What is Sustainability?

Is your business sustainable?

Last month, I wrote about company culture (article is here). Potential customers and employees are interested in both company culture and sustainable practices to determine organization character.

In the early 1900s, the California sardine industry was booming. Cannery Row factories lined up along Monterey Bay, fish were brought in without limits, processed and canned, and waste dumped into the bay. You can see the problem here. Unrestricted fishing and pollution led to environmental and economic disaster. The waters that supported the sardines were too polluted and damaged to continue. That situation is the opposite of sustainability. Sustainability includes restraint on harvests to manage resources and reduction and/or repurposing of waste materials.

Sustainable practices are those that allow continued use of resources. Sustainability applies to many situations outside of the industrial context. Individuals can pursue sustainable goals as well as institutions.

Sustainability includes familiar concepts that we may practice daily. Reducing landfill waste is a sustainable practice because landfill space is limited. That practice involves other sustainable concepts like recycling, repurposing, and composting. Below is an informal list of sustainable concepts:

• energy savings
•  recycling
•  repurposing
•  conserve resources 
•  water conservation
•  solar energy
•  rainwater collection
•  decrease carbon footprint
•  purchase carbon offsets
•  growing your own food
•  reduce landfill waste
•  composting
•  support businesses and individuals with sustainable agendas
•  use green construction

3 Pillars of Sustainability

Sustainability can be described as 3 pillars: environment, economy, and social.

Environment:

• climate protection
• resources protection
• biodiversity
• organic farming
• decrease use of natural resources

Economy:

• using local produce in season to avoid resource use and pollution involved with distance transportation 

Social:

• equality between men and women 
• education and training opportunities
• fighting poverty
• prosperity for humanity

As professionals in the Quality industry, our roles are important in sustainability. We maintain and improve quality standards to sustain a customer base. By applying Lean Thinking, we reduce waste to sustain company resources. As company employees and individuals we can use our influence to improve sustainability in all aspects of our lives.

Below is a 4-minute Explainity video on the 3 Pillar Model of sustainability.

This month's guest post on A View from the Q is Does Mission Matter? by ASQ Fellow and incoming ASQ board chair, Pat LaLonde.

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Credits: Graphics produced by the author using Adobe Illustrator
             © 2015 All Rights Reserved

How Company Culture Relates to Quality

Today's media highlights shifts in company culture to attract and keep talented workers. Flexible schedules, liberal parental leave, fun activities, free food, community involvement, and environmentally friendly corporate agendas promote a company culture favored by employees. What is company culture and how does it relate to quality?

Culture of an Organization

Company culture is the "character" of a company. Company culture includes:

• methods of getting things done
• philosophy of work habits and work behavior
• goals to make the company successful
• values and their importance while conducting business
• working conditions

Some aspects of company culture are intangible. Attitudes, morals, and assumptions held by employees are difficult to determine and quantify, but important in shaping company culture.

Company culture is projected from top management down. Successful company culture is driven by management practices that carry this culture throughout all rungs of the organization. To keep the culture positive and relevant, however, employees should be involved in discussions about changes to and maintaining company culture.

Company Culture Affects People and People Drive Quality

A Culture Supporting Quality

Quality of the product or service and effectiveness of quality systems is improved in:

•  a culture where employees understand quality and it's effect on company success
•  a culture where employees can freely make suggestions and report problems
•  a culture where employees are happy and this happiness is passed on to customer contacts
•  a culture enhancing creativity which can help quality problem-solving
•  a culture cultivating teamwork as a powerful tool in quality improvement

The "happiness" aspect of culture is especially powerful in businesses that have direct customer contact. Zappos, an online shoe and clothing business, relates employee happiness to customer satisfaction. In the video below, employees discuss their company culture.

The Culture of Quality has been a popular topic at ASQ over the years. Jennifer Calloway, a quality culture expert, is interviewed in the ASQ TV video below. More ASQ videos on the subject can be found here. (The 46 minute webinar referred to in the video can be found here. )

Company culture is fluid and subject to shift. Management must be vigilant to nurture and protect a positive culture and thereby drive good quality.

ASQ Influential Voice blogger James Lawther has written What Not to Do in Creating a Performance Culture. This article can be found here.


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Credits: Photos courtesy of iStockphoto, Infographic produced by the author using Adobe Illustrator © 2015 All Rights Reserved

7 Practical Ways I Use Internet Technology at Home

My Sidekick at the Home Computer

In the past year, I've advised my college-bound twins on administrative tasks related to university and scholarship applications. It will come as no surprise that most forms related to beginning a college education are submitted on websites. No paperwork! Several times I have exclaimed, "How did I ever graduate and obtain my first post-college position using only mail and phone?" Technology is wondrous since I remember how things were done before the internet revolution.

In Manu Vora's article, he discusses the use of Google Hangouts on Air to conduct meetings and conferences with a wider online audience. Below I'll elaborate a bit on my use of technology to share information and to further my professional development.

Sharing Information

Blogging

Sharing an enjoyment of gardening and nature is easy on a blog. My blogging career started with writing about garden and nature topics. (Link to Garden Lady Blog) After my ASQ certification, I started this blog to share certification test tips. Quality: Improvements in Work and Life has expanded to include book reviews, research techniques, social media tips, and, of course, ASQ Influential Voices topics. Writing a blog is easy with free template-style programs like Blogger and WordPress. I use the Adobe Creative Suite to edit and optimize images for my blogs using Photoshop. Adobe Illustrator allows me to produce and optimize graphics to enhance blog articles.

Social Media

Advances in internet technology make sharing information on social media easy. Using a computer, tablet, or phone I can upload photos and short messages on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Facebook. I announce meeting and course information on social media for my local ASQ chapter (ASQ Raleigh). Readers of these posts can forward them to their readers by retweeting, liking, or pinning. This generates publicity for the events.

Google Drive

By setting up a folder in Google Drive, my sons and I organized scholarship information. Any of us could create a document for a scholarship. Individually we added comments as more was learned about the programs. This saved a lot of duplication of work as we filtered through qualifications of around 30 different programs. We also tracked application progress and deadline dates. This same collaboration can be used by any project team.

Handheld GPS

Geocaching

Years ago my family joined a hobby that uses a global positioning system (GPS) to find hidden containers. Geocaching uses satellite technology to hide and locate hidden containers. To input location information into the GPS, I use a GSAK spreadsheet database and a point of interest downloader. This gives me longitude and latitude locations for hundreds of geocaches as well as hints and descriptions. Once a cache is found, an online log is completed. These logs as well as geocaching forums bring together a worldwide community of "cachers." The technology has advanced beyond my Garmin handheld GPS to mobile phone apps. As a member of Geocaching.com, I have a member webpage that tracks my total finds. My family is up to 1944 finds and 96 hides. Although I'm short on time to geocache these days, I still maintain caches for others to find and hope to return to the sport that encourages exploring outdoors.

Professional Development

Internet technology has made professional development more accessible. I'll describe a few programs using new technology that I've used.

ASQ Website

ASQ videos and some eBooks are offered free with membership. I find the ASQ Standards Channel series on ISO 9001:2015 invaluable. ASQ TV is great to watch also, and an episode on Cost of Quality can be seen here.

Wake Tech Campus in North Raleigh, NC

College Education

Not only has the college application process gone online, but college courses themselves are online.  I completed a web technology certificate that was completely on the internet. Textbooks, assignments, and credits were the same as seated classes, but I had the flexibility of not traveling to campus. Blackboard and Moodle are two platforms used in online education.

Continuing Education

Ed2Go offers 6-week online courses in a variety of topics. The courses are inexpensive ($70 US) and have a flexible timeline of assignments and tests. There is no college credit, but I completed classes in Photography, JavaScript, Six Sigma, and Web Content that were very useful.


Using technology to share information and further professional development allows growth as never before. Furthermore, each application links me to a community of people interested in the same goals and sharing of information. I would love to take a peak at the future (10 years from now) and see how the newest technology is applied in everyday life. It will be amazing!


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Ways I use Lean Thinking at Home

5S and Work Areas

5S, an aspect of Lean Thinking, is a system to arrange work areas as efficiently as possible. If every task whether a chore or hobby requires a search for necessary tools to get started, the likelihood of completing the task decreases. So throughout my home I organize work and hobby areas to make tasks easy to start and complete.

To maximize efficiency with gardening chores, I have a workstation with bug spray, sunscreen, and garden tools at 3 different locations. One is in a small greenhouse at the vegetable garden, one is in the garage, and the other is on the backyard deck. Wherever I am in my yard, a workstation stocked with tools is nearby. This saves time because I can begin gardening tasks without searching for tools. Looking 30 minutes for a favorite pair of gardening gloves is a reminder to keep my work areas organized.

Greenhouse Work Area

Indoors, each bathroom cabinet has cleaning supplies. This saves time and energy when I'm ready to clean. Otherwise wasted time and wasted movement is spent gathering cleaning supplies.

My office is arranged so things can be reached with little disruption to ongoing work. Files, notebooks, notepads, pens, and calendar are all in easy reach. Similarly, I have organized areas for photography, scrapbooking, and other hobbies.

Every 4 - 6 weeks, I reorganize work areas using the 5S system.  5S represents sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain. So I replace supplies that are worn out or empty, dispose of items that I don't use, and tidy up the areas. I also make sure the more frequently used tools are convenient to reach and easy to find.

Backyard Work Area

Waste of Motion

Lean Thinking is all about reducing waste, and Shigeo Shingo classified 7 wastes. Waste of Motion is one I try to avoid at home. Many activities in the home can be standardized to reduce waste of motion. I collect a batch of bills and then pay them. Paying each bill as it arrives in the mail would involve opening the envelope, sorting the paperwork, logging into a website to make a payment or writing a check, recording the check or debit in the checkbook, and filing paperwork.  Processing a batch of bills at one time saves duplication of motion. Along the same lines, I let several cups and bowls accumulate on the counter before I open the dishwasher and load these items. Errands can be organized in a route rather than individual spontaneous trips. This saves gasoline and time, as well as reducing waste of motion.

Lean Thinking is using common sense to perform tasks in the most efficient manner. Before it was called "Lean Thinking" people were practicing it to get things done efficiently. Later, it was further defined to apply to workplaces. So go full circle with Lean: do it at work and do it at home, and you will be more productive for it!

In 2014, I wrote about the basics of Lean Thinking. You can access that post by clicking here.

Sunil Kaushik has written about using Lean Principles to minimize travel expenses to Egypt. Mr. Kaushik, an ASQ Influential Blogger, definitely has expertise in traveling cheap. The article can be found by clicking here.

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Managing the Quality of Internet-linked Products

This month's American Society of Quality Influential Voices topic is a review of an essay in the 2015 Future of Quality report. If you are an ASQ member, you have access to this compilation on 11 topics.

Internet of Things

I chose Jonathan Zittrain's Balancing Security With Openness in the Internet of Things. Mr. Zittrain is the author of The Future of the Internet - And How to Stop It (for purchasing info see link below).

The term "Internet of Things" refers to all the devices that can connect to the internet and create systems to share data.

Below is a 2-minute video by Intel that explains the Internet of Things (IoT). Another video by FW:thinking can be found here.

 

 Internet of Things Video

Traffic cameras, electronic signs, and bus communication create an Internet of Things that can steer traffic away from congested areas. In Zittrain's essay, an Internet-aware snow shovel could provide data on frequency of use (Have the kids performed this chore?), health data on the shoveler (Is his heart rate dangerously high?), or assumptions on snow levels based on usage (Where do the snow plows need to go?).

Managing Quality

What are the quality issues of the Internet of Things? To answer that question Zittrain reviews the evolution of both the PC and the Internet. In the beginning anyone could write and share software to be used on PCs. Similarly, code for use on the Internet was unregulated.

The second version of the iPhone introduced an effort to gain more control over outside code (apps) by offering them in a store with required certification. Currently there are app stores for PCs and phones across all operating systems.

To meet quality manufacturing requirements, the product needs to be robust. It needs to be safely manufactured of nontoxic materials, as well. As devices become connected to one another, quality issues will expand.


Will connectivity to other devices be limited to reduce variability in quality issues or will it be open to increase innovation and demand? What quality issues will open connectivity present? Will viruses run rampant and slow device efficiency or cause frequent crashes? How many and what type of sensors will be incorporated into products for connectivity and data sharing?

Managing quality of the Internet of Things devices requires significant corporate decisions that are integral to their business plan. The proposed ISO9001:2015 standard emphasizes quality as part of the business plan and not a stand-alone entity. This falls right in line with establishing corporate policy on a product that is part of the Internet of Things.

Laurel Nelson-Rowe, ASQ managing director, introduced May topics in her guest blog post: What's the Future of Quality? This article is available without ASQ membership.

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