May 26, 2008 at 11:36 pm
· Filed under Lean Consumption Maps, apple iphone, business, customer service, general, iphone, ishikawa, lean, metrics, operations, six sigma, toyota, variation
In some organizations, the Customer Service function is largely viewed as a cost center, draining resources of the firm. I maintain that this perspective is what less mature companies support. More mature companies and, subsequently the more successful ones, understand the strategic fit of Customer Service in the overall value chain and it’s functional role in the supply chain.
In what follows, I’ll take a hypothetical iPhone defect case and show how customer service in this example plays a pivotal role in the overall iPhone supply chain — a key player in the overall product value chain.
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May 11, 2008 at 7:10 am
· Filed under A3 Report, Gemba, Leadership, Lean Consumption Maps, genchi genbutsu, heijunka, ishikawa, kanban, lean, toyota
I spoke at a Lean Six Sigma conference last week, held in Chicago. The conference was packed with Supply Chain, Logistics, Fulfillment, Manufacturing, Transportation, Healthcare, and Service executives.
During the conference, I heard a lot of chest-beating, neutron-jack-welch type of comments and also a lot of focus and emphasis on the “tools” of Operational Excellence. I truly found this part to be quite disappointing, given that the audience and speakers were mostly executives from large Fortune 500 companies.
I thought and expected that people knew better but that’s okay — this represents a challenge and opportunity to do good.
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