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Year End Reflection – Why is Organizational Change so Difficult?

By Drive, Inc. on Monday 18 December 2017.

This month’s blog is an annual reflection by our President, Mike Huszar, on actions organizations can take in order to improve the capacity and capability of the organization to create lasting change. He utilizes a concept from “The Change House” with a personal anecdote to support the points. We at DRIVE would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a successful and prosperous 2018!

Training Within Industry - Part 2

By Drive, Inc. on Wednesday 15 November 2017.

In last month’s blog, we went into great detail on the different elements of TWI, including: Job Instructions (JI) Job Methods (JM) Job Relations (JR) In this month’s blog, we wanted to give you a case study of how TWI can impact your processes.

Training Within Industry - Part 1

By Drive, Inc. on Saturday 14 October 2017.

In past blogs, we have mentioned that standardization is the foundation for creating a continuous flow of value to the customer. TWI is part of the backbone of standardization. TWI recognizes the need for observed verifiable performance criteria and outcomes. It recognizes the need for standardization and stability, and forces supervisors to engage employees. TWI provides good integration of simple instructional processes, as well as the means to deal with people problems. It also focuses on improvement, is good in repetitive production environments, is easier to deploy, and is easy to learn. Since this is the case, why have so many companies not embraced this valuable process?

Executive Leader Standard Work

By Drive, Inc. on Friday 15 September 2017.

In last month’s blog, we discussed the importance of Leader Standard Work (LSW) as it applies to the leaders within the location where the value is being added. In this month’s blog, we are going to focus on how leadership from outside of the location should perform their LSW, which we call, “Executive Standard Work.”

Leader Standard Work

By Drive, Inc. on Tuesday 15 August 2017.

One of the top struggles in any organization is the sustainment of efforts, which is a byproduct of maintaining order through standardization. Often, leadership believes that if they tell the organization to do something, it will get accomplished and continue to get accomplished until told not to. However, this is not the case. The old adage, “You get what you INSPECT, not what you EXPECT” continues to be proven over and over. So, how does one implement a systematized method of “inspection” that ensures standards are followed and improvements are sustained? Leader Standard Work (LSW) is the best known method today to ensure that important items are checked and verified at the right frequency. One can consider Leader Standard Work the Control Plan for Leadership.

Why Use Consultants

By Drive, Inc. on Saturday 15 July 2017.

In our careers as consultants, both as internal consultants as well as external with our consulting business, we have seen many different types of engagements, such as: - The local team that is genuinely interested and engaged in change. - The team that thinks they are doing well enough and doesn’t need to change. - The team that thinks they can do it themselves without the need for outside support. - The team that is only “doing” it because the corporate executives are making them do it. Which team do you suppose has the most success, historically? Not a difficult question, correct?

World-Class Maintenance – Part 3

By Drive, Inc. on Thursday 15 June 2017.

In last month’s newsletter, we discussed what it would take to begin the journey to world-class maintenance. We end the article with our first frame work-- Total Productive Maintenance. The next framework that we use is The Reliability Pyramid.

World-Class Maintenance – Part 2

By Drive, Inc. on Tuesday 16 May 2017.

In last month’s newsletter, we discussed the different types of maintenance strategies seen in businesses. This month, we will start our discussion with what it takes to develop a world-class maintenance strategy. When a company decides to implement a truly effective maintenance strategy, it doesn’t come cheaply. The graph below shows that there is a substantial increase in maintenance cost in the beginning. However, one can expect the cost to drop below the original cost over time.

World-Class Maintenance – Part 1

By Drive, Inc. on Saturday 15 April 2017.

To ensure we have the right understanding when it comes to maintenance, we must change how we view it. In Drive’s opinion, maintenance produces capacity; Maintenance is not a service organization. It is a capacity assurance organization. This understanding of maintenance will resonate better with the executives within the organization. It will also aid the maintenance group in gaining support for the significant investments needed to implement a proper maintenance strategy. With the proper maintenance strategy the maintenance group will be able to alert the operational team of pending problems before the operational team is aware of a problem thus ensuring capacity when the business needs it most.

Maintenance Prevention is not Preventive Maintenance!

By Drive, Inc. on Wednesday 15 March 2017.

I remember buying my first car: a used, light blue, 1972 four-door Toyota Corona sedan, with manual transmission, and all in good working order. Once at home in my small studio apartment, I read the vehicle’s manual cover-to-cover. I discovered rather quickly that the service requirements to keep this big investment running were extensive, and expensive (at least for my budget at the time). I was a trainee accountant living on hope and soon discovered that I would also need to become a maintenance mechanic, as I could not afford to pay the service fees to keep my Toyota running.

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