Customers

[James Robert Crow <jr1crow@mindspring.com>]

Hello Group:

Rich DeRoeck gives an excellent example of continual improvement.  Moving
your on time performance from the 60's to the 90's and doing it in an on
going process is an accomplishment few organizations can boast of.  I
realize in his post that he stated that quality of product was not to be
compromised in the name of on time, but I would be interested in the charts
for rework and customer complaints for the same time period.  I think that
it is important to take a systems (balanced) approach to continual
improvement so that we aren't sacrificing one part of the system for the
benefit of another.

I am also interested in knowledge capture and sharing within the
organization.  I would assume, and I know that is dangerous that you were
making changes to your systems/processes and as a result of these changes
you got improvements in your outputs ie your on-time delivery to your
customers.  How did you capture that knowledge and was there a method for
sharing this knowledge among the 8 product lines.

Finally the last measure of quality is the invoice.  How long did it take
you to get an invoice to the customer and how did you track the accuracy of
the invoice.  The invoice is our last chance to make a good impression on
the customer.  Also our ability of get an accurate invoice to the customer
affects cash flow.  I have worked with several companies where this was
affecting their credibality with the customer and their survival as an
organization.  In both cases our ability to get an accurate invoice to the
customer the same time the customer received the product or service
affected their willingness to pay on time and to pay the full amount of the
invoice.

RC
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