Value Methodology Team– Eight roles for sustainability

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ABSTRACT

In the present market situation, the product life in the market is shrinking like anything. In the mean time the customer requirements for any product are increasing steadily. The rapid growth of information technology, media, publications and internet educates the user about the market and technology trends. All these market dynamics made one thing “Product companies those meet the expectations become winners and others wind-up their operations”.

Take for example the mobile phones; the life of a new cell phone in the market is now less than two months which is more than two years back. Also see the number of features and facilities available in a cell phone. It started with a basic product to connect people for voice conversations.

But now there are more than 24 different products integrated in to it. To name a few, Email, Internet, Camera, Video Recorder, Video Conferencing, Office software for document processing, FM Radio, Music Player, Huge data storage (Photo Album, Music, Video, Documents), Gaming, Alarm, Reminder, GPS, TV, E-book, Weather Advisor. Now several medical diagnostic devices like glucose meter, blood pressure monitor are getting integrated.

In this dynamic situation to ensure that the users will get a reliable product and in case of any product discrepancies, the user is adequately taken care by the product companies and create a healthy completion across product companies, governments across the globe created several safety, Health, Environment, energy, reliability, warranty and domain specific regulatory bodies to approve and monitor the products.

To name few regulations UL, CE, ENERGY STAR, ISO: 13485 and FDA Regulation for Medical Devices, AS9100 for Aerospace, OSHA and ISO 14000 for environment, European union warranty directive, TREAD, emission and Fuel Economy norms like CAFE for Automotive and others.

These regulatory bodies mandate the product manufacturers to prove the product effectiveness upfront through the detailed verification and validation process as well as maintain the same throughout the product life cycle. Also, they warrant the product companies to voluntarily inform and compensate the users in case of any discrepancies in their product.

These certifications need huge product development budget, resources and the availability of test facilities are posing a major challenge to product development companies. In this juncture, any value engineering project in these domains if it changes any material, geometry or manufacturing process mandates the revalidation of verification and validation process. Also the product companies needs to spare their core product development resources to do the verification and validation of the changes which in turn hampers their new product developments in pipeline.

Because of these reasons product companies in these domains finds it difficult to take up and implement value engineering projects. Finally, the product companies in these domains end up doing over head reduction and low-cost country sourcing as value engineering projects.

To overcome this challenge, we need to execute VM Projects effectively and prove the benefits to the management. The success lies here in the behavior of the team members. During the cross functional VM team formation, we need to ensure the members with right behavioral aspects along with participants from Design/ R&D, manufacturing, assembly, marketing, finance, materials and other departments. This helps organizations to select the right product for VE projects as well as execute VE projects quickly and gain maximum benefits for their customers. The author defines the following eight roles for a sustainable VM team.

1. Guru
2. RTI Activist
3. Ideal Parent
4. Cartoonist
5. Charted Accountant
6. Super-Actor
7. Farmer
8. Invigilator

In small scale industries and companies having dedicated VM teams instead of cross functional teams the VM team members need to change their ATTITUTE and BEHAVIOR as defined above when they progress in the VM projects so that they can get maximum benefits for their customers.

Introduction

Post Globalization, the competition and economic situation has completely changed and it brought in the rigorous need on “Value Enhancement” in almost all the industry and service sectors. This makes the companies in search of reliable and consistent methodologies to enhance the value of their products and services. The trend we see in the industry is that whenever there is a recession in sight, companies’ line-up value improvement programs.

But they did not continue those efforts. One of the main reasons for the discontinuation of these projects or initiatives is that the outcomes of the value improvement programs fail to meet the top management expectations reliably and consistently. The reasons for the same is that the projects are executed just by adhering to the VM process but the rigor of clearly applying the right thought at every step VM is missing. Behavior of team members is the root cause for this value gap and it needs attention and extreme consideration during the team formation and entire life cycle of VM.

Each phase of VM need a specific behavior focus to make that phase effective and ensure reliable results. The mapping of VM phases and the desired roles is listed below.

1. GURU – Orientation Phase

The purpose of orientation phase is to expose the VM learner to methodology, create a strong and stable VM foundation and the thirst for continuous learning and application. Most of the times our VM training and workshops focuses only on the exposure part and remaining functions are left to the individuals. Because of this many associates don’t understand VM and the erosion of their VM career starts from there. To eliminate this epidemic, VM trainers should link the VM with our day-to-day activities and make them understand better. That’s what a typical Guru used to do.

Also, the trainer should ignite right attitude and the passion for the following eight qualities in him to be a successful VM Follower.

2. RTI Activist – Information Phase

The functions of the information phase are: Collate information, Analyze Information, Share Findings and Help to improve the Value. All these functions can be effectively carried out if only that person has the behavior of a typical Right-to-Information (RTI) activist. Collecting the information in organizations where dedicated VE departments are established but they need to identify and get project from other departments.

There will be lot struggle to get the data for potential projects. The data should be transparent and accountable to gain benefits through VM Projects. VM team should gather data in transparent and accountable sources through formal means to eliminate any hurdles in the downstream. Many times we can get the data if we approach with positive attitude and make them understand purpose of data collection. The purpose is to identify opportunities for improvement and not for fault finding and cornering the concerned resources.

VM journey is going to be based on the information collated during this phase. Hence authenticity, correctness, transparency, willingness, team work and cooperation are the key behaviors to be established in this phase which we can see in a typical RTI activist.

3. Ideal Parent – Function Phase

Every VM practitioner says that Function Phase is the most difficult and stressful phase in VM. Many find it difficult to follow the function analysis guidelines and carryout the value gap identification as they wish. The reason is that they have not clearly understood the art of function. It is not like science and technology; you give the input and get the output and you can establish the relationship between the two.

But function identification is the art of linking the purpose to five senses of the end-user and expressing the same in two words (verb and noun). All along we are trained and forced to see the things in terms of physical features and their attributes like material, color, shape, weight and others. Suddenly we are asked to see them in terms of functions which create the friction.

To do an effective function analysis, the member should have motherly attitude in him/her. If he/she has that with in no time he/she will find out all the functions like the mother sensing the need and health of the infant by its breath and cry.

Also, mother loves and cares the unhealthy child more compared to a normal one. The same applies to products and product designers. To do a good function analysis we should inculcate the motherly attitude within us. We need to love the product, concerned about its problems and its future like a mother. Once we develop the motherly behavior, we automatically sense all the functions and value gaps very easily.

To effectively construct the fast diagram, we should bring the Fatherly Behavior in us like how fathers decide the priorities for their children’s future. Mother will be more kind and try to flexible as per the child’s expectations. But a typical father knows the strengths of the child, the current trends and the supporting needed and the capacity of the family to support him. The same logic applies for constructing the FAST diagram.

The location of functions in critical path or other location plays a major role in creating the alternate ideas for improvement or modification. In the end to conduct an effective function analysis the team should behave like an Ideal Parent and transition from Motherly Behavior to Fatherhood during the journey to gain maximum benefit out of VM studies.

4. Cartoonist – Creative Phase

Our creative ideas should be like cartoons. Very good cartons will be made using some curves and few words connected together to express something with huge impact on the reader. They express the message by linking the situation and strongly expressing the gap identified in the most simplistic way. In the same way our concepts also simple and worth to meet the identified value gaps and link the functions always. A sample cartoon is listed below to stress this point.

5. Charted Accountant – Evaluation Phase

Our concept evaluations should be like our tax computations. Many times, we will go with the team consensus without getting into details to save time and effort and finally end up with poor concepts getting selected. To avoid this, we should prepare all the required supporting data related to the concepts like our tax exemption evidences and that data need to be verified like the accountant verifies the tax documents.

Our concept evaluation is like our tax calculations which should be accurate and genuine. If the calculation is wrong, either the tax payer loses money or has to pay penalty and additional tax. Both ways it is painful to tax payer. The same scenario with VM team also. If the poor concept is selected or a good concept is rejected, team will not meet the VM objective and the team recognition and future VM projects will be at stake. Hence the team should do the concept evaluation like annual tax computations with facts and figures to reap maximum benefits out of the selected concepts.

6. Super Actor – Recommendation Phase

Recommendation phase is the crucial stage in VM studies where the implementation purely relies on it. The actual outcome of the study needs to be presented in the right perspective to create the impact in management to gain the approval for implementation. But in reality, the recommendations are not given due importance and the blame is put on the management.

To get the real understanding we should think of the cinema super actors how they created their unique identity. If you see them in terms of functions, they acted their roles according to the story line to win the hearts of the audience. If they over acted or under acted in some of the films, they would have not performed well in the box office and they learned from that. Learning from this the VM team should behave like the matured super actor during the recommendation phase.

7. Farmer – Implementation Phase

Many VM studies did not get implemented because of several roadblocks. We never think about implementing the suggestions taking into account all the roadblocks. The main reason for the same is the will power and self confidence of the team. The VM teams should think about a normal Indian former when it comes to implementation that always relies on nature and battles with it every second but never gives up his commitment to cultivation and harvest. Whether the monsoon fails or over floods he goes with his sole strength produces for the betterment of him and others. VM teams should take Indian former as role model for implementation and implement the suggestions with courage.

8. Invigilator – Audit Phase

Audit phase is the point where the reality of the VM Project is ascertained. In this phase the team should act like a typical Exam Invigilator how corrects the exam answer papers as per the evaluation guidelines. The objective of the audit phase to find out how effectively the suggestions are implemented and how much benefits are realized with respect to the recommendations.

The findings of the audit help to know the ground realities and document the best practices and lessons learnt to enhance the effectiveness of VM studies. VM team should not think that Audit is to find out the faults in the implementation. It should be taken as opportunity identification for improvement in the positive side.

Conclusion

As Earl Nightingale states “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal”, VM team should develop and sustain the above mentioned eight behavioral roles to maximize the benefits of the VM study. Whenever a VM team is formed, the team leader or program manager should see the behavior of individuals and ensure that the associates with all these behaviors are part of each VM team.

In case of small VM teams team leaders should drive the behavior of the team as the team progresses in the VM. Right direction, guidance and change of behavioral roles as we progress in the VM application in project is must to sustain the VM efforts in any organization.

References

1. http://www.richardstjohn.com/content/talk/sampletalksbook.php
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_Information_Act,_2005
3. http://epaper.timesofindia.com