Abstract
Improvement and permanent improvement are two topics that have been broached persistently in the last two decades. The factors leading to improvement have filled a very wide variety of books. In industry as well as services, one of the biggest problems a manager faces is keeping up the drive to improve in his Operations. We humans tend to sit back and that leads to a deteriorating service. If things are not maintained and improved, they rot. Without a constant effort to improve, everything breaks down, from our bodies to the service. This chapter’s title sums up the focus. We seek many small improvements that make a million. Not great miracles, but small improvements instead, to build up a service that is better by the day.
Designing and implementing does not provide the whole solution. Service sustainability is a critical element to consider. Nothing stands still and, if companies do not improve, they die. How to improve constantly and focus that is what this chapter proposes.
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Notes
- 1.
Translator’s note: the surname means “worrier” or “fussbudget” in Spanish.
- 2.
You in Spanish.
- 3.
Let us be honest, this example could be drawn from many businesses and cultures the world over, not just in folksy old Spain!
- 4.
Needlestick injuries are caused by accidentally puncturing the skin with a sharp surgical object. They often occur when a needle is exposed while it is being used and thrown away. These injuries entail risk of becoming infected with HIV or hepatitis B and C, which on occasion requires long and complex treatment.
- 5.
Remember when we introduced this center in the previous chapter? I think it is truly wonderful.
- 6.
Curiously this idea had a big impact among course participants, possibly because it had never occurred to them that in their offices they cannot understand Operations people’s problems. And moreover, this is very much a factory-based approach, where it has long been known that the one in the know is on the shop floor, not in the office.
- 7.
As our pupils used to say colloquially, people “couldn’t care less”.
- 8.
From Ανδροσ, i.e., “man” in Greek, regardless of gender.
- 9.
With a lower case i. I know nothing of innovation with a capital I. For me innovation is part of life, and has no capitals. We cannot grow if we do not change things. And we have to grow, otherwise we just get complacent.
- 10.
As a Spanish saying (translated) puts it: you get wiser but not richer.
- 11.
Yes, I repeat myself. I am sorry, but I do not care.
- 12.
And he complained that in Spain, as opposed to France, few clients made official complaints. Obviously we pointed out to him that Spaniards do indeed complain, but not in writing due to lack of “education.” Quite the contrary, the French are past masters at professionally voicing their complaints.
- 13.
I have always said that a very creative moment is when you stand under a hot shower. You are half-asleep and then, with the water running through your hair, ideas suddenly dawn on you. When I mentioned this to a class full of doctors, one of them told me that it was the same with him and that there are physical and physiological reasons for it. A great challenge for 3 M; invent post-its that work in the shower!
- 14.
A Google search for “creativity tools” comes up with no less than 69,000,000 results.
- 15.
For further reading on creativity, I recommend Margaret Boden’s book, which I refer to in this chapter.
- 16.
We have already analyzed this process when discussing services engineering.
- 17.
Readers should have no doubt that he already knew the music off by heart. It was not about getting to know the music, but immersing himself in it, putting himself in the situation, and spotting connotations that he likely had not noticed before.
- 18.
As readers know, much storming and little brain.
- 19.
Remember what we said in service design? Other settings spawn a host of ideas by bringing about unusual relations for the persona.
- 20.
Although we already know that doing a gratifying job, like this one may be, in some cases brings about environments conducive to pondering. If not, see Aristotle, who was incapable of thinking without walking.
- 21.
And to spasmodic management companies. But that is another topic we shall broach in Chapter 15.
- 22.
One of my favorites is the boat that sails in an ocean full of rocks but does not notice, because they are all under water, but at low tide…Remember this is used to show how stocks conceal mistakes.
- 23.
This method tries to determine the frequency in which a phenomenon appears by taking randomly spaced samples. It comes from Frederick Winslow Taylor’s analysis.
- 24.
As with INAEM, these comments are taken from class discussions where Mrs. Angustias becomes the leading player as an unsatisfied client.
- 25.
I do not accept the comment that a state enterprise cannot provide good service. There are counterexamples everywhere.
Bibliography
Boden, M. A. (1994). La mente creativa, mitos y mecanismos, Gedisa, Barcelona.
Muñoz-Seca, B. and Riverola, J. (2004). Problem Driven Management. Achieving improvement in operations through knowledge management, London-New York, Editorial Palgrave-Macmillan.
Muñoz-Seca, B. and Riverola, J. (2008). The New Operational Culture: The Case of the Theatre Industry, London-New York, Editorial Palgrave-Macmillan.
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Muñoz-Seca, B. (2017). One Thousand $1,000 Improvements. In: How to Make Things Happen. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54786-2_11
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