ระบบการเมืองที่ดีเหมือนปลาในอ่างแก้วที่มองเห็นตัวปลาชัดเจน

         การประยุกต์ความคิด Six Sigmaไปสู่นวัตกรรมที่ผสมผสานร่วมกับการปรับปรุงเกี่ยวกับการจัดการคุณภาพโดยรวมและ Six Sigma  ในบริษัททั่วโลก    โทนี่ เออร์วิค เริ่มต้นประยุกต์ความคิดต่อกระบวนการพัฒนาผลิตภัณฑ์ใหม่ เป็นการปรับปรุงจุดหมายปลายทางข้างหน้าของระบบ ดร.อาเคโอะ ผลที่ปรากฎคือกระบวนที่รู้ในปัจจุบันดังเช่นนวัตกรรมที่ขับเคลื่อนผลลัพธ์หรือ ODI  กระบวนการที่ให้ผลตอบแทนอัตราความสำเร็จ 80 %   บริษัททั่วโลกกำลังเริ่มต้นพัฒนาวิธีการที่มีการปรัปปรุง และเป็นแบบใหม่เพื่อยืนหยัดการแข่งขันในตลาดที่น่าเชื่อถือและเติบโตในด้านนวัตกรรม
         อะไรคือกระบวนการที่คล้ายกัน และอะไรที่ทำให้การปรับปรุงแต่ละอย่างต่อวิธีการที่เน้นลูกค้ามาก่อนใช่ใหม?    การยืนหยัดความจริงต่อหลักการของ Six Sigma และ TQM  กระบวนการที่ซ้ำซ้อนและทำนายความสำเร็จได้    อะไรคือสิ่งที่ทำให้กระบวนการปฏิวัติในการสร้างสิ่งแปลกใหม่อย่างง่ายที่คนซื้อผลิตภัณฑ์เพื่อให้งานสำเร็จ  เป็นการวิจารณ์งานของลูกค้าไปสู่ขั้นตอนที่จำเป็นต่อการบรรลุความสำเร็จในงานและการร่วมมือจากลูกค้าในการวัดผลความสำเร็จในการบรรลุผลสำเร็จในแต่ละขั้นตอน  สิ่งเหล่านี้คือความต้องการของลูกค้าที่แท้จริง  ขั้นตอนวิธีการจะมุ่งตรงต่อขั้นตอนต่อไปนี้
       1. แยกแยะลูกค้าสำหรับโครงการใด ๆ
       2. เข้าใจงานต่างๆที่พวกเขาต้องการทำให้สำเร็จ
       3. แยกแยะขั้นตอนลูกค้า และพยายามในการบรรลุงานที่ทำสำเร็จ
       4. ไม่คลอบคลุมการวัดผลสำเร็จลูกค้าในการบรรลุของแต่ละขั้นตอนในงาน
       5. จัดลำดับความสำคัญของความต้องการที่ขึ้นอยู่ความสำคัญ และระดับความพึงพอใจในปัจจุบัน
       6. พิจารณาสิ่งที่เป็นความต้องการของลูกค้าเหล่านี้ที่ไม่พอใจจากการแก้ปัญหาที่เกิดขึ้นในปัจจุบัน
       7. จัดหน่วยทีมออกแบบ/พัฒนาในการกระทำเฉพาะอย่างเพื่อเสริมสร้างแนวทางแก้ปัญหาแบบใหม่จำเป็นต้องเผยแพร่เพื่อความต้องการในโอกาสที่สูงกว่า
   





The results of a typical "customer needs study" reveals an opportunity landscape that a team can use to focus their development efforts:

Each dot on the landscape represents a customer need. The ones on the right are more important for value creation than the ones in the middle, and the ones on the left are opportunities for cost reduction, a handy set of data for any development team to have who are trying to make tough tradeoff decisions in a development project!

[FIGURE OMITTED]

This thinking for product innovation fits perfectly in creating the basis for building innovation and design. Improving the "job" that customers are trying to get done is straightforward and logical when considering all the customers of a new building project and all their needs; that is, mapping the needs of the building owners, maintainers as well as those expected to use the facility. Dissecting the customer job (10) as a series of steps and understanding how the customer defines the value they are trying to achieve in each step (11), and then conducting quantitative analysis of all the needs, pinpoints what customers value most thus revealing a prioritization of all the needs.

These data are the precise inputs needed for teams to make sensible early tradeoff decisions necessary to create new, improved products and services (building environments). For example: easy access to equipment is important to maintain high performance, however providing it may be at odds with usable floor space or building aesthetics. Identifying these problems early can avoid more costly issues during construction. Knowing these tradeoffs during the design phase also provides the team with the opportunity to find innovative new designs or solutions to this problem of providing easy access without giving up usable floor space or building aesthetics. With a prioritized list of criteria, teams can achieve innovation in a proactive and predictable way (12).

Successes have already been achieved in the building industry, focusing on the jobs that customers in specific contexts are trying to get done. Whether it's building owners, architects, engineers a, contractors or occupants of the building trying to get their daily jobs done, ODI provides a way for the entire development team to focus on the most important needs in designing, constructing, maintaining and using a higher performance building.

Case studies. Though detailed case studies of the building industry applications of ODI remain unpublished at this writing and information is scarce on other approaches, significant improvements and benefits have been realized by those applying the methods; often cited are the benefits related to the focus and organizational alignment that the process provides:

1. Application in building code design and development: Project Description: a US organization charged with creating and maintaining building codes and standards. A team applied ODI to identify a code designer's needs in the job of "designing a system to code." Benefits realized to date: (1) Added new concept ideas generated to their development pipeline; incorporating insights gained as enhancements to existing code products. (2) Getting a broad cross-functional group to work together on developing product concepts that meet customer needs, a first. ODI got them all speaking the same language and understanding product concepts in the same way; excellent way to educate people on customer focus first!

Application to discover opportunities for GREEN products: Project Description: an association of product companies supporting the residential building industry was charged with understanding where the opportunities are for their members to create products and services to support the 'Green' home. ODI was used to identify the homeowners need's to manage energy usage in the home and to determine what 'Green' means to them. Benefits realized to date: (1) A consortium of utility, appliance, product device and distribution companies worked together to create a prototype home energy management device that not only enables homeowners to control the amount of energy consumed by their home but also determined the cost savings in their energy management decisions. (2) The team uncovered that a 'Green' home meant more to customers than just an energy efficient home. Reducing energy consumption, while important in designing and living in a 'Green' home, other opportunities including reducing the home occupants exposure to toxic or irritating materials, preserving the supply of quality drinking water and reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills were found to be bigger opportunities for the residential 'Green' home market and energy conservation.

3. A recent award-winning building in Cambridge, MA. Though not an application of the ODI methodology specifically, an example of a high-performing building worthy of note is a leading biotechnology company's office building, which took a very different approach to traditional building design methods. The owner chose the architect after asking seven to make concept proposals. Six brought variations of models and developed ideas. The seventh was chosen because he stood up to present his proposal from a rough pencil sketch and led a dialogue of what people would need from the building and how those needs would be met. While six of the seven proposals focused on what the building looked like from the outside, the winning proposal envisioned the building from the "inside out," with a primary focus on creating a positive workplace for employees.

The results prove the approach works! The Cambridge building employees report feeling more alert and productive, an improved sense of well being, an increased sense of connection with colleagues, and a sense of pride in their company and its commitment to the environment.

The designers also addressed the needs of the owners: The estimated energy costs are 42 percent less than that of a comparable building. The building also uses estimated 34 percent less water than a comparable building. In total, over 75 percent of the materials used to construct the building contain recycled materials and more than 90 percent of all construction waste from the project was recycled.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This approach stands as a symbol of what is possible when applying customer-focused approaches to building design and development. It is worthy of note from these case studies, as well as from the history presented above, to emphasize two key lessons learned of this transformational approach to product (building) development: The focus on customer needs FIRST by a cross-functional team transforms fundamental thinking about how development can be done to achieve the aims of all customers. The subtlety of this thinking is critical. It is the only way to allow teams to make critical trade-off decisions early on in the process before experiencing large development expenditures unnecessarily. It is the only way to gain agreement on what "high performance" means in each building context.

So as we think of all the different "customers" typically in the value chain for building development, owners, engineers, architects, contractors, and yes, END USERS, let's examine the details of how these proven customer-focused development processes can work in your environment.

THE VALUE OF TEAMWORK

The Integrated Building Design chapter of the 2007 ASHRAE Handbook: HVAC Applications describes two ways to design a building: sequential and integrated. It proposes abandoning the sequential (bureaucratic) method for the integrated (team) method, then explains the considerations to be made during design that can be done better by including the client in the process and using a collaborative team to carry out the design. (14) The previous section explained the value of including the customer in the design and development process. Now we will look at how to orgใanize and manage the project to deliver the high performance building. The form of the organization and management structure is the cross-functional team, a team that consists of those who will conceive, design, build, use and operate the building.

Before we look at how a cross-functional, integrated team works, let us look at the management model that pervades the building industry, and was the model of failure for many of the US manufacturing firms through the 1980s. This is the bureaucratic model, characterized by work done independently by one department or firm which then passes the project sequentially to the next department or firm for their part of the work.

Bureaucracies are useful for stable systems where the same tasks done the same way year after year can produce success. The building industry has traditionally used a bureaucracy because the design then build nature of the business leads individual firms to become very efficient at designing pieces, or installing pieces, or assembling pieces. This is how they make sure their firm is most profitable, because they arrive, do their part, and depart. If they do their part right, but the system fails, that's the other guy's problem.

Bureaucratic building projects often look something like this: The architect and owner executive get together and conceive of the building. The size, shape and available space are often committed to and made public at this time, and if the architect is fond of the Bauhaus model, it's likely the building is made of glass. Then the architect hands-off to engineers who will design the systems to heat & cool the glass box, using standard methods at which they are very efficient. They will include energy conservation solutions that are required by code and maybe more efficient systems if it doesn't cost too much. The contractors then get the job of building what the architect designed and making the engineered systems fit. The contractors' jobs are often difficult, and they request design changes to allow equipment to fit in the available space and reduce cost. The architect gives up a little, the engineers give up a little, the contractor gets it built, the schedule gets longer, the costs go higher and the result is often mediocre.

The team is the alternative to a bureaucracy. The essence of a high performance team exudes from an American football team. Eleven players walk onto the field with the shared goal of moving the ball further than the opposing team. All 11 are strong and skilled, but no one can succeed without the others, so they work together with well-coordinated actions, and help one another; because only the 11 together can win or lose the game. Professional football players don't go to camp to climb adult jungle gyms and have group hugs to become great teams, and neither should professionals who create buildings. People build teams by practicing team skills in everything they do every day they work.

Table 1.  Behavioral Differences: Bureaucracy vs. Team (15), (16)

Measure                  Team (Integrated)  Bureaucracy (Sequential)

Do individuals share a          Yes                   No
common goal?

Must Individuals be             Yes                   Yes
strong & skilled?

Can an individual               No                    Yes
achieve the goal alone?

Must individuals work           Yes                   No
together, with
well-coordinated
actions?

Must individuals help           Yes                   No
one another?

Do all individuals              Yes                   No
succeed or fail
together?

Results of Team Management: The office building in Cambridge, MA is an example of what a team managed building project can produce. A cross-functional team designed and developed every aspect of that building. They followed all the rules. The CEO and executive project steering team established the goal at the beginning: create a highly productive workplace that is green. How did they do? They built the first large scale (350,000sf) office building to achieve LEED Platinum certification, and customer satisfaction surveys say they met every significant objective for creating a productive workplace environment. Oh by the way, they did it on time and on budget.

Exactly how did they organize themselves? They created teams to handle all aspects of the project, both building design, development & construction and use & occupancy. They created a top level, international team to oversee the entire project. They created teams to handle the use and occupancy portions of the project such as security, move-in, and furniture. They created a team for each design aspect. Every team was similar in that it included only a handful of people who were the customers, operators, designers, and executors of the team's focus. For example, the lobby fountain is a prominent feature of the building, and creating its design was not easy. It required a team including the design architect, design engineer, plumber, electrician, general contractor, cost estimator and building maintenance person that worked together in a hotel conference room for several days in what they called a workshop, to create the design that all agreed would function well, be maintainable, and be built within the budget. This is how the entire project progressed.

They also encountered significant hurdles. When the budget was set, they had no definition of green. The project had begun when they became aware of the USGBC and LEED. They decided to set the goal of achieving LEED Gold, and designed accordingly. When the cost estimating was finished, like most projects, LEED Gold had blown their budget. They divided the building into its many elements. Teams scrutinized them for cost versus benefits, and looked for alternatives. They prioritized all the elements accordingly, and decided what would stay and what would go. To have superior reflection of natural light throughout the building, the architect designed a wall covered with gold leaf; the team found another way to get the natural light dispersion. The teams delivered a LEED Gold design at the original budgeted cost.

Then, because the developer was remediating a brown-field site for the building, they realized that they were extremely close to qualifying for LEED Platinum. They weighed the cost to achieve LEED Platinum against their corporate values, and the worth of this emblem to their corporate image, and for the only time, increased the project budget in order to extend the goal from LEED Gold to LEED Platinum.

This pharmaceutical company continues to lead by example, and is currently building two laboratory buildings that will be LEED Gold. (18)

The Benefits of Teams

Consider a high performance building, one that will produce environments people want to work in, one that can meet most of its own energy needs while burning little or no fuel, one that is easy to maintain and operates efficiently for 50 or more years, much like the building described above. Ask design architects, design engineers, office workers, machine operators, maintenance staff, executives, construction workers, and building operations managers to describe the goals of this building, and you will hear different answers from each. Some will tell you what the building will do, others what it is or how it looks, some will explain who it serves, others what it consumes, and every viewpoint is correct and important. Not only are the answers different, but they will be interpreted differently depending on the person listening to the answer, and these differing interpretations are important. (17) Compared to a sequential, bureaucratic project organization, a team of highly skilled people who work together to weigh these viewpoints will typically produce, as experienced on the Cambridge project:

1. Better decisions

2. Faster decisions

3. With fewer people

4. Lower cost

5. Shorter schedules
Teams are messy, and changing from a bureaucracy to a team management structure is hard to do. But, the product development world, and ever more building projects has taught us that the rewards for taking on the challenge are great. They have also taught us that teams succeed or fail largely based upon their leader. If you decide to employ a team based project management structure, the final advice is choose the team leader very carefully. (19) Imagine the possibilities of creating a high performance team, under strong skilled leadership, first charged with defining the building performance goals based on customer needs, before expectations are set. This team would include the people who will design, create, own, use, build and operate the building. Then coach each to behave like a professional team member: be strong & skilled; look for and advance the common goal of the team; do not try to succeed alone but instead work together with the team to coordinate effort and help others; accept that only the team as a whole can succeed or fail and act to ensure success. Don't stop until proving the building performs as intended, preparing the operators to keep it running well, and being rewarded for achieving the goal.

A CALL TO ACTION

The competitive landscape for building development in the US is becoming a global playing field. A German architect and British engineering firm designed the Cambridge biotechnology center cited above. Much of the material and the systems used in new buildings today are manufactured overseas. With a struggling economy and increasing pressures on cost control, sustainability and efficiency in a world of diminishing resources, where will the value equation net out? Many in government are starting to see these trends and treat them as a matter of national security (13). The methods for effectively addressing these trends are known. They have been among us since the 1973 oil crisis and evolved from practices needed to address the needs of a demolished economy in Japan after WWII. The methods have achieved a state-of-the-art level of performance over the years that can produce predictable successes 80% of the time. All that is needed is the will to change. Too often, motivation to change happens out of necessity: a country is devastated; a company is going out of business, or less dire, simply not profitable or able to build business growth. We hope that the ideas presented in this paper will motivate the players in the building industry to begin that change process before conditions warrant change through necessity.
Change starts with a team who will design, build, maintain, and pay for a building, all with the intention to understand and define what high performance means to their customers. Then, more importantly, that team must work together to apply that knowledge until achieving a high-performing product. Rather than thinking of the building, think about the total work environment that the building creates for its customers.

What can you do to get started? Think about which stakeholders need to be on your next project team. Reach out to them with an offer to be more pro-active in planning the next building. Think about who will occupy the building and what they will be doing. Talk to these "end users" of the space. Ask them what jobs they are trying to accomplish and how they measure success in performing those jobs. Adopt a more rigorous process described in this paper, document unmet customer needs, use those inputs to define high performance pro-actively then work cross-functionally to make the trade-off decisions early.