AFL, NRL, NFL, NBA, NHL, A-League, EPL, MLS

Friday, October 25, 2013

Diesel Refuelling Safety Bulletin


Diesel Re-Fuelling Safety Bulletin from Roland Weber

  • Here is the Transcript of the above document:
  • Addressing the potential for mobile equipment (trucks, dozers, shovels, drill rigs, excavators, etc.) to spill fuel, leak fuel, and catch fire, as well as the risk of occupational hazards associated with re-fuelling. 
  • Summary of Hazard 
  • Since the 1980’s fast filling for heavy and large equipment has become the standard in the industry. Fast filling can deliver filling speeds of well above 1,000 litres per minute. Fast filling significantly increased efficiencies and productivity while also aiming at reducing fuel spills due to a clean-break system, it has also had some adverse effects. 
  • Pressurising Fuel Tanks 
  • In some cases, operators have from the beginning of the refuelling process tied the gun down, to disable automatic shut-off. Manufacturers design their fuel tanks to be pressurised at 4-8PSI. Fast Fill systems are designed to shut off at 13-14PSI tank pressure. The cyclic overpressurisation of tanks leads to tank failures through ballooning (over pressurisation and deformation) and rupture. While tanks are designed to last for 15+ years, the cycle of tank fatigue is accelerated and will often start at as little as three years into operation. 
  • Increased Volumes of Spills 
  • The dry-break system was designed to reduce spills from fuel contained in the fuel line of a traditional splash fill system once filling completed. When the tank is full and the couplings are removed, Diesel will be contained within the fuelling system. Common practice when re-fuelling is that the operator will re-activate the fuel filling gun (after initial automatic shut off) to ‘top off’ the tank. This creates two more issues: 
  • The tank pressure now will be equal to the pressure delivered by the fuelling pump, which can be up to and beyond 80PSI 
  • The operator holds down then gun until fuel spills from the breather at the top of the tank. 
  • At 600 litres per minute, this equates to 10 litres every second, which would be the maximum expected reaction and shut-off time for the system In some cases, operators have from the beginning of the re-fuelling process tied the gun down, to disable automatic shut-off. If the operator is not near the gun, the amount of fuel spilled will be considerably more.
  • Diesel Baths 
  • As the Diesel is now disbursed through the breathing vent, it can create to what is referred to as a “Diesel bath” for the operator re-filling the equipment. At this volume, there is a high risk of Diesel entering the operator’s eyes. Best case scenario the worker will be off for the rest of his/her shift, however if Diesel has entered the eyes, this will most likely mean about three days in hospital. While diesel baths are not known to be common, they have occurred and are considered severe, high risk injury. Best case scenario the worker will be off for the rest of his/her shift.
  • Spillages While Operating 
  • Now that the tank is filled to the top, and as the heavy machinery moves back into production, Diesel will spill through the fuel vent creating further issues; 
  • Risk of Fire 
  • Environmental Pollution 
  • Economic loss 
  • The risk of fire due to Diesel spilling and coming in contact with engines, radiators or tyres is real and has over the years occurred many times. While spills at the filling stations are often catered for by bunding arrangements, this is not the case once the equipment is on the move. This part of the pollution often goes unnoticed. 
  • Contributory Factors 
  • The risk of fire due to Diesel spilling and coming in contact with engines, radiators or tyres is real and has over the years occurred many times. 
  • Mobile Equipment is often used on uneven ground 
  • Operators are not trained properly 
  • The applicable Australian standards do not take alternative solutions into account 
  • Knowledge about the risk of pressurising tanks is limited 
  • Fear of fines mean that minor spills are not reported 
  • Recommendations 
  • A more rigorous approach when training operators 
  • Mechanical Non-Pressurised Refuelling Systems to be fitted to all existing mobile equipment as best practise 
  • OEM’s and suppliers to integrate Non-Pressurised Refuelling Systems to be fitted to all mobile equipment as standard 
  • Fuel Vents to have fuel surge protection Fuel Vents to have roll-over protection 
  • A change in Australian Standards to acknowledge nonpressurised solutions should be the norm 
  • A pro-active maintenance program to establish tank issues early 
  • An audit of risks with current mobile equipment pertaining to fuel spill and tank damage

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Company Culture - PaperCut

I have posted many individual posts talking about culture, leadership and office politics.  Since I have been looking for the perfect role for me over the last three months, I came across an ad by PaperCut today.  Although I had encountered their software before, I had never actually investigated the company.  I urge you to have a good look around their web site.  Here's a link to their blogs...  www.papercut.com/blog/2013/05/

I love the way they run their office, a flat management structure, and anyone that knows me, the coffee part of course.  It shows that even in our sometimes "stuck up" world, you don't have to be dressed in $2,000.00 suits to achieve results, it's all about aligning goals and having a great team culture, where individuals are empowered to achieve, because that's why they were hired in the first place.

Now, I hope Chris and Matt don't read this post before meeting with me, as they may see it as brown-nosing, but then again, they may not.  In any case, I know if I do get  chance to meet them, I won't be wearing a suit.  I should probably ride my bike there and walk in with bike shorts (no, don't worry - I'll spare you that vision).

As I said, please have a look at their site, and as always, don't be scared to send me comments at roland@matador.net.au or through LinkedIn.

Their site:  www.papercut.com



Monday, April 15, 2013

The Most Successful Leaders Do 15 Things Automatically, Every Day


The following article from Forbes highlights many areas  I have previously discussed.  But does it really only relate to leaders?  At the end of the day we are all leaders in one way or another.  Every person can adopt these in their every day routine to make them a more efficient and better employee or even person.  Sometimes you cannot communicate expectations to others, but you should be clear in your mind what your goals are, and what you want to achieve.  

You don't have to challenge other people to think, but challenge yourself.  Look around you and learn from others.  See what works and what doesn't.  We don't always succeed, but was makes us stronger is when we fail.  We can see why and how, and work even harder to ensure success in the future.  Stay positive!  By doing so you will unlock infinite possibilities for yourself and put people around you at ease, to either help you, do business with you, or even admire you.


Try it, and let me know your thoughts.  The best way to contact me is through LinkedIn (link to your right).

Leadership is learned behavior that becomes unconscious and automatic over time.  For example, leaders can make several important decisions about an issue in the time it takes others to understand the question.   Many people wonder how leaders know how to make the best decisions, often under immense pressure.  The process of making these decisions comes from an accumulation of experiences and encounters with a multitude of difference circumstances, personality types and unforeseen failures.   More so, the decision making process is an acute understanding of being familiar with the cause and effect of behavioral and circumstantial patterns;  knowing the intelligence and interconnection points of the variables involved in these patterns allows a leader to confidently make decisions and project the probability of their desired outcomes.   The most successful leaders are instinctual decision makers.  Having done it so many times throughout their careers, they become immune to the pressure associated with decision making and extremely intuitive about the process of making the most strategic and best decisions. This is why most senior executives will tell you they depend strongly upon their “gut-feel” when making difficult decisions at a moment’s notice.
Beyond decision making, successful leadership across all areas becomes learned and instinctual over a period of time. Successful leaders have learned the mastery of anticipating business patterns, finding opportunities in pressure situations, serving the people they lead and overcoming hardships.   No wonder the best CEOs are paid so much money.   In 2011, salaries for the 200 top-paid CEOs rose 5 percent to a median $14.5 million per year, according to a study by compensation-data company Equilar for The New York Times.
If you are looking to advance your career into a leadership capacity and / or already assume leadership responsibilities – here are 15 things you must do automatically, every day, to be a successful leader in the workplace:
1.  Make Others Feel Safe to Speak-Up
Many times leaders intimidate their colleagues with their title and power when they walk into a room.   Successful leaders deflect attention away from themselves and encourage others to voice their opinions.  They are experts at making others feel safe to speak-up and confidently share their perspectives and points of view.   They use their executive presence to create an approachable environment.
2.  Make Decisions
Successful leaders are expert decision makers.    They either facilitate the dialogue to empower their colleagues to reach a strategic conclusion or they do it themselves.  They focus on “making things happen” at all times – decision making activities that sustain progress.   Successful leaders have mastered the art of politicking and thus don’t waste their time on issues that disrupt momentum.  They know how to make 30 decisions in 30 minutes.
3.  Communicate Expectations
Successful leaders are great communicators, and this is especially true when it comes to “performance expectations.”   In doing so, they remind their colleagues of the organization’s core values and mission statement – ensuring that their vision is properly translated and actionable objectives are properly executed.
I had a boss that managed the team by reminding us of the expectations that she had of the group.   She made it easy for the team to stay focused and on track.  The protocol she implemented – by clearly communicating expectations – increased performance and helped to identify those on the team that could not keep up with the standards she expected from us.
4.  Challenge People to Think
The most successful leaders understand their colleagues’ mindsets, capabilities and areas for improvement.  They use this knowledge/insight to challenge their teams to think and stretch them to reach for more.   These types of leaders excel in keeping their people on their toes, never allowing them to get comfortable and enabling them with the tools to grow.
If you are not thinking, you’re not learning new things.  If you’re not learning, you’re not growing – and over time becoming irrelevant in your work.
5.  Be Accountable to Others
Successful leaders allow their colleagues to manage them.  This doesn’t mean they are allowing others to control them – but rather becoming accountable to assure they are being proactive to their colleagues needs.
Beyond just mentoring and sponsoring selected employees, being accountable to others is a sign that your leader is focused more on your success than just their own.
6.  Lead by Example
Leading by example sounds easy, but few leaders are consistent with this one.   Successful leaders practice what they preach and are mindful of their actions. They know everyone is watching them and therefore are incredibly intuitive about detecting those who are observing their every move, waiting to detect a performance shortfall.
7.  Measure & Reward Performance
Great leaders always have a strong “pulse” on business performance and those people who are the performance champions. Not only do they review the numbers and measure performance ROI, they are active in acknowledging hard work and efforts (no matter the result).    Successful leaders never take consistent performers for granted and are mindful of rewarding them.  
8.  Provide Continuous Feedback
Employees want their leaders to know that they are paying attention to them and they appreciate any insights along the way.  Successful leaders always provide feedback and they welcome reciprocal feedback by creating trustworthy relationships with their colleagues..   They understand the power of perspective and have learned the importance of feedback early on in their career as it has served them to enable workplace advancement.
9.  Properly Allocate and Deploy Talent
Successful leaders know their talent pool and how to use it.  They are experts at activating the capabilities of their colleagues and knowing when to deploy their unique skill sets given the circumstances at hand. 
10.  Ask Questions, Seek Counsel
Successful leaders ask questions and seek counsel all the time.  From the outside, they appear to know-it-all – yet on the inside, they have a deep thirst for knowledge and constantly are on the look-out to learn new things because of their commitment to making themselves better through the wisdom of others.
11.  Problem Solve; Avoid Procrastination
Successful leaders tackle issues head-on and know how to discover the heart of the matter at hand.    They don’t procrastinate and thus become incredibly proficient at problem solving; they learn from and don’t avoid uncomfortable circumstances (they welcome them).
Getting ahead in life is about doing the things that most people don’t like doing.
12.  Positive Energy & Attitude
Successful leaders create a positive and inspiring workplace culture.  They know how to set the tone and bring an attitude that motivates their colleagues to take action.   As such, they are likeable, respected and strong willed.  They don’t allow failures to disrupt momentum.
13.  Be a Great Teacher
Many employees in the workplace will tell you that their leaders have stopped being teachers.   Successful leaders never stop teaching because they are so self-motivated to learn themselves.  They use teaching to keep their colleagues well-informed and knowledgeable through statistics, trends, and other newsworthy items.
Successful leaders take the time to mentor their colleagues and make the investment to sponsor those who have proven they are able and eager to advance.
14.  Invest in Relationships
Successful leaders don’t focus on protecting their domain – instead they expand it by investing in mutually beneficial relationships. Successful leaders associate themselves with “lifters and other leaders” – the types of people that can broaden their sphere of influence.  Not only for their own advancement, but that of others.
Leaders share the harvest of their success to help build momentum for those around them.
15.  Genuinely Enjoy Responsibilities
Successful leaders love being leaders – not for the sake of power but for the meaningful and purposeful impact they can create.   When you have reached a senior level of leadership – it’s about your ability to serve others and this can’t be accomplished unless you genuinely enjoy what you do.
In the end, successful leaders are able to sustain their success because these 15 things ultimately allow them to increase the value of their organization’s brand – while at the same time minimize the operating risk profile.   They serve as the enablers of talent, culture and results.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

What Most Schools Don't Teach

I keep talking about leadership, education, business improvement, simplifying processes and more.  I have however never related my own thinking to coding/programming.  Although I fist experienced programming with "Basic" in the 80's, followed by Pascal, C, and some weird language called Modula 2 at the university of Waikato, for me this was always just fun.  

Looking at this video, it made me think how true the comments made by these leaders of our time are.  At the end of the day it is about processes and breaking down problems.  Here are some of the comments from the video, but I highly recommend watching it, and if you have kids, getting them involved early.  It is like learning an instrument, and something you never forget.  It teaches you good basics, principles and being organised and structured in an approach.

"It's about humanity & helping people"

"It's about the process of breaking down problems"

"To get the best people we make the office as awesome as possible"

The comparison and overlaps with coding and sports, business and all around us are I believe very valid.  Enjoy!

This video starrs Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, will.i.am, Chris Bosh, Jack Dorsey, Tony Hsieh, Drew Houston, Gabe Newell, Ruchi Sanghvi, Elena Silenok, Vanessa Hurst, and Hadi Partovi. Directed by Lesley Chilcott.




Monday, February 18, 2013

Do you work for a 3BL company?





The triple bottom line (abbreviated as TBL or 3BL, and also known as people, planet, profit or "the three pillars") captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organisational (and societal) success: economic, ecological, and social.

Company Culture
Through Principles learned from some of the “best companies to work for” and “most successful companies” we help you focus on the cultural clusters in your company that can help you grow, implement new strategies and become more productive.   We help you with the introduction of tailored solutions to change non-practical cultural believes, and get buy in from the front line through to senior management.  We stay involved throughout the whole process, enabling the best possible outcomes.

Change Management
Change can often be difficult and met by resistance.  We help you fully understand change, what is required, help you map out the path, and support you through it, just like in a successful partnership.

Employee Engagement
The key here is to not only have your employees engaged, but for them to manage up and create innovation from within.  Employee engagement will also reduce absenteeism and staff retention.

Staff Motivation
Most people have something that drives and motivates them, and in most cases it’s not the same.  Establishing whether people are extrinsically or intrinsically motivated, and finding out why they are at work, will aid in creating a better workplace where employees look forward to showing up.

Team Leadership
Starting with leaders understanding themselves through “self-evaluation”, understanding the EQ’s SQ’s (emotional and social quotient) etc., understanding the difference between leadership and management, and how to get the best from your staff are only some of the factors we focus on.  Our program cannot be successful unless we have total support from the senior leadership team down, as well as from the front line up.  Lean culture and lean leadership are two key components in the journey of become a great leader.

Systems & Processes (Lean Six Sigma)
Lean Six Sigma is todays buzz word, but in essence all we are talking about are principles found in Lean and Six Sigma.  There are many other tools, but at the end we investigate if a process that is in place is really the best means to an end.  We may find that there are a few steps to many, which make it inefficient.  We may look at the supply chain and find areas to save time, money, reduce inventory, etc.  This will create savings due to the removal of wasteful practices.

Productivity and Efficiency Increases
Through a combination of all of the above we are able to help you target specific areas in your business that will most benefit in the short term, as well as a focus on the big picture and long term sustainability of the business. 

Environment and Sustainability
With carbon taxes, global warming, utilities and transport costs all affecting our bottom line, we can take a closer look at the triple bottom line (3BL).  People and profit will be targeted through the areas above, and planet will be included early on to ensure any change incorporates environmental responsibility and sustainability, without any major cost impacts on the business.

Our approach 
in assisting your business is based on an initial business audit, a 360 degree review, a systems and processes audit, people audit and much more.  Below are some of the key target areas and some very basic explanations on what we do.  We could discuss each and every one of these points over many pages, but we’d rather meet you and find out what most concerns you in your business.  What are you or your employees losing sleep over?  Once we fully understand where it hurts, we can target these areas, and through root cause analysis drill down into the whole value chain of your business (from suppliers to end customers), to ensure a measured approach in line with your business strategy.


Last, but not least, we have the added advantage of not only being a specialist consultancy firm, but through our RTO (Registered Training Organisation) arm, we can structure our programs to include your whole organisations training requirements.  Whether it is accredited and nationally recognised training, skills cluster training, or purely non accredited specific skills in areas like sales, procurement or finance (to name a few) to address any areas above and make you an even more successful business.  If you are in Australia, New Zealand or Great Britain that furthermore means that we can access to a number of government initiatives to support some of the programs on offer financially.

If you have read through all the above, my guess is that you have nodded at least a couple of times.  Are you ready however to drop me a line or give me a call to set up a meeting over a coffee to start the conversation on how we can add value to your business?

Monday, February 11, 2013

Recession Proof Billion Dollar Empire (did Lean principles aid in the creation?)


Too often we talk about the automotive industry (especially Toyota) when discussing lean, and Motorola in regards to six sigma.  But what lean really comes down to is good old fashioned common sense.  In the early days people had to be smart about the way they did business, and owners/managers were as much directly involved as their front line in reducing wastes and creating savings.  

Business networks were smaller, but often more efficient.  Something happened as we modernised and globalised.  I came across the story below, which in many ways highlights lean principles and good leadership.  I pulled out a few statements, but would encourage you to have a read of the full article.  

As always, I ask you to look at our web site: www.chaseperformance.com and drop me a line, if you would like to share the issues in your business that are making you lose sleep, in full commercial confidence off course.  I would love to establish, how we can assist with a tailored program to address these.

“Ortega built his empire on two basic rules: Give customers what they want, and get it to them faster than anyone else

“He would need to control the supply chain

“Ortega's insistence on staying close to home and his ability to connect with even low-level employees

“What keeps this machine ticking is the logistics department

“There is a firm 24-hour turnaround deadline for Europe, the Middle East, and much of the U.S., and 48 hours for Asia and Latin America.



Meet Amancio Ortega: The third-richest man in the world

January 8, 2013: 5:00 AM ET
    After Gates and Slim comes Amancio Ortega, who built the world's largest fashion empire, Zara. He's difficult to know, impossible to interview, and incredibly secretive. An exclusive portrait.
By Vivienne Walt, contributor
Zara founder Amancio Ortega
Zara founder Amancio Ortega
FORTUNE -- The motorbike roared up to the traffic light in La Coruña in northern Spain and stopped alongside a black Town Car. From inside, the passenger glanced out his window and saw the young biker leaning over the handlebars, jean jacket decorated with appliquéd patches, a throwback to the 1970s. The man in the car, decades older than the biker, zoomed in on the jacket. The old man grabbed his cellphone and, as the story goes, called an aide in his office. His eyes still fixed on the biker, the man described the jacket's stitching, its shape and color, and signed off with a single instruction: "¡Hácedla!" Make it.
The light turned green, the biker pulled away; unbeknown to him, he and his jacket had just played a walk-on role in one of the greatest retail stories of our time.
Amancio Ortega Gaona -- the man inside the car -- is the third-richest man on earth. In this provincial corner of Galicia, on Spain's windswept northwestern coastline, the 76-year-old founder of the Inditex Group has spent years secluded from public view, all while living in the middle of La Coruña, a city of 246,000 people. Among the millions of shoppers who patronize Inditex's flagship brand, Zara, and have made Ortega unfathomably rich, few have even heard his name. Ortega has made sure of that, shunning social appearances and refusing all interview requests (including for this article). Until 1999 no photograph of Ortega had ever been published.
And yet, a world away from the glitz of Paris, Milan, and New York, Ortega has built a fashion empire that reaches into more than 80 countries. Beginning 40 years ago, Ortega ripped up the business model that had been refined over decades by Europe's fashion houses and replaced it with one of the most brutally fast turnaround schedules the industry had ever attempted. Decades later Zara is the world's biggest fashion retailer.
Ortega built his empire on two basic rules: Give customers what they want, and get it to them faster than anyone else. The twin organizing principles have made the company (and Ortega) into an unlikely iconoclast, more of an optimal supply chain than a traditional retailer. They are also the secret to Inditex's astonishing success. "Very few companies can challenge Inditex at this time. The company is in a race with themselves rather than anything else," says Christodoulos Chaviaras, a retail analyst at Barclays Capital in London. Tadashi Yanai, founder of clothing retailer Uniqlo, has made it his stated goal in life to beat Zara. And last August shares of the fashion company Esprit rose 28% on the day it announced its new CEO, Inditex's former distribution and operations manager.
Humble beginnings: Ortega grew up in a row house in La Coruña, in northern Spain (top); his first job was in retail, at Gala (left), where current owner José Martínez (right) was his friend.
Humble beginnings: Ortega grew up in a row house in La Coruña, in northern Spain (top); 
his first job was in retail, at Gala (left), where current owner José Martínez (right) was his friend.
Spain might be suffering through its worst recession in generations, with 24% unemployment and crippling debt, but within Inditex, the crisis might as well be happening on Mars. "They live in a different world," says Modesto Lomba, president of the Spanish Association of Fashion Designers. In December, CEO Pablo Isla announced that revenue was up 17% year on year for the first three quarters of 2012 -- that nine-month sales revenue amounts to $14.6 billion -- and net profits matched 2010's, at $2.71 billion. So far, the growth shows no signs of slowing.
Inditex produced 835,000 garments in 2011. A new Zara store opens every day, on average; Inditex's 6,000th store just launched on London's Oxford Street. There are 46 Zara stores in the U.S., 347 in China, and 1,938 in Spain. Ortega controls more than 59% of the company's shares, and last July he overtook Warren Buffett to become the world's third-richest man, behind Carlos Slim Helú and Bill Gates. The reclusive, enigmatic Spaniard, hunting for ideas from his car window on the streets of his hometown, is now worth about $56 billion.
If such a fortune seems big, it is even more astonishing when you consider the man himself. The youngest of four children, Ortega was born in Busdongo de Arbas, a hamlet of 60 people in northern Spain, in 1936, just as the Spanish Civil War was erupting. The family scraped by on his father's railway job while his mother worked as a housemaid. When Amancio was a small boy, the family moved to La Coruña. There, home was a row house that abutted the train tracks and that served, as it still does today, as the railway workers' quarters. Amancio might have joined the rail service too, had it not been for one fateful evening when he was just 13. Walking home from his school, he and his mother stopped at a local store, where he stood by as his mother pleaded for credit. "He heard someone say, 'Señora, I cannot give this to you. You have to pay for it,'" says Covadonga O'Shea, a longtime friend of Ortega's who runs a fashion business school at the University of Navarra in Madrid and wrote the sole authorized biography of him, The Man From Zara. "He felt so humiliated, he decided he would never go back to school."
Barely in his teens, Ortega found a job as a shop hand for a local shirtmaker called Gala, which still sits on the same corner in downtown La Coruña. Today the store feels frozen in time: plaid shirts, fishermen's caps, and woolen cardigans. "Can you believe it?" says Xabier R. Blanco, a local journalist who tracks Ortega's career. "They still sell the same stuff, and Amancio is Mr. World." That painful irony is not lost on Gala's owner, José Martínez, 76, who inherited the store from his father. He befriended young Amancio when they were both 14. The boys spent their afternoons folding shirts at Gala and riding bikes around town. Martínez does not relish his current role as counterpoint to his childhood friend. "No one ever comes in here to buy anything," he says. "They just want to know about Amancio."
ortega_empire_graphs
By 16, Ortega had concluded that the real money could be made giving customers exactly what they wanted, quickly, rather than buying up inventory in the hopes it would sell. To do that, he needed to figure out what people were looking for, then make it. He would need to control the supply chain. Ortega had the ideal environment: Galicia. With few job opportunities, thousands of men worked at sea, leaving their women to struggle alone back home. "The women would do anything for a little money, and they were really good at sewing," says Blanco, who co-wrote a book called Amancio Ortega: From Zero to Zara. Ortega began organizing thousands of women into sewing cooperatives. He oversaw a thriving production of quilted bathrobes for his first company, GOA. Mercedes López was 14 when she went to work for Ortega and says most women were thrilled to be hired. "The conditions were really pretty good," says López, now 52, who is the textile union representative at Inditex. "We knew Amancio well. He was very close to the workers." It was a family business: Ortega ran design, his brother Antonio headed the commercial side, and his sister Josefa was the bookkeeper. The company trucked in textiles from Barcelona, cutting out the middlemen.
With enough cash, Ortega opened his first storefront in 1975, two blocks from his teenage job at Gala. He named it Zara, because his preferred name, Zorba, was taken. From the outset, Ortega made speed the driving force. Decades later it still is. Zara stores refresh their stock twice a week and receive orders within 48 hours, tops. Ortega imposed the 48-hour rule in the 1970s, forcing him to open the first Zara stores near La Coruña. Many lined the well-traveled truck route to Barcelona's textile factories. Even as the company grew, Ortega stuck to his two rules.
It took Ortega 10 years to found the holding company, Inditex, and open his first international store in Portugal -- whose labor force, cheaper than Spain's, made it the next obvious place to produce; New York and Paris followed in the late 1980s. While Zara proliferated across Europe through the 1990s, much of the production was kept close to home. "Our roots have always been in manufacturing," says Jesús Echevarria Hernández, Inditex's spokesman, sitting in the company's sprawling headquarters in Arteixo, outside La Coruña, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking farmland. "When we come here, we always refer to it as 'going to the factory.'"
The factory is part sci-fi machine, part old-fashioned retail -- a well-oiled operation organized around Ortega's twin principles. It is restocking continually at top speed. Inside, its high-gloss, white, minimalist interiors resemble a humongous Zara store. Along two arteries down the main floor, hundreds of designers and sales analysts work at long white counters in a vast open space, grouped around regions of Zara's empire. The pace is frantic: Designers create about three items a day, and patternmakers cut one sample from each. Seated alongside them are commercial-sales specialists, each with regional expertise, who dissect tastes and customer habits using sales reports from Zara store managers to see what's selling and (more telling) what customers are looking for. Staffers say inspiration comes from the streets, clubs, bars, and restaurants. Each is trained to keep an eye on what people are wearing, just as Ortega has done for decades.
The billionare now: As the semiretired founder of Zara, Ortega lives out of a seaside multibuilding residence; he and his daughter enjoy horseracing; a Zara store in his hometown.
The billionare now: As the semiretired founder of Zara, Ortega lives out of a seaside multibuilding residence; 
he and his daughter enjoy horseracing; a Zara store in his hometown.
At one end of the Zara design floor is a small team that manages Zara.com. There, flat-screen monitors linked by webcam to offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, and New York act as trendspotters, since countries and cities are not monolithic: Tokyo's Ginza district, for example, resembles SoHo in Manhattan more than Tokyo's business district. The obsession for spotting new tastes is pure Ortega. "We never go to fashion shows," says Loreta García, who joined Inditex 23 years ago, straight out of design school, and now heads Zara Woman's trends department. "We track bloggers and listen to customers, but we change our opinions all the time," she says. "What seems great today, in two weeks is the worst idea ever."
What keeps this machine ticking is the logistics department -- "the essence of the company," says Echevarria, who credits the system for such turnaround speeds in places as far-flung as Baku and Melbourne. At 400,000 square feet, the logistics building is more than three times the size of headquarters across the street, and is organized around a Rube Goldberg-style labyrinth of conveyer belts extending five stories high. It delivers customized orders to every Zara store on the planet. There is a firm 24-hour turnaround deadline for Europe, the Middle East, and much of the U.S., and 48 hours for Asia and Latin America.
The unusual arrangement is pure Ortega. Though he officially handed the reins to Pablo Isla in July 2011, Ortega remains the company's muse, inspiration, and biggest shareholder. Astonishingly, Ortega has never had an office. Even now, the world's third-richest man sits at a desk at the end of Zara Woman's open workspace. Ortega prefers touching fabrics to reading memos. "It's as though there are no computers," García says. "The directors are like that too now," she says. "We all started here young and have grown up with Ortega." Newer staff members say they are astonished at how often Ortega discusses colors and trends with them. "You can ask Ortega, 'What do you think of this?' It's very flexible," says García. "You don't have to fix an appointment." Asked what Ortega's legacy will be at Inditex, Isla, the CEO, answered similarly: "The entrepreneurial spirit, the self-criticism, the culture: The company is completely flat."
Ortega's insistence on staying close to home and his ability to connect with even low-level employees raise an intriguing question: Would his executive style have been more hierarchical and conventional -- and perhaps less successful -- had he emerged from a privileged family and with an MBA, rather than from dire poverty with little education? "Poverty clearly made him who he is," says Blanco, who wrote his unauthorized biography. "There was a hunger. Show me any great boxer who didn't come from this kind of background."
The floor of Zara's logistics building, where clothing arrives from Brazil, China, and India, only to be shipped back out in under 24 hours
The floor of Zara's logistics building, where clothing arrives from Brazil, China, and India, only to be shipped back out in under 24 hours


In semiretirement, Ortega now lives in a five-story sea-facing house in La Coruña, on a busy city street, with little evident security. He eats breakfast every morning (eggs and fries, say friends) with acquaintances at La Coruña's businessmen's club, and retreats on weekends to his country house, where he raises chickens and goats and gathers his grown children. A creature of habit, Ortega devotes weeks a year to hiking pilgrimage routes in Galicia, and his lifelong aversion to flying keeps him from traveling much. Antonio Grandío Dopico, economics professor at the University of La Coruña, who has known Ortega since Inditex began, says his old friend's life philosophy is "absolute normality."
Yet these are not normal times in Spain. Youths in their twenties -- Zara's key market -- suffer unemployment rates of about 50%, double the national average. The country's economic pain is clear walking through La Coruña. The commercial artery has dozens of boarded-up storefronts. The one bright spot is a renovated building on a prized corner near the port, lit up and humming with action: the city's premier Zara store.
How long can Zara maintain its relentless expansion? With Europe's slowdown, the company expanded in the U.S. and Asia, with a splashy opening on Fifth Avenue last year, and in September launched Zara.com in China. As Zara expands farther from La Coruña, Ortega's rules might collide with the reality of shipping hundreds of thousands of garments a year back to Galicia for distribution.
Zara may change, but the man who built this retail giant will always be, deep down, a small-town hero. Once, when traveling to a store opening in Manhattan, Ortega watched as shoppers poured through the doors. He was so overcome he shut himself in a bathroom and wept. "No one could see the tears streaming down my face," he told O'Shea. "Can you imagine how I thought of my parents then? How proud they would have been of their son who had, so to speak, discovered America, starting from a little town lost in the sticks of northern Spain!"
This story is from the January 14, 2013 issue of Fortune.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Lean in Education

To kick off 2013 I'd like to present some information I compiled last year in regards to lean in education.  People who know me understand that education and leadership are two key interest areas for me.  I hope you enjoy the information below, and as always I'm happy to discuss any of the items listed in more detail with you over a coffee.

Doing More with Less – Going Lean in Education



LEAN PROCESS IMPROVEMENT IS APPLICABLE TO EDUCATION

“Education” is the term used to collectively describe the SYSTEM OF PROCESSES involved in providing and supporting the development of knowledge, skill, and reasoning in a student or student community. In fact, every job in education from student through superintendent is defined by the processes of that individual’s responsibilities. Processes make up the education service.


EXAMPLES OF REPRESENTATIVE SCHOOL PROCESSES

Accounting/Business Management/Payroll
Budgeting
Certification
Communications
Community Education
Conferences
Custodial/Maintenance
Due Process
Emergency Procedures
Field Trips/Activities/Camps
Food Service
Fundraisers
Grade Level/Team/Classroom
Learning
Mentor
Negotiations
Office
Parent/Community Involvement
Personnel/Human Resources
Referrals/Child Study
Report Cards/Student Data Management
Reporting
Special Education
Student Registration
Teaching and Instruction
Technology
Testing
Transportation

Education is a system full of processes. That means that every school and school district abounds
with process improvement opportunities, opportunities not only to improve service and performance,
but to reduce the associated costs of waste. And, yes, waste is incredibly costly.

Process waste directly causes:

Inefficiency in education spending , diminished performance, process delays, number of meetings,
re-scheduled meetings , variation in the quality of the process outcome, increased costs, greater %
of budget needed just to maintain status quo, unnecessary consumption of resources,  communication
redundancies and inefficiencies

Process Improvement offers schools the opportunity to realise their full potential, to maximise
Education, service delivery and support.


Improve student achievement and without spending more money.  Successful educators in today’s world are those who meet its challenge.

Lean will teach kids self-discipline (5S), problem-solving, waste reduction and rules of leadership

A LEAN SCHOOL


Any system based on Lean is ultimately a creative operation. It is a system that creates value for
its customers, both internal and external, and for society as a whole.


A Lean school system respects, involves, and serves all of its people, its community, and the environment. A CORE TENET OF LEAN IS IMPROVING PEOPLE FIRST – it values growth and satisfaction.

Every person – not just students - learns and improves every day in an environment of trust and
stability, thus promoting high performance. A Lean School is a place that everyone wants to be
part of and support – students, staff, parents, and community members alike.

A Lean School System pursues a common vision and clear goals that everyone both owns and
understands. It anticipates, identifies and solves problems throughout the workplace. It
effectively and efficiently produces and delivers quality education goods and services to meet
customer demand.

 A Lean school system is stable yet flexible. It is responsive. If facilitates open and multidirectional communication. It engenders positive image, cooperation, teamwork, and success. A
Lean school demonstrates a CAN-DO attitude and a track record of improvement. It promotes
not only the use of best practices, but their discovery and development

Challenges:

Expand Services
Improve Student Performance
Meet Workplace Requirements
Streamline Processes


LEAN MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOLS

Lean Management is not a new concept, but it is new for the education industry. There is no question that differences exist between the products of a manufacturing assembly line and those of an education service. But a huge similarity exists in the delivery systems of these organisations, delivery systems made up of thousands of complex processes. As such, many 
aspects of Toyota’s process improvement methodologies and other Lean tools can and do apply to improving the processes of delivering education.

Forward thinking educators recognise both the application and the implications Lean has for improving their school operations and program outcomes. The consistency with which Lean has delivered such improvements in every industry that has applied them demonstrates the universality of its principles. Lean Process Improvement, even in its limited introduction within 
Education, has resulted in increased performance with cost savings. 

Lean school cultures promote a positive CAN-DO attitude, greater involvement and vested ownership in improving processes that support student learning. 

School leaders determined to meet today’s challenge of doing more with less should give Lean Process Improvement close consideration. It is an effective way for schools to develop and deliver world-class education 
with currently available funding.  

Lean experts can be found with impressive credentials and years of experience guiding process improvement efforts in manufacturing and service businesses. However, unlike products or services that are produced or delivered in assembly line fashion, students are not designed to be replicas of each other. Nor do they flow through a production or service line one at a time.  

Only experienced educators can fully comprehend the numerous variables that affect an individual student’s learning and how those variables affect the end product – an educated human being ready for work, higher education, and competition in a global economy.  

CASE STUDY 1

Facility: Small private school 
Project: Instructional time loss analysis and recovery plan development 

Project Summary:
This was a nine-month time-management improvement project to determine the current state and causes of instructional time invasion based on staff observations of annually diminishing ability to meet curriculum goals. The project included staff interviews and data collection to gather the required information, categorisation and prioritisation of the sources of interruption, and development of both a strategic plan and a tactical plan for managing future invasions of instructional time. 

Results: 
The project resulted in the recovery of an average of 120 hours of instructional time per teacher, higher levels of staff cooperation in planning and scheduling at both the team and school level, 
and more comprehensive exposure and learning at the student level.

CASE STUDY 2

Facility: Large inner city public school 
Project:
Determination of how to improve student academic achievement, specifically test scores on short-cycle diagnostic tests that enable staff to revise and improve teaching methods and better prepare students for state achievement tests 
Project Summary:
The project included the definition of the entire assessment process, cross functional focus team discussions and collaboration to understand and streamline the entire process, and empirical measurements of the student performance outcomes. 
Results: 
The project resulted in a common understanding of the limits of the re-mediation window, a reduction in the results turn-around time, and enabling of teachers to re-teach identified student 
areas of weakness. This culminated in the improvement of student performance on achievement tests.


Sources from which the above information was compiled: