MARCH 18, 2008

COUNTY CAN BECOME MORE EFFICIENT WITHOUT SPENDING MILLIONS

I was reading an article in this morning's Buffalo News about a young business woman who has adopted kaizen, a Japanese workplace technique popular for making manufacturing more lean.

Kaizen can be translated as meaning, "continual improvement." The article goes on to tell about how differently the East approaches concerns versus how the West operates. A reference was made to the building of a Peace Bridge. In China, 30 to 40 bridges were built across the Yangtze River, while here in our region, we're still locked in an overlong debate regarding whether we should build a twin span or a signature bridge. Jiyuan Yu, an associate professor at SUNYAB, believes the Asian speed results because in the East the tendency is to put society before self. Here in America, we honor individuality and the right to voice our opinion.

But lately much of what we need to accomplish as a region has been lost in the muddle of over-thinking. Matters of common sense are hashed and re-hashed in meetings and more meetings. And these meetings only set up a task force for yet another meeting. Often, I have said I am "met out." Now, to make matters even more confusing, we have a County Executive that wants to spend over a million dollars on Six Sigma – a system set up to reduce outputs and ultimately bring about business success. And, why not, because it's guaranteed to give you about six times the return of your investment. I don't want to be a naysayer, and I certainly don't want to obstruct a newly elected official and his initiative, but it was my mother who always told me, if something is too good to be true, well, then it is.

When I was a kid, my first job was at a local supermarket. I learned four things immediately: The customer is always right; take the person to the product; if you don't know the answer, tell the customer you will get the answer, and finally, always follow the chain of command. I don't where we have failed in this society, but it seems to me we have lost the ability to give people a succinct set of rules and trust that they will be able to follow them.

So, I propose we start from scratch. Instead of spending a million dollars on a proposal to train employees how to be more efficient, why don't we just buy them a copy of Robert Fulghum's book about the things we learned in kindergarten? Simple elemental stuff, like: share, play fair, clean as you go and above all, say you're sorry. Try that first. Then use some of the million dollars towards opening the beaches in the summer, so kids can build castles, bridges and moats.

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