The Integration Dr Blog

Let’s presume that you are working a problem in your facility – the problem is a rather thorny one, and is affecting multiple management standards.  How should you handle the root cause determination, and the corrective action resulting from it?  For reporting purposes, how do you report it for metrics – as a problem in all three metrics?  Do you pick one and let the other standard metrics alone?  What’s the best way to handle this?

Here’s a hypothetical problem:  you’ve noticed that a chemical used in your facility has been used up  prematurely, so there is insufficient quantities to maintain production; you investigate further and discover that an employee was trying to attach a hose without the correct safety equipment and process equipment in place, and he was injured; before he could turn off the valve, the chemical poured out onto the tank farm floor, resulting in a chemical spill.  The resulting problem affects the product quality, employee safety and health, and requires a chemical spill cleanup – so we’ve got an impact from a QMS, OHS, and EMS standpoint.  What’s the best way to handle the root cause determination, and the interim and final corrective action(CA) ?

Our first step is the put an interim CA in place to ’stop the bleeding’.  Our first concern is the employee   – let’s make sure that they’re safe and getting the attention they need.  Ensure that all safety precautions are in place, then institute chemical spill cleanup per your environmental procedures and following manufacturer and MSDS recommendation, paying particular attention to containment and prevention of chemical down drains that lead to water supplies, or out the door and to the soil.  Now that we’ve got the basics covered in the short term, we want to focus on a) understanding why this happened, and b) ensuring that this won’t happen again.  In order to do that ’smartly’, we want to assemble a small team from the major groups affected, to step through a formal corrective action process — determine the root cause — in this case, determine how the spill happened in the first place.  The team should also determine what permanent CA will be implemented, and take steps to put the permanent CA in motion (ordering new supplies, reviewing spill procedures, safety procedures, etc. and determining what will ensure that this problem won’t happen again, for this reason).  Finally, the org should determine what steps need to be taken to prevent this in the future (preventing this from happening for other reasons), and what this impact may have to product quality.  Do customers need to be notified that shipments may be delayed?  Can an expedited shipment of the chemical be ordered and delivered?

Now let’s take a minute to go back and review:

- Quality is affected – shortfall of one of the raw materials

Fix:  investigate expedited delivery

- improper handling resulted in a chemical spill – both environmental and occupational health and safety implications

Fix:  review the existing environmental and safety procedures; update as required;

- Preventive action:  how could a spill have happened if not this way?  How could an employee have been injured if not this way?  How could our product quality have been affected if not this way?

Is there anything we’ve forgotten?  Anything you’d do differently?  Let me know – I’d love to hear your comments!

If you’ve been reading any of our other blogs this month, you know we’re focusing on relationships this month: relationships in business, building relationships, trust, and dysfunctional relationships with your business. All of this writing about relationships, and we’ve left out the most obvious relationship topic for our business – The relationship between different Management Systems!

How do you keep the relationship healthy?

• Communicate the importance and processes of each system throughout the company. Don’t favor one over the other. The systems work best when they work together and given equal ranking. Avoid one from overpowering the other and stressing their similarities and shared processes.

• Understand that you have to give as well as receive. As with any initiative, you shouldn’t expect a quick fix solution to all your problems. This was probably emphasized during your implementation process, but can be forgotten over time. Companies with the best intentions to keep up with their improvement efforts may get sidetracked and loose focus of process, just going through the motions but not getting the maximum return possible. Unfortunately by the time it is recognized, the company is so dis-enamored with the system they don’t make an effort to get it back on track and miss out on the progress they could be making.

• Ask how your management systems are “feeling”. Do a status check. Are you up to date on your internal audits, management reviews, and closing out your C/PAR’s? Try an informal “audit” and pop quiz a couple employees – if they look at you blankly like they don’t know what you’re talking about, that’s a good sign you need to show your systems some love.

Take the time to nurture your integrated system and you’ll be on cloud 9 – neglect it and end up in the dog house. It’s never too late to ask for help, call up the Integration Dr today and get some “relationship counseling” for your integrated management systems.

2010 – the Year of Integration!  [Well, McDonald Consulting Group has declared 2010 the Year of Integration, at least...]

This blog will introduce you to concepts for integrating your systems, including:

• Quality Management Systems (QMS)
• Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
• Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (OHSMS)
• Sustainability
• Lean
• Performance Excellence (PE)

and more.

Stay tuned to find out how you can use this info to integrate you systems – and your systems thinking!  We’ll post every Thursday on a new topic – and feel free to suggest a topic you’d like to see covered!

I am a transplant from the northeast.  Although I have lived in Austin for almost 15 years, I still have many remnants of northeast living within me:

1)      I’m perfectly happy with the windows open (vs. the A/C on) if it’s not too hot;

2)     I look forward to colder weather, hot apple cider, and using my fireplace;

3)     I do think that 113 degrees is just TOO DANG HOT

4)     I think that swimming in a pool less than 80 degrees is OK.  [In fact, I think that many pools in Austin, in the middle of a hot summer, are more like swimming in a bathtub than taking a refreshing dip…]

However, over time, I’ve adapted to living in the south:

1)     I no longer own 14 different wool suits (in fact, I don’t own any since Austin is not a ‘suit’ kinda place);

2)     I have learned to appreciate a milder winter – there’s something to be said for not scraping ice off your windshield on a daily basis, or removing snow from the driveway in order to get out;

3)     I like the outdoors-y-ness of the South – walking/biking trails, etc. that encourage us to get out and get moving;

4)     I like living in the middle of the country (for those not intimately familiar with geography, Austin is pretty central in the south – equidistant from both coasts, which helps when commuting to one of ‘em.)  I also like living in the central time zone for the same reason…

In order to make this a reality, I had to integrate my two lives – my northern life and my southern life.  When I first moved here, I found out that my summer wardrobe was not sufficient to bring me through eight months of warmer weather, and my winter wardrobe was way too extensive for four months of cooler weather.

When integrating management systems, a similar recognition is necessary.  Although there are great things, in and of themselves, about each of these systems, some of these great things are in too high a percentage (woolen suits); others are in too low (summer suits).  Some things have to go by the wayside entirely (our snow shovels, snow blower, ice scrapers, etc.)  Notice that I did not say that these were lousy tools, or tools that had outlived their usefulness; they were simply tools that didn’t fit our new system.

Do you have tools, techniques, etc. that work great for one system but may not fit well with the new integrated system?  Don’t feel bad about whittling them down; although they served their purpose when it was needed, they are not needed any longer.

Do you need to make things work better together?  Look at ways that you can do so easily (keeping the wool jacket – sans skirt – as a winter jacket to pair with slacks) – can you implement the internal auditing program across multiple systems easily?  Can you expand management review to incorporate multiple systems?  What works and what doesn’t?  Adapt your system to make it work better together.