy (14:10)
The role of autonomy (15:08)
How Jon grows as a leader (19:12)
How Kevin grows his team (21:15)
Important attributes for leaders (25:32)
The hardest part of being a leader (27:19)
An invaluable lean concept (28:52)
A hurdle on his lean journey Kevin has had to overcome (31:39)
Some failed experiments (34:01)
Ron’s recommendations for getting started with lean (39:27)
What’s coming next at Gemba Academy (42:53)

Podcast Resources

Right Click to Download this Podcast as an MP3

What Do You Think?

How do you grow as a leader?

The post GA 400 | The Gemba Academy Journey with Ron Pereira, Kevin Meyer, and Jon Miller appeared first on Gemba Academy.

Continuous Improvement of Learning and Development

Mon, 29 Nov 2021 10:00:28 +0000

I was reading through some research on how businesses are evolving their approaches to learning and development. A figure caught my attention: $1,111. This is how much businesses spent per person on training in the year 2020. What struck me, aside from the handsome arrangement of the number one, was the thought, “Still?” This was in contrast to the figures of $2,000 to $3,000 per employee per year that I heard again and again, back in the early 2000s.

In those days I helped organize several study missions to Japan for clients each year. We would visit 5-8 companies during the course of a week. They ranged from world-class and 20+ years on the continuous improvement journey to 5 years in and able to show the real joys and struggles of transformation. As invariably, they would answer the question or volunteer information regarding what they spent on employee learning development. The $2,000 to $3,000 figure was the spend pertaining directly to continuous improvement. Twenty years later, there’s still quite a gap between that and the $1,111 for training in all subject areas.

How Many Hours of Training Does it Take to Pay Back?

One reaction to seeing these figures may be, “Is it really necessary to spend more than $2,000 per employee..?” to succeed in building a continuous improvement-focused learning organization. There’s no single answer for all organizations and all contexts. But on those trips to Japan, someone always asked this question. The answer was surprising and revealed some differences in how the visitors were thinking about training. In short, much of the $2,000 to $3,000 figure was a budget per employee for recognition, reward, and celebration of their improvements. Sometimes it was paid as a bonus, but more often it was a $5 gift card for an improvement suggestion, or a group field trip or dinner to celebrate the completion of a project.

They arrived at this figure by working out what they needed to spend in order to keep people engaged in continuous improvement and make the scheme self-funding. How many hours of training were needed to get people the basic improvement knowledge, skills, and tools? What savings they could expect in aggregate? What financial incentives fulfilled people’s need for recognition, without turning it into a money game? While this seemed complicated to some of our group, it was just a matter of doing the math.

What Will It Cost Me to Keep You Interested?

One well-known automotive firm flatly told us that they aimed to pay out $3,000 per employee in improvement-related funds because their data showed that on average, the kaizen ideas of each person saved this much per year. Why not spend $1,000 and pocket the difference? Multiplied times tens of thousands employees, that’s real money. You could hear the wrong gears turning in the minds of our tour group.

The answer from our host company was that they mainly wanted people to stay engaged in their work year after year, not to squeeze out another $100 per person in profit. By keeping people interested in improving safety, quality, and productivity, they not only made steady long-term gains. They also avoided complacency, inattention, and carelessness that could lead to large accidents, defects, or equipment breakdowns. While it was harder to correlate an accident that didn’t happen with the money spent on training, their safety and equipment loss data showed that the training more than paid for itself.

What’s the Right Amount of Learning and Development?

Back to the figures from the research paper. On the one hand, the spending per person has grown only modestly. On the other hand, the hours have grown by double-digits per annum over the past decade. It grew to about 55 hours of training per person in 2020, up more than 30%. That year may be an anomaly, but there is a longer-term trend. This is thanks in part to the adoption of online courses, webcasts, virtual and blended learning. Studies show that investment in learning and development is one of the main things the younger generation wants from an employer. These are good trends.

When it comes to corporate training, it’s not a matter of “more is better.” While we can all benefit from more learning and development, in a business it’s important to define the right amount. We can’t take on many new ideas at once. A project that is too large may overwhelm us. Managing too many tasks makes us unproductive due to context switching. It’s much easier to get started when we know what’s the “one” right thing to work on, and perhaps the next one after that. Studies show that when adults are taught things we don’t use right away, we’re less likely to retain what we learned.

Just-in-Time Learning?

In lean management terms, people do their best work when they can organize their work in a customer-paced one-piece pull. When we break down a larger task and connect our work to the customer demand signal., we can work on the one right thing, and then the next one.

There is a similar trend in training. It’s called microlearning. Back in the day, we would sit through hours or even days of training on a subject such as statistical process control, because that’s how we could book the trainer. Maybe the learner didn’t want to block off their whole day or sit for hours, but the training delivery mechanism dictated this. It was a push system. Today, a new generation of workers has grown up with YouTube and other ways to grab small bits of knowledge on-demand, just-in-time.

The challenge for corporations, and training designers like Gemba Academy, is to figure out what’s the right amount of the right thing, in terms of learning. We think we have a pretty good idea of the “what.” We’ve been working on moving from 15-20 minute videos towards 5-10 minute modules. The microlearning trend suggests that these lessons may need to be much shorter. This challenges our thinking about how we present these ideas, as well as how the learning experience is designed. This will require a combination of listening closely to customers and examining our set-up times, other batch-mode barriers, and other internal transaction costs.

Treating Learning and Development as Strategic Pillars

One of the most important questions a leader must answer is, “How do I get everybody working on the right things?” Too often corporate training is “do things right.” It’s driven by the need to be safe and correct in the handling of materials or information, to follow regulations, or simply to enable new hires to function in their jobs. These things are necessary, but barely sufficient to remain compliant with standards. It’s more fun when people understand the reason behind the need for the training and can shape the process and policies to secure that need. Regardless of what we call the training and development in continuous improvement, the organizations whose leaders find practical answers to this question are those who prosper in the long term.

The post Continuous Improvement of Learning and Development appeared first on Gemba Academy.

St. Joseph’s School Commends American Quality Management for Its Generosity to the Lakota Children

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 22:38:25 +0000

American Quality Management, a consulting firm based in Montebello, CA, has announced that they have received recognition for their donation in support of the Lakota (Sioux) children at St. Joseph School. The school has the mission of educating and providing housing to Native American children and their families. The company is a consulting and auditing firm that is focused on helping companies of various sizes in developing a world class quality management system that is based on international quality standards, such as ISO 9001, AS9100, and ISO 14001.

Connie Smith, a spokesperson for American Quality Management, says, “We felt that it was only right that we should help the Native American children at St. Joseph’s School. It was an opportunity to give back to the community and to focus on our human nature and our innate need to contribute to people around us. Making a contribution to a worthwhile cause is always essential.”

American Quality Management is made up of a team of quality management professionals who apply a comprehensive quality management approach to help clients accomplish the best results with the highest possible return on investment. For more than 25 years, they have been assisting companies achieve and maintain their ISO and AS certifications. This is because they truly understand the challenges that companies face in trying to meet customer expectations, including the requirements of the AS or ISO standards.

They can help clients get certified and then assist them in improving their system and their specific business methods, enabling them to optimize their benefits from the new systems. For instance, this may be in the form of a tailor-fitted quality management application that can actually help business run better than ever while enjoying the results of their hard work due to significant increases in cost savings and efficiency.

American Quality Management provides consulting services with regards to the different quality standards: AS9100, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. While the AS9100 certification was primarily developed for the aerospace and defense industry, it can also be used in other industries when a quality management system with additional requirements over an ISO 9001:2105 system is necessary. ISO 9001 is the standard that is based on several quality management principles, including the motivation and implication of top management, strong customer focus, continuous improvement, and the process approach. With an ISO 9001 certification, customers are ensured to get consistent, good-quality products and services.

Meanwhile, ISO 14001:2015 is the standard for environmental management systems. Its purpose is to allow a company to improve its environmental performance through a systematic approach that contributes to sustainability. This standard helps a company achieve the purposes of its environmental management system that offer value for the company itself, the environment, and interested parties.

The team of quality management professionals at American Quality Management will work with clients to establish a program suitable to their needs. They will provide consulting and system maintenance services involving various tasks. They will also provide on-site consumer audit support for training and safety. For training, this will involve a number of tasks, such as: internal auditing, corrective and preventive actions, root cause analysis, lean principals, risk assessment, team work, and value stream mapping. For safety, this will include: safety training, safety documentation, illness injury prevention program, safety inspections, safety meetings, and OSHA requirements.

The work to be done by American Quality Management will have a number of phases. Phase 1 is the discovery stage, where they check existing documentation and perform process mapping. Phase 2 is the documentation preparation stage, where they establish the manuals, procedures, forms, training, and other data for the particular company. Phase 3 is the implementation and training stage, where they provide process owner training and quality management system training. Phase 4 is the internal audit and management review stage. Phase 5 is the certification audit stage, where they prepare the audit package and provide onsite support for the third-party registrar audit.

Companies who want to learn more about the quality consulting and auditing services offered by American Quality Management may want to visit their website, or contact them through the telephone or via email.

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St. Joseph’s School Commends American Quality Management for Its Generosity to the Lakota Children

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 22:31:28 +0000

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Supply Chain Optimization in the Age of COVID

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 18:06:20 +0000

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced companies worldwide to scale back production and transportation, temporarily close, or shut down permanently. These disruptions have severely impacted global supply chain optimization.

Supply chain optimization is key to operating at optimal performance, and the health crisis has created new challenges for businesses across all industries to maintain their highest rate of productivity.

If companies want to survive throughout the pandemic and successfully emerge from it, they must focus on protecting and improving their supply chain efficiency. To do so, business leaders need to:

Understand the ways the disease has impacted their supply chains
How they can adapt to these changes
Learn the steps to take to protect themselves
Plan for the future of supply chain optimization post-COVID-19

Diving Deeper: How COVID-19 Affects Supply Chain Optimization

Reduced Workforce

Over 235 countries have recorded Coronavirus cases, with more than 35 million people infected, and over one million deaths as of early October 2020, according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering. In the U.S., there have been 7.4 million cases and 210,000 deaths from the disease.

Following government guidelines, companies have taken steps to ensure their employees’ safety, such as requiring face coverings, social distancing, remote work, and limiting the number of employees on each shift. Many employees have also refused to return to work out of fear for their health.

All these factors have created a reduced workforce, leading to less product manufacturing and slower delivery times.

For example, consider the farming industry. Many farms rely on migrant workers as their workforce. Shortly after the pandemic hit, the U.S. announced immigration and travel bans, which included seasonal migrant workers.

Over the spring and summer, countless farms faced a shortage of labor to pick produce. The situation left farmers with excess fruit and vegetables rotting in unharvested fields. That meant less produce reached consumers, and what did reach them came at an inflated price.

Supply and Demand

While reduced production has reduced supply, demand shortages have ravaged other industries. The travel and leisure industries have suffered the hardest. Since the pandemic started, fewer people are buying airline tickets or booking hotel rooms, and many hot tourist destinations are in lockdown.

Airline travel was essentially grounded at the start of the pandemic. Customers were simply too fearful to fly. As a result, many airline companies have reduced their daily flights, removed routes, and scaled back plans to purchase new planes.

With more planes left on the ground, fewer planes need regularly scheduled maintenance and updated parts. Companies that manufacturer those parts will either build up a surplus or limit production capacity.

Companies that build airplanes are in the same boat. The slowdown or cancellation of airplane production has caused a ripple effect for airplane part production companies.

For example, Boeing temporarily stopped producing its 787 Dreamliner planes at facilities in South Carolina and Seattle due to COVID-19 restrictions. The Chicago-based company applied for federal relief to cover losses and to boost its supply chain.

These examples are just a small window into the havoc COVID-19 has wreaked on supply chains worldwide—like dominos, supply and demand changes affect every link in the chain. The pandemic has forced companies to place emphasis on planning short-term and long-term contingency plans. Only those who find innovative ways to mitigate supply chain disruptions will be standing when the economy stabilizes, and that requires supply chain optimization.

How Companies are Adjusting

Six months into the pandemic, companies are learning to steer through supply chain problems by developing new policies. Many business leaders find themselves:

Staying away from single-source dealers
Ordering extra inventory
Reviewing their contracts with suppliers
Developing mapping to maximize efficiency

Bidding Farewell to Single-Source Dealers

In an attempt to get the best deal, many companies narrow down the field of suppliers to one company. While this may drive the price of the product down, it can leave those same companies without a Plan B.

If a company’s single-source supplier can’t deliver a product, then the company is left to scramble to find another supplier. The pandemic has highlighted just how dangerous counting on Plan A can be, as many suppliers have either shut down or been unable to manufacture their products.

Smart logistics managers are now lining up contingency plans for their supply lines with a hybrid approach where they order products from two or more suppliers. While it may increase costs, the move provides insurance that the company will receive its products and continue to meet customer demands.

Ordering Extra Inventory

Many companies rely on just-in-time manufacturing to reduce supply chain waste. With this system, suppliers deliver materials according to a pre-arranged schedule. This approach works efficiently because manufacturers can order the exact amount of product necessary without any excess.

However, we never know when the next crisis will hit. Right now, the world is dealing with a pandemic. The next international calamity could be a natural disaster in a geographical location that is a critical link in the supply chain, a war, or who knows what else.

To plan for the worst, companies have begun to stock up on inventory to reduce the chance of a shortage of materials if an unplanned event impacts their primary supplier. Just-in-time ordering hasn’t been abandoned, rather cautiously reserved for less-vital supply chain elements.

Reviewing Contracts with Suppliers

The pandemic has raised some red flags on the current contracts suppliers and manufacturers have agreed to, as well as on future contracts. Due to fewer flights, closed ports, and fewer trucks on the road, product delivery has been delayed.

Companies are closely monitoring their existing contracts with suppliers to determine what obligations each party is liable for. When existing contracts are set to expire, companies are considering the ramifications of the pandemic and future global emergencies that could arise.

Developing Mapping of a Supply Chain to Maximize Efficiency

When it comes to supply chains, companies have different tiers of suppliers. The Tier 1 level is primary suppliers, while Tier 2 is secondary suppliers.

For a company to manage an international crisis, it must keep track of all its suppliers – and not just the Tier 1 level. The disruption of one supplier can halt or delay the entire supply chain. Companies that have visibility across all levels can survive a supply chain catastrophe, mostly unscathed.

General Motors is a perfect example of this approach. When the tsunami of 2011 impacted Japan, GM invested in mapping tools. These supply chain tools helped GM to discover which suppliers were close to the event.

In turn, GM figured out what steps were necessary to avert a major disruption to its supply chain.

As the coronavirus first originated in Wuhan, China, companies with updated mapping tools knew whether they had suppliers in the area. If they did, they were able to reach out to suppliers in other areas or countries to order their products.

How Companies are Safeguarding Their Supply Chains

Almost every industry is currently focused on taking preemptive measures to diminish the threat of COVID-19 on their supply chains when it comes to personnel—and rightly so. Here are a few examples of the steps that may counter future delays:

Focus on showing employees how they can avoid catching the coronavirus. Business leaders must remind the workforce to wear a face covering, remain six feet apart from co-workers, and frequently wash their hands.
Develop a screening process. Companies are requiring employees to answer a series of questions to determine their risk and possible exposure to COVID-19.
Take temperatures daily to test for a fever with a touchless thermometer. The Centers for Disease Control considers someone with a temperature of 100.4 degrees or greater to have a fever.
Plan for a daily reduction in the workforce. According to the CDC, employees who have a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis or contact with someone who does must quarantine for at least 14 days. Businesses must prepare for employees to remain out of work with contingency plans to cover for anyone unable to return to work for an extended period.

Measures to protect supply chains that are not related to personnel are also a worthy consideration, such as:

Concentrate on cash flow
Understand Tier 1 supplier risk management
Identifying multiple suppliers and eliminating single-source suppliers
Managing inventory levels
Following trends in supply and demand
Developing supply chain mapping tools

The Future of Supply Chain Optimization During a Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has established new norms in supply chain optimization. Experts predict manufacturers will shift from international suppliers to more regional outfits. They also see a move away from single-source suppliers to multi-source suppliers – even if it comes at a higher cost to consumers.

Above all else, the pandemic has taught companies to think more strategically to avoid falling victim to international emergencies. They will need to take advantage of the latest supply chain optimization technology to figure out how to continue to maximize and sustain peak productivity.

COVID-19 Impact on Manufacturing

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:06:32 +0000

The coronavirus pandemic has put the world as we know it on pause. As of August 2020, more than 24 million people have contracted the virus, leading to more than 822,000 deaths worldwide. The United States has been one of the hardest-hit countries, and people everywhere have felt the COVID-19 impact on manufacturing.

Manufacturers have seen production, demand, and revenue fall across all business areas, from mining to mechanical engineering. Many companies are struggling to maintain cash flow and handle their existing debts. Some manufacturers cannot outsource production remotely, disrupting the entire supply chain.

As detrimental as the coronavirus pandemic has been for people’s well-being and the economy, COVID-19’s impact on manufacturing has benefitted some industries as much as it has harmed others. While these benefits do not act as counterbalances for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, these adaptions suggest a way forward from the crisis.

How COVID-19 Affects Lean Manufacturing

The pandemic has touched communities across the world, from hospitals to hotels and schools to service industries. We’ve seen both influxes in demand and dramatic drop-offs. Even five months after the initial outbreak hit the US, we have seen shortages in hospital cots, surgical masks, and ventilators.

Consider the pivot of Pathfindr, an asset tracking business in the United Kingdom. The company makes sensors that track parts during the manufacturing process, thanks to GPS and Bluetooth.

Since the pandemic, Pathfindr’s engineers have redesigned their technology to help people maintain social distancing. As a result, they have created a device called the Safe Distancing Assistant that gives users a jolt if the gadget senses them reaching to touch their face.

The same applies to manufacturers in San Diego. The city’s core manufacturing strengths include defense, aerospace, craft brewing, and shipbuilding. Disruptions to the supply chain have forced many local manufacturers to adapt their business models to meet demand, including:

ResMed: A company known for treating sleep apnea, they have begun producing respirators and ventilators for hospital and residential use.
Orucase: This travel bag manufacturer now makes half a million medical-grade face masks per day.
Cubic: The public tech company that provides products and services for transportation and defense has pivoted to prototype ventilators.
Flexsystems: This plastic products manufacturer has updated its operations to create splash guards and fabric masks for healthcare professionals and residents.

How Manufacturing Is Adapting

We have already touched on issues and adaption within the crisis management and response. The manufacturing ecosystem remains fragile in other sectors. Here are some of the current issues we face in the workforce, supply chain, and finance, as well as how manufacturers can respond with practical steps.

Workforce

Safety should be every company’s top priority, now and in the future. Every manufacturing company should implement additional safety measures if they haven’t already. That includes determining which jobs employees can perform remotely and which must occur on-site.

Manufacturing, like countless other industries, has experienced labor cuts and cost structure overhauls. These declines may continue as long as critical sectors, like travel and aviation, remain stifled under the coronavirus. Some companies may benefit from outsourcing labor, whether they move their information technology to the cloud or hire contractors to fill in for full-time employees.

Other potential steps include:

Training employees on proper safety protocols
Eliminating non-essential travel
Encouraging remote working
Encouraging sick employees to stay home
Finding new ways to work with more remote employees

Operations and Supply Chain

While manufacturers can adapt to new demands, they must prepare for bottlenecking domestically and abroad. The weakening supply chain will likely increase strain on operations over the coming months, and lower levels of manufacturers may suffer.

Cutting discretionary operations can reduce the stress of the coronavirus pandemic in the short term. The real question is whether or not companies have the financial reserves to outlast the recession. The remaining manufacturers of surviving companies will have a leg up when we reach a new normal.

Some other steps manufacturers can implement include:

Improving sanitation
Automating as much as possible
Updating best practices
Communicating with staff
Evaluating cybersecurity
Transferring knowledge via the supply chain

Finances

The COVID-19 impact on manufacturing has put us in uncertain times when it comes to producing necessary items. No one knows with certainty the best path forward, and many companies have made changes to adapt to these new challenges.

Companies should prioritize transparency as they address ongoing hurdles. Leaders should disclose pressing risks and the ripple effect they may have on trade and taxes. Multinational companies should look overseas for a resurgence of cash flow as the United States stagnates in its recovery.

Other solutions may involve resolving employee mobility issues for people in COVID hotspots and considering the impact of tariffs on the new manufacturing climate. As manufacturers navigate these obstacles, they should proactively talk with stakeholders to minimize surprises and unexpected setbacks.

American Quality Management Discusses The Importance Of Lean Manufacturing In The Age Of Coronavirus

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 22:11:14 +0000

American Quality Management, a California based auditing and consulting firm, has released an article that discusses the importance of lean manufacturing post the coronavirus pandemic. Lean manufacturing is a manufacturing method that aims for minimum waste while increasing efficiency. The article claims that the pandemic has created new opportunities for incorporating lean manufacturing principles in industries across many fields.

To explain its point of view, the article cites the example of Pioneer, an Ohio-based production company, that specialized in horse-drawn farm equipment. When there was an acute shortage of medical equipment in the country owing to the spike in coronavirus cases, the company stepped up to leverage its manufacturing capabilities to fill the gap in the market. Within 2 weeks the company was able to establish a hospital cot prototype, network directly with relevant industry partners, and produce 50 cots on their first day of fabrication. Eventually, the company was able to get to the point where they were producing 2 cots per minute. AQM claims that this is an excellent example of utilizing lean manufacturing methods to maximize efficiency at a given task.

The article also details other techniques that are being incorporated in the workspace to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. It states that many companies are redesigning physical spaces to prioritize worker safety. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, workspaces are being shuffled to enforce employee spacing according to social distancing guidelines. Another initiative that has been undertaken is the setup of visual displays of proper distancing and hand-washing techniques. Workspaces also have point-of-use cleaning supplies spread throughout their physical production space.

The article goes on to say that all of these measures would be not effective were it not for maintaining close communication between all employees. The lean manufacturing model accommodates the need for greater communication by pushing for more regular team check-ins and greater leadership alignment. The article says that the onus is on team leadership to identify top-priority tasks. The article goes on to recommend that leaders sideline non-essential tasks to maximize efficiency depending on the manufacturing capacity. This involves adapting to consumer needs and streamlining the products and services that are in high demand.

The article also talks about the surge of mandatory mask mandates in many industries. These mandates are being instituted by manufacturing companies not only for the safety of their workers but also for the financial security of the organization. However, some workers have actively resisted these mandates because of the nature of their work. For example, some employees who work in sparsely populated cities or those who operate in physical spaces with built-in employee distancing practices have been resisting the mask mandates.

Connie Smith, the owner of American Quality Management, talks about the future of the manufacturing industry in optimistic terms. She says, “Though there have been major challenges for lean manufacturing in the wake of the coronavirus, industry leaders have accepted the challenges head-on and have been instrumental in transforming those difficulties into unique opportunities for growth. We are tracking all the new developments as the industry goes through a period of upheaval. Now, more than ever, it is important for companies to form strong working relationships with each other to share knowledge. That is going to be vital for creating fast and effective solutions to keep up with the demands of the market.”

American Quality Management helps companies acquire and maintain their ISO and AS Certifications. This includes the AS9100, the AS9120, or any of the required ISO standards, ISO 9001:2015, or ISO 14001. The company’s team of ISO 9001 consultants aim to provide solutions for a business’s QMS, environmental, and safety programs. American Quality Management claims to provide properly defined projects including specific goals, milestones, agendas, status reports, and action items to help a business achieve its certification goals and increase its operational efficiency. They have been operational in California for more than 25 years. The company has a contact form on its website for interested parties to elaborate on their quality management system needs and to request quotes.

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American Quality Management Discusses The Importance Of Lean Manufacturing In The Age Of Coronavirus

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 21:38:08 +0000

]
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American Quality Management Discusses The Importance Of Lean Manufacturing In The Age Of Coronavirus

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 21:31:15 +0000

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American Quality Management Discusses The Importance Of Lean Manufacturing In The Age Of Coronavirus

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 21:24:27 +0000

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Hello world!

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 15:11:28 +0000

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!

The post Hello world! appeared first on ETM Manufacturing.

Connie Smith : @AQMAuditing

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 17:30:10 +0000

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Mon, 29 Jun 2015 23:05:13 +0000

ISO 9001:2015 Revision: How to Prepare http://aqmauditing.com/iso-90012015-revision-how-to-prepare/ …

Connie Smith : @AQMAuditing

Fri, 26 Jun 2015 18:30:59 +0000

Do You Need to be a Statistical Expert to Use Design of Experiments (DOE)? http://aqmauditing.com/do-you-need-to-be-a-statistical-expert-to-use-design-of-experiments-doe/ …

Connie Smith : @AQMAuditing

Sun, 10 May 2015 21:05:42 +0000

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Wed, 18 Mar 2015 06:32:30 +0000

Pretty awesome news about our own certification efforts #ISO9001 http://aqmauditing.com/aqm-iso-90012008-certification-announcement/ …

Connie Smith : @AQMAuditing

Wed, 04 Mar 2015 18:42:09 +0000

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Sat, 07 Feb 2015 20:07:44 +0000

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Connie Smith : @AQMAuditing

Sat, 07 Feb 2015 20:03:10 +0000

Just setting up my Twitter. #myfirstTweet