Building a Chain of Customers

Richard Schonberger, in his fourth and most important book yet, introduces a powerful new concept: that the many links between and within the four main business functions -- design, operations, accounting, and marketing -- form a continuous "chain of customers" that extends to those who buy the product or service. Everyone has a customer -- the next department, office, shop, or person -- at the hundreds of pioneering companies Schonberger has studied throughout the world. Schonberger demonstrates the universality of customer wants: Both the next and final customers want ever better quality, quicker response, greater flexibility, and lower cost. This condition provides a common strategy and calls for common methods to be used across the organization. Every employee is a data gatherer and analyst, unearthing more and better ways to provide for these customers' wants -- before the competition does so. As the new thinking and methods permeate every comer of the firm, they topple departmental walls and adjust gang-like mind-sets and "them-versus-us" attitudes. Performance is no longer measured by internal costs but by improvement as seen by the next customer; direct control of causes generally replaces after-the-fact control of costs. Design is brought out of isolation. Finally, with the rest of the firm reoriented toward customer service, marketing escapes from a "negative" mode -- covering up for failures -- to a positive one -- crowing about the firm's competence and ability to improve. With the close attention to detail for which he has become famous, Schonberger constructs a blueprint for unifying corporate functions, brilliantly describing the new microcosms that will make up the company of the 1990s -- focused teams of multi-skilled, involved employees arranged according to the way the work flows or the service is provided -- that compose the chain of customers. Aetna, for example, is organizing customer-focused teams that cut across underwriting and the administrative functions. At Hewlett-Packard, teams of marketing, manufacturing, and R&amp;D people have already gone through several iterations of "activity-based costing", which provides product designers with previously unavailable data for shaving costs throughout product life cycles. And at Du Pont, even production people on the factory floor are involved in assessing competitors' product quality and probable costs and methods. Through these and hundreds of other real company examples, Schonberger shows how the customer-driven chain of action leads directly to the kinds of bottom-line performance that have been so elusive to executives who manage at a distance "by the numbers" -- namely, higher profits, greater security, and gains in market share at the expense

Business & Money

Schonberger, Richard J.

Business Culture

Free Press

Japanese productivity and quality standards have fired the imagination of American managers, but until now there has been little explanation of how to do it -- how to apply Japanese methods at the actual operating level of U.S. manufacturing plants. This book shows you how, exposing otherwise well-informed westernized readers to a new world of management ideas. Author Richard J. Schonberger demonstrates that the Japanese formula for success is based on a number of specific, interrelated techniques -- stunning in their simplicity -- and he shows how these techniques can be put to work in American industries today. Here, in a clear, handbook format, are nine "lessons" for American manufacturers, introducing scores of techniques aimed at simplifying the overly-complex purchasing, inventory, assembly-fine, and quality-control processes of U.S. firms. At the heart of Japanese manufacturing success are two overlapping strategies: "just-in-time" production and "total quality control." Some American manufacturers already know a little about these methods, but Richard Schonberger provides the most comprehensive description of these techniques available: how they developed, how they all fit together, why they are so potent, and how they "snowball" -- unleashing a powerful chain reaction of productivity and quality control improvements each time more simplification is introduced. Japanese Manufacturing Techniques will change the way you think. Much of the received wisdom of American management -- "just-in-case" order quantities, statistical sampling for quality Control, and large inventory buffer stocks, for example -- is dismissed by the Japanese as muri, muda, mura: excess, waste, unevenness. In many cases, the Japanese technique is exactly the opposite of American practice ("just-in-time" ordering, quality control at the source, and elimination of buffer stocks altogether). By emphasizing practical techniques, Schonberger shows how you can implement new methods right away -- without waiting for government policy or market conditions or worker behavior to change. The techniques themselves will improve your productivity and quality, provide strategic advantages in gaining market share, and transform worker behavior. And the author backs his nine lessons with concrete examples of how Japanese techniques are being applied in U.S. plants today. Nearly 20 tables and figures illustrate the "lessons" given here, and a special appendix describes in full the Toyota-developed kanban inventory system, with the first explanation in English of single-card versus dual-card kanban. This remarkable book carries you beyond theories and concepts. It's for practical managers who want results: better quality control and greater productivity. Implement these simple steps, and you can begin improving your division's performance now.

Japanese Manufacturing Techniques: Nine Hidden Lessons in Simplicity

International

This casebook, designed as a companion volume to Richard J. Schonberger's World Class Manufacturing: The Lessons of Simplicity Applied, contains 26 cases that let students of WCM concepts solve actual JIT and TQC implementation problems in a wide variety of manufacturing and corporate settings. For readers with specific concerns, each case lists the topics covered (i.e., kanban, total preventive maintenance, partnership with customer) and each case includes questions on issues that companies commonly face in implementing WCM concepts. Dr. Schonberger also explains two JIT and TQC concepts not previously published -- micro-JIT analysis of shop-floor conditions by ratios and the "naturalistic" approach to quality improvement.

World Class Manufacturing Casebook

Management & Leadership

Industries

Instructor's Manual to Accompany World Class Manufacturing Casebook: Implementing JIT and TQC

Richard Schonberger, in his fourth and most important book yet, introduces a powerful new concept: that the many links between and within the four main business functions -- design, operations, accounting, and marketing -- form a continuous "chain of customers" that extends to those who buy the product or service. Everyone has a customer -- the next department, office, shop, or person -- at the hundreds of pioneering companies Schonberger has studied throughout the world.Schonberger demonstrates the universality of customer wants: Both the next and final customers want ever better quality, quicker response, greater flexibility, and lower cost. This condition provides a common strategy and calls for common methods to be used across the organization. Every employee is a data gatherer and analyst, unearthing more and better ways to provide for these customers' wants -- before the competition does so.As the new thinking and methods permeate every comer of the firm, they topple departmental walls and adjust gang-like mind-sets and "them-versus-us" attitudes. Performance is no longer measured by internal costs but by improvement as seen by the next customer; direct control of causes generally replaces after-the-fact control of costs. Design is brought out of isolation. Finally, with the rest of the firm reoriented toward customer service, marketing escapes from a "negative" mode -- covering up for failures -- to a positive one -- crowing about the firm's competence and ability to improve.With the close attention to detail for which he has become famous, Schonberger constructs a blueprint for unifying corporate functions, brilliantly describing the new microcosms that will make up the company of the 1990s -- focused teams of multi-skilled, involved employees arranged according to the way the work flows or the service is provided -- that compose the chain of customers. Aetna, for example, is organizing customer-focused teams that cut across underwriting and the administrative functions. At Hewlett-Packard, teams of marketing, manufacturing, and R&D people have already gone through several iterations of "activity-based costing", which provides product designers with previously unavailable data for shaving costs throughout product life cycles. And at Du Pont, even production people on the factory floor are involved in assessing competitors' product quality and probable costs and methods. Through these and hundreds of other real company examples, Schonberger shows how the customer-driven chain of action leads directly to the kinds of bottom-line performance that have been so elusive to executives who manage at a distance "by the numbers" -- namely, higher profits, greater security, and gains in market share at the expense of the laggard competion.

Building a Chain of Customers, Linking Business Functions to Create the World Class Company

Processes & Infrastructure

New York: The Free Press, 1990

Operations Management: Productivity and Quality

Business Pubns

Operations Management: Serving the Customer

Operations Management: Serving the Customer

This text is aimed at the introductory and MBA Production Operations Management market. This text provides a survey of the latest techniques and methods for managing operations in services and manufacturing. It presents all concepts with a real-world perspective based on the extensive global consulting work of the lead author, Dick Schonberger. The authors use 15 principles as a framework for organizing the text. This edition stresses teamwork, quality, and customer service in both manufacturing and services. The traditional topics such as product and service design, purchasing, inventory, location and layout, scheduling, etc., are included. There is not a great emphasis on the quantitative areas. This book is considered to be on the leading edge and offers an alternative to our other POM books.

Operations Management: Improving Customer Service

Knod, Edward M.

Irwin Professional_Pub

Operations Management: Improving Customer Service/Instructor's Ed

Richard D.Irwin

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Books by Schonberger, Richard J.