Re: FW: Ford embraces Six Sigma

[SOPKrules@aol.com]

WMack:

There are many missing elements of how we look at processes.  Dr. Deming 
viewed processes and systems in line with the predominant view - the 
industrial engineering or mechanical view of what processes or systems are.  
You've seen the machine model of a process?  Input - Process - Output.  Well 
that model doesn't necessarily model the human coordination processes that 
really drive action in our world.  People don't input-process-output.  The 
3.4 Liter V6 engine in my car input-processes-outputs, but when I want to 
make something happen with my wife do I input - process - output?  No.  What 
I do is make a request or make an offer and then we negotiate the condition 
of satisfaction and someone makes a commitment.  The way we look at processes 
with deployment flow diagrams, Yourdan-Demarco flow diagrams, IDEF0 diagrams 
or other swim lane charts including LoveM, etc., don't capture people doing 
the natural things we do to make action happen - request, offer, delare, 
promise, assess, assert.  The way maps are built with the mechanical model 
show the flow of materiel and data and people appear as things that must 
complete tasks.  Looking at human coordination processes (or not looking at 
them) with the machine model orientation actually impedes our ability to make 
use of the great ideas, tools, methods for reducing variability in our lives.

Bob

[Moderator speaking as a subscriber: I would hope that DENizens that have
begun to understand Deming's System of Profound Knowledge would see that
Deming has moved significantly beyond the mechanistic view as related here.
Even the original 1950's "Production viewed as a system" took people into
consideration as well as their relationships with the other components of
the system.

That said - perhaps there is something in the word "commitment" that we are
seeing differently.