Value is one of the fundamental concepts in Lean. When analyzing the process from a customer’s perspective, Lean practitioners separate value-added activities from non-value added ones, which are muda or waste. By relentlessly removing waste, Lean organizations are able to deliver value to their customers fast and at the lowest costs. Many people are familiar… Continue reading What Types of Waste Do You See?
Author: Fang Zhou
Is Your Process in Control?
In 1980, the American Society for Quality (ASQ) republished Walter Shewhart’s seminal book Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product as a 50th anniversary edition. In his Dedication to this commemorative issue, W. Edwards Deming wrote: “There was never before greater need for statistical methods in industry and in research.” I’d say the same today,… Continue reading Is Your Process in Control?
An Indispensable Competency in an Agile Organization
One of the most common reasons for project trouble or failure is an unsuitably large project scope. The problem is not necessarily unrealistic goals or inadequate resources. When the large scope extends the project timeline far into the future, it risks becoming irrelevant before meaningful impact is achieved. External circumstances simply change and invalidate the… Continue reading An Indispensable Competency in an Agile Organization
Project Managers are Managers
Project management is often misunderstood. Despite recognition of its importance, many organizations have low project management maturity. Few have established proper project management governance, structure, processes, roles & responsibilities in the normal business operations. As a result, project managers have to navigate in an environment where project sponsors, teams, and other stakeholders have little experience… Continue reading Project Managers are Managers
Setting SMART Goals
Recently I had conversations with several people on different occasions about effective goal setting. It is a common practice to use Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) as criteria to create goals. However, using SMART goals for effective management or decision making is not as simple as it appears. For example, “improve product ABC… Continue reading Setting SMART Goals
Creating Better Strategies
What is your company’s strategy? As an employee or manager, what does it mean to you? Not many people I know can articulate it well. There seems to be much confusion between strategies and goals. Many strategies only state the desired outcomes without either 1) a meaningful connection to the organization’s unique ability to execute… Continue reading Creating Better Strategies
Making Employee Training Effective
How often do you provide training to your teams? What kinds of training are most effective? As an employee, I was fortunate to receive various technical and managerial training throughout my career. The knowledge, skills, and experience I gained allowed me to grow continually. As a manager, I planned and sponsored training for my teams. … Continue reading Making Employee Training Effective
Lean: Impact on Organizations
I came across a few photos capturing the “before” stage of a Lean Lab initiative I led more than a dozen years ago. It was a valuable learning experience. Today, many opportunities still exist. Have you implemented Lean in an R&D or laboratory environment? What benefits did you see? While Lean implementation is often associated… Continue reading Lean: Impact on Organizations
Improving Business Processes
In today’s business, time is money. Speed can determine the success or failure of a product, program, or even a company. I have been involved in many business process improvement projects aimed at reducing cycle time, e.g. the time to register novel pharmaceuticals in emerging markets or the time to fully execute contracts required for… Continue reading Improving Business Processes
My First-hand Experience in Innovation
As I look forward to the new year, I learned that ProtoArray protein microarray by ThermoFisher Scientific would be discontinued at the end of 2018. ProtoArray is special to me because I spent the first six years of my industry career developing it from a concept from Mike Synder’s lab at Yale, to a global… Continue reading My First-hand Experience in Innovation