Business visual communications for Good Business Growth..

08 Friday Jan 2016

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good business growth, process flow charting, visual communication

For a long time I have been interested in visual business communications. How can we use graphics to provide simplicity, clarity and efficiency. In the world of work, there is an overload of reports, spreadsheets, emails and routines/procedures etc. Therefore its imperative that we become knowledge masters – not by just feeding our brains with more fact, figures and instructions but by summarising, indexing and prioritising what we receive and what we want to communicate. There are many tools to do this. These are the three I used regularly:

Flow Charts: A great tool to condense a massive amount of information in a concise and clear way. Flow Charts helps map the different steps in a process and then identify any weaknesses. Its a great way for presenting and explaining long and detailed routines/procedures – very useful if used at heavy process driven organisations. If the map is too long and complicated then its not the chart’s fault, its the system you are working with! And if you do produce a complicated flow chart then you have fertile ground for identifying problems, improving processes and reducing waste.

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Mind Maps: The tool for radiating thoughts in a creative process for the presenter and the audience. The word and pictures are the hooks for the brain to think, remember, spread thoughts and ideas. They should always be developed and read in a clockwise manner. A good Mind Map is a treat for our brains which are usually overburdened with mono tone (monotonous ) written sentences. The brain is always craving a colourful image and hooks to make connections in your vast memory of knowledge, experience and creativity.

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Mind Trees: This is my own developed tool based on other similar techniques and ideas. A Mind Tree is a great way for management to develop their plans and concepts and put them into a format that can be explained on one page. Then just as importantly Mind Trees can help operational co-workers understand and implement: for example company business ideas, the factory customer goals, the latest management trends and organisational restructuring etc. Mind Trees have strict rules. There must be one goal, 4 x needs and then 12-16 x drivers . Then finally the described actions required to achieve the goal!

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Business visuals should work to present themes, processes and ideas; grabbing attention, promoting comprehension and motivating people to use their precious brain space, energy and time to achieve real understanding and further creativity in the maintenance and implementation of their work.

Mark K. Astley: Robert Vernon Associates Ltd.

Quality: Control the Process – Secure the business

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by mkastley in RVA Updates

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PRAS, procee, Process control, process flow charting, Quaity, risk analysis

To secure quality in production there needs to be a fully implemented process control scheme for the operators and their machines. Process control can best be described as per baking bread. You need the right ingredients in terms of measure and quality standard, then the correct viscosity of the dough, oven temperature and baking time. To achieve the best tasting bread, the recipe needs to be followed and the baking process needs to be monitored and maintained to within the optimal range. Its the same in any other production process – get it right with any process and like the bread, the end results will comply with requirements every time.

If you are buyer, secure that you have agreed a process control scheme with your supplier that can be verified in every batch being produced.

If you are a production manager bring the buyer into the agreement on a Process Control Scheme to secure quality and your profitability.

As per my previous articles, this is part of a Good Business Growth. A process control scheme need not only be for a factory. The principles as described by baking bread can be applied in any type of business, its all the same – control the input, control the process and the output will be secured.

Below is a flow chart I devised a few years back to describe how a Process Control Scheme can be devised for the buyer and supplier of any process, whether its a product or a service.

In the process, the control scheme can be as simple or detailed as required. Sometimes it requires only one control point to determine that a process is under control and producing the expected results. The important part and probably most difficult is as per the above flow chart – finding the control points and everybody agreeing. The method of reporting and controlling can then be a simple yes/no (poke yoke devices) or a full statistical process control implementation with machine or manual record maintenance.

With a process control quality system; the virtuous circle of quality, availability, price and ethical compliance are assured for Good Business Growth – its all connected.

Example: How to handle a possible child labour incident..

21 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by mkastley in RVA Updates

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factory management child labour incident, handling child labour incident, process flow charting, process flow: child labour at factory, Robert Vernon Associates

shutterstock_198620522 When operating and buying in developing countries, companies must be well prepared for various eventualities. One of the most sensitive and extremely urgent to resolve is discovering Child Labour in a factory. Our own experience in this matter has not been positive; with confusion, delays and extensive disagreements on the evidence discovered and actions to be taken. On two occasions in the past 6 years it became necessary to stop production and hold deliveries until the issue was resolved.

Very often company instructions are available to guide buyers and factory suppliers when a possible incident of child labour is found on the factory floor. However, like most things when these directives are more than two pages, the stakeholders are not familiar enough with the instructions. Valuable hours and days can be lost before all parties become aligned in agreeing and resolving the situation – in some cases this does not even happen if the situation drags on too long!!

The most important point when suspected Child Labour is found is to put the safety and well being of that person at the front of everything. All decisions must be made with this mind-set firmly secured.

RVA have witnessed and has been frustrated at the failure of stakeholders to get to grips with the requirements and the decisions to be made. This has been mainly due to the lack of understanding on how the situation should be handled and processed. To address this, Robert Vernon Associates have produced a one page Process Flow chart to handle a possible Child Labour report. It is based on various existing company instructions and our own experience in capturing all actions and decisions to be made; providing work colleague and suppliers a simple guide to know and understand beforehand what to do, or if an incident does happen then a tool to use and guide everybody in a transparent and efficient way.

We hope below is useful for any international sourcing and factory operations to adapt and utilise. We also hope it proves the power of flow charting as a communications tool. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require further details and assistance in developing robust international sourcing tools and guidelines. The example below is just one part of our Good Business Growth operational tools package.

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