Is your company wasting resources on "burnt biscuit reports"? The following excerpt from James Abbott’s book Optimize Your Operation explains why burnt biscuit reports only tell a small part of the story....

Because the product is the goal and objective, many people monitor only the product. This would be like the coach of a football team only looking at the scoreboard to make all his play calling decisions. An equal knowledge of the process is required to achieve the goal. Actually, the football coach must monitor all aspects of the game including the line play, the quarterback’s execution, the receiver’s speed, and the back’s running. The complete set of information allows the coach to make an accurate call for the next play. Many people have difficulty making a clear distinction between product and process. The important issue is to monitor both with equal fervor because overemphasis on either one will result in mistakes. To clarify the difference between product and process, please let me use a personal illustration:

"Grandma’s Biscuits"-- Growing up in Tennessee, I developed a fond appreciation of family. My grandparents were some of the wisest people I’ve ever met. My grandmother in particular was the bedrock of the family. She had all the positive traits of a southern lady (grace, charm, uplifting personality, intelligence, and so on). One southern trait that was essential was the ability to bake biscuits. Wow, did my grandmother’s biscuits taste fantastic! Twice a day she baked these biscuits, and twice a day they were always perfect. What made my grandmother even more special was that even when she went to the cupboard and ingredients were missing, she simply changed the recipe. Voila!... she still had perfect biscuits. Later my mother, who also is the salt of the earth and a perfect southern lady, began to follow in my grandmother’s footsteps. She had a desire to bake delicious biscuits too, so she watched my grandmother for about two months. After closely observing, my mother felt ready to make her first batch of biscuits. We were all excited the first morning that she tried her new skills, and we could hardly wait to taste the finished product. To our shock and dismay, we found they were burnt to a crisp! Meal after meal, my mother worked and worked at making good biscuits. No matter how hard she tried, the burnt biscuits continued for weeks. Eventually the family realized something had to be done, so we began to build a set of measurements and reports about burnt biscuits. After two more months we had a wealth of information about burnt biscuits but no information about good biscuits. Finally the happy day arrived when my mother made a perfect batch of biscuits. We knew that she had made the technical breakthrough and that we would have perfect biscuits from now on. To our surprise, the next day we were back to burnt biscuits. She had only accidentally made a good batch! Our problem was that we did not know how my mother had finally made the good biscuits. We had a wealth of information about burnt biscuits (the PRODUCT) but no information about the oven (temperature and duration), the ingredients, or anything about the activities (the PROCESS) that made the good biscuits. For us to increase our knowledge base, we must have a vast knowledge of our product PLUS our process.

ISBN: 1-887355-04-9, hardcover, 297 pages