Why do operational processes fail?
Over the years, we have heard about the importance of process design, process mapping, measurement metrics, failure mode effect analysis, and many other jargons around building, running, and measuring processes efficiently.
But why do they still fail? Even processes working at 6 and 8 Sigma fail.
I wonder why the doors of aircraft fly off mid-air. Why are passengers being served dinner on the tarmac? Why are passengers beating up the pilots for delays? What is going wrong?
We have all heard of the term metal fatigue. Well, a door of an airplane may fly off due to metal fatigue, or it may be operations fatigue in the maintenance process because someone was too bored to check the nuts and bolts.
It brings a very pertinent concept to the fore: do we plan our processes too tight, do we write which nuts and bolts to check and forget to check, and do we check to make sure the door won't fly off? It can be debated both ways and won. Sometimes, we get so engrossed in cost savings, efficiency improvements, TAT reduction, etc. that we forget that processes are a means to an end. Not the end in themselves.
Flexibility in operational design is an underestimated aspect. We are great at managing situations like "Jugaad,” like the dinner on the tarmac. For sure, someone thought outside the box and tried to feed the passengers, but DGCA didn’t like it. It could be dangerous.
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What could be done to maintain flexibility during operations design so they don’t fail and need Jugaad management?
Are FMEA, BCP, and DR enough? Is ISO enough? Or should it be loosely bound together and more authority and responsibility given to the process owners to achieve the end by running the processes within a boundary in which they can freely run the show? Should we be flexible in our cost calculations and allocate an extra budget to the owner to take decisions in such situations and save losses in the long run?
Is ownership an answer to operational fatigue?
It is worth a thought when you see the operational process failure.
?#operations #processdesign #managementstrategy
VP, JPMC
1 年Indeed, operations fatigue from extended hours of operations is a significant threat... It cannot be eliminated, must be managed.
Associate Director – Payment Applications | Support and Services | Operations Management | Escalation Management | Strategic Planning | Driving Automation Process
1 年Very well articulated Harshal... I personally agree with the term operational fatigue. It's very important for any leader to ensure that his/ her team/process is not impacted with this and should take necessary action to remove it..
BPO Auditor of BA Division at Kores (India) Limited | Prompt Engineer | Proficient in PowerBI | Proficient in Google Data Studio | Proficient in Generative AI | Footballer
1 年Nice article sir. Makes great point about finding right balance between strict process rules and being flexible in how things are handled by giving more control to the people in charge of processes so they can adapt when things go wrong. One of the recent examples could be of some distilleries who shifted from producing alcoholic beverages to manufacturing hand sanitizers during pandemic by empowering their concerned teams to make rapid adjustments so that their business stays afloat.
Implementation | Automation | AI | Software
1 年Love it. This would be a topic to debate in many boardrooms.