A Software Salesperson Being Honest

Think Like the CEO of a Brand Called You « Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel

The much-maligned software salespeople telling the truth? It was bound to happen. Mark Kuta, a former software salesperson, is peddling a book. In an online interview about the book:

Describe one of your case studies you used in the book.

The beginning of the book describes a case where I felt like that guy in “Catch Me If You Can,” you know, the guy that pretends to be a doctor, or an airline pilot, etc. I was pretending to be a lean manufacturing consultant when I was actually a software salesperson. While not understanding anything about brake presses, kanban’s or TAKT time, I used the methods I outlined to close the deal with a bunch of Ivy League MBA’s.

Wow, as a "not pretend" lean manufacturing consultant, that paragraph REALLY rubs me the wrong way. OK, I shouldn't disparage all technology salespeople. But here you have a guy sort of admitting he was pulling a fast one on his customers ("C-level" executives who bought $94 million worth of software from him). Does this speak more poorly about the salesman or the buyer?

Pulling a fast one on fancy MBA's.... way to go. I'm sure the MBA's might not have known anything about kanban or takt time either (so shame on them). If they believe the "siren song," then shame on the buyer, but you'd think sellers have some obligation to be ethical as well.

The phrase "caveat emptor" (buyer beware) is popular for a reason. If someone is selling you software, automation, or any technology that is positioned as a "silver bullet," don't believe it. There are no easy answers in life. Don't expect Lean to be an easy answer either. Toyota's success comes from dedication to the boring stuff -- developing great processes and developing people. Toyota's not successful because they have better technology. I worked at a GM plant that had the SAME technology as a Toyota plant, yet productivity was HALF of Toyota's -- because we hadn't yet shifted to a Lean management system.

Kuta's book, aimed at salespeople those building their "personal brands" (I hope he gives credit to Tom Peters in his book), says you should "think like a CEO." Does that include being tricked by technology salespeople into paying "more than list price," as his website points out. How dumb do you have to be to pay MORE than the listed software prices. Yes, that is unheard of. Until now.

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Press "1" If You're Hurting in English...

Parkland Hospital Deploys Galvanon's MediKiosk(TM) in the ER to Decrease Patient Wait Times

It's been discussed here before, how hospitals are just as susceptible as manufacturers are to the "Siren Song" of technology. This time, it appears Parkland Hospital (here in Dallas) is presenting with such symptoms...

You might know Parkland as the historic hospital JFK was taken to after being shot in Dealey Plaza. It's still open as the large county hospital for Dallas County. I presume they have long waits for ER treatment, as is common in hospitals. Many hospitals are taking the "Lean" approach to reducing waiting times in the ER. Strategies I've heard recently about include:

• Changing the "triage" process so patients are seen immediately by an MD -- providing more accurate assessment than an RN could with the added benefit of reducing the need for a patient to repeat the same story to multiple people.
  
  
• Separating the ER into two separate "value streams" or "patient pathways" -- patients who will be treated and sent home versus those patients who are likely to be admitted. A hospital in Australia implemented such a process and started seeing patients in each stream in a "FIFO" (first-in-first-out) process that cleared up delays immediately.

The Lean hospitals are fundamentally rethinking the process, not just automating parts of the process. Parkland went the technology route:

Parkland Health & Hospital System, based in Dallas, recently launched self-service check-in kiosks in the emergency room to speed the delivery of care and streamline registration processes. The technology, called MediKiosk, is provided by Galvanon, a subsidiary of NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR).

So, basically, you have the "option" of pushing buttons on a glorified ATM machine? This is considered an advancement in healthcare? I'd think not, it certainly doesn't seem very "Lean" at first glance. This article claims Parkland is the first to implement this system. Do we want to see others? Here is the MediKiosk website with their PDF brochure (with pictures)

Three self-service check-in stations in the Parkland emergency room triage area offer patients the option of interacting in either English or Spanish. Instead of waiting in line to explain their symptoms, patients can identify themselves at one of the kiosks by entering their name, along with an additional identifier, such as a birth date. Patients then use the kiosk’s touch screen to identify their symptoms by pointing to areas on a body diagram where they feel pain and answering brief questions about the nature of their visit.

What amazes me is that this "innovation" is referred to as "more comfortable" and "less stressful" for patients.

I'll go out on a limb and say what we need are real patient flow improvements, using Lean methods, instead of throwing technology at one part the problem.

I'd be curious to get involved and ask "why" patients are waiting to be seen at the ER. Is triage really the bottleneck? Is a computer system cost effective compared to adding more people? Is it more humane? Is the ATM more effective?

Rather than throwing resources (ATMs or people) at it, can we streamline the process so triage can be done more effectives? Better yet, let's question if triage is really necessary... the goal isn't efficient triage, it's improved care, improved patient outcomes, and reduced waiting times. I'll be curious to see if there is a press release bragging about the actual results of this new technology...

Intel, Motion Develop Tablet PC for Nurses - WSJ.com

Intel, Motion Develop Tablet PC for Nurses - WSJ.com

More news stories via Google.

Is this a "siren song" of technology for healthcare? Executives and managers in any industry, it seems, believe in the promise of technology as the solution to problems.

At best, such as with this Intel-developed tablet PC designed "especially for RN's", it's only part of the solution, or at worst, it's a waste of money that could be used in other areas.

For any hospital considering this sort of purchase, I implore you:

1) Get input from your RN's
2) Plan out the processes in which the tablet will be used (Develop standard work)
3) Figure out if the tablets will actually be used
4) Make sure these things aren't going to drag more germs into the room

Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., last year helped to establish a multicompany alliance called Continua to define medical-technology standards, and the company has set up a "digital health" group for its strategy to develop combinations of computer chips and other technologies for specific markets. With Motion, Intel deployed demographics researchers to study how nurses work, consulted with them and tested tablets at three hospitals, said Louis Burns, vice president of Intel's digital-health group.

Motion, a closely held tablet maker in Austin, Texas, already gets about half of its sales from the medical industry. It worked with a medical-software maker to ensure the new tablet can exchange information easily with hospitals' record-keeping systems, said Scott Eckert, Motion's chief executive.

I hope the focus was greater on making the laptops useful than the focus on making them "Sellable".

One regular chore for nurses is taking a patient's temperature, blood pressure and other vital signs. They often end up writing the data on scraps of paper, or even on their hands, before returning to a nurse's station to enter the data into a PC -- sometimes as much as two hours or more later.

"The accuracy of that data erodes over time -- they forget some of it," said Michael Blum, an associate professor of medicine who holds the title of chief medical informatics officer at the University of California at San Francisco, whose medical center hosted a news conference to discuss the new tablet yesterday. "Equally important is that the doctors don't have access to it right away."

Here is a clear process problem -- RN's are too busy and/or don't have standard work to make sure they can record patient information immediately. If they're so busy, today, that they're having to scribble data on their HANDS, are they going to have time to learn the new system and to actually use it?

As this PBS documentary showed, doctors have been incredibly resistant to using electronic medical record, electronic order input systems, or computers, in general, in some cases (hell, they're incredibly resistant to washing their hands properly). One difference is that the nurses are hospital employees (most of them) as opposed to MD's, who are generally independent contractors. It's easier to "tell RN's what to do," not that doing so is the preferred change management methods. If the technology truly makes the RN's jobs easier, they'll RUN to the technology.

I'd start first by asking "why" are they nurses too busy to immediately record patient data in existing systems. I'd also analyze the nurses's days to identify waste that can be eliminated (waste is often 60-70% of their time) AND ask the nurses how to improve their processes.

There are plenty of obstacles to deploying such tools, including hospital budget woes, said Marc Holland, research director at Health Industry Insights, a unit of research firm IDC. But the new tablet seems unusually attractive, he added, and comes as the Bush administration is pressing the medical industry to become more efficient.

Fancy laptops alone won't solve the hospital's problems. Lean is much cheaper to deploy and might actually solve the problem better.

Oh Really? Another Siren Song

Burt's Bees Selects i2 Solutions to Streamline the Supply Chain for Lean Manufacturing

Another "Siren Song" in the world of manufacturing software. Once again, it's i2 Technologies claiming their software is "Built on the principles of lean manufacturing and constraint-based planning, the solutions enable companies to reach the best throughput and customer service at the lowest inventory level and cost."

Argh, but they continue...

“i2’s factory panning solutions are used by companies around the globe looking to move into lean manufacturing,” said Steve Estrada, senior vice president of Consumer Industries at i2.

The "siren song" is that some software companies really expect you think that all that's missing from your successful lean transformation is the proper software. If you're "looking to move into lean" -- as opposed to actually working on it -- I think you'd be better off focusing on your people and your processes.

I just noticed there is a typo in the second quote (it's really there in the press release) -- "panning" instead of "planning." I guess i2 would have kwality if they only had, oh I don't know, maybe some software for that? Oh right, it's called spell check. I guess technology can't do it all for you, can it?

There's no silver bullet software that will make brilliant decisions for you, decisions that will make you lean.

I'm not "anti-software." Neither is Toyota. But, the software vendors lose credibility with messages like this, that the software makes you lean.

When Your Only Tool is a Hammer...

IndustryWeek : Beyond Lean: The Perfect Lean Market

Subscribe to IndustryWeek

... everything looks like a nail. Right?

I'm an Industry Week subscriber and the magazine is generally worthwhile. I've linked to some of their articles and commentary on lean that I've enjoyed and learned from.

This article I've linked to above, though, is almost comical. It's not worth the paper (or server space) that it uses up. I hate to generalize, but software company CEO's aren't exactly the first people I would run to for advice about lean. Industry Week can certainly find better commentators than this.

What do I take issue with, from the CEO of QAD Software?

First off, the title. "Beyond Lean: The Perfect Lean Market." "Beyond Lean" is a favorite marketing term in the enterprise software world and it sounds silly every time I hear it. We're done with lean and time to move beyond it? Oh really? What's the hot new thing? I bet it's a software product that you are selling.

Secondly, the author says that while 80% of companies are working on lean, "less than one percent has lean practices in place." Again, oh really? If only 1% are doing lean effectively, why are we ready to move "beyond?" It doesn't make any sense.

So what's holding companies back from doing lean? Ah, right --- it's obviously a lack of enterprise and supply chain software. You wouldn't expect a software CEO to say that, now would you?

"The blind spot is supply chain communications.", the author writes.

It's not worth nit picking everything, but the funniest comment about lean was this, while talking about the idea of agility:

"Certainly, lean qualities are important to agility - witness companies such as Sanyo and GM shedding non-core businesses in order to focus and presumably, to eliminate distractions that slow down decision-making and action."

She is using GM as an example of lean? The fact that GM sold off GMAC is an example of how they are being lean? I'm sure GM would be selling tons of cars if only they hadn't been distracted by that darn profitable mortgage business!

That, and I'm sure GM needs better enterprise software. We've found someone who can fix them, but only if you use her company's software. Good luck with that.

It harkens back to the earlier "siren song" posts, started by our friend Mark Edmondson. What is a "siren song?"

From Wikipedia:

The term "siren song" refers to an appeal that is hard to resist but that, if heeded, will lead to a bad result.

Siren Song: Another Ad That Bugs Me

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: SAP's truth-stretching ads

So another ad has made me cranky. SAP is running an ad that claims:

The right software can make any size company more efficient, more agile, more responsive. In short, make your company more. That's why companies that run SAP are 32% more profitable than companies that don't.

The statistics geek in me kicked in, along with my common sense. If that data were correct, this sounds more like correlation, NOT causation. It's not the least bit responsible for SAP to claim that "software" makes a company efficient. I think the best you can hope for is for software to not get in the way, particularly not getting in the way of lean methods.

The blog I linked to above does a great job of picking apart this ad, including a revealing quote from the president of the firm that did the "32%" study:

"We try to make it very clear to our clients that software does not make companies perform better, that software cannot improve your bottom line and that since most software is not free it will cost you money. If the people running the company make better decisions because of the software, then they can impact the performance of their business."

Here are earlier "siren song" posts.

"Siren Song": Enjoy Increased Confidence and Satisfaction with Wonderware

by Mark Edmondson

This post may be shameless about poking fun at a real software product, but I couldn’t resist:

Make better business decisions faster

Achieve increased profitability

Drive operational improvements

Substantially decrease total cost of ownership

Standardize best practices

Confidently meet delivery dates

Correct product quality variations

Enjoy increased income with consistently satisfied customers

Take a proactive approach to production and performance management

Align your business objectives and manufacturing operations

With Wonderware… the total automation and information software solution.

These are actual excerpts from a full page ad for “Wonderware” in the December issue of "Managing Automation" magazine. The html version: http://www.wonderware.com/ad/ppm/

Is it just me, or does Wonderware sound like something that Victoria's Secret would stock?

Earlier "Siren Song" Posts

First the V-Pill; Now it's the V-Chain

Article Link

By Mark Edmondson

Do you experience lumpy product demand?

Do you suffer from “outsourced manufacturing and third-party logistics across a multi-enterprise network”?

Has “demand management, transaction processing, and order fulfillment using paper-based systems led to excessive amounts of leg work expended on expediting”?

Well you can Forgetaboutit!

Just install V-Chain, and you’ll miraculously reap new profits!

What is V-Chain you ask?

“V-Chain™, operates within heterogeneous IT environments and across multiple business partners to execute shared supply chain processes. The Web-native system combines connectivity, execution, planning, and metrics to create a single backbone in support of structured collaboration, something even the best ERP system can't do on its own.

I couldn’t have said it more clearly myself. I couldn't have even made this up myself.

(Mark Graban here) --> sounds like another "siren song" of manufacturing software!

More VC $$ for Another "lean software" Company

eBots, Inc. Raises $4 Million in Series A Financing; eBots to Expand Product Suite and Services

Here is a company that does "e-Kanban" software to work alongside ERP systems.

It's been a while since we talked about the "siren song of enterprise software" (thanks to Lean Manufacturing Blog contributor Mark Edmondson). More siren songs can be found here.

Another Siren Song? More Funding for Factory Logic

$8M funding boost - 2005-06-06

Another "siren song" of software? For those not following this line of posts, also see this article on i2 and "lean".

"Siren Song Alert"-- Nissan North America Selects i2 Solutions to Help Enable Business Agility

Press Release

To be clear, I am *NOT* endorsing i2 as a "lean" tool. "Business Agility"? What is that?

"It is built on the principles of lean manufacturing and constraint-based planning, to get the best throughput and customer service levels at the lowest inventory level and cost."

Really? Lean manufacturing principles? Which one(s) exactly? This reminds of the "Siren Song" article I linked to just the other day.

Does anyone have experience with this type of software as a "lean" tool? I've seen the i2 Factory Planner software at work, in great detail, and didn't find anything "lean" about it. For one, the software assumed a single, fixed capacity for a workcenter (a cell or a line). Any lean environment will have multiple capacity options, adding or removing operators to most closely match takt time. I never saw i2 do anything like that.

The Sirens' Song of Enterprise Software

LEAN Affiliates Library - "The Sirens' Song of Enterprise Software, by Mark Edmondson"

I've found some really practical and thoughtful articles on the LEAN Affiliates website, including this one on enterprise software. Has your site/factory been burned by these types of enterprise software (or "lean software") promises? I remember a study from about five years ago that said 50% of all plant managers were disappointed with their new ERP systems.

On a slightly separate thought, is there a "siren song of lean" that some have been burned by?

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