E-News for August 2002
Greetings ALMA Members,
Almost every lab performs a weekly or monthly inspection to verify the safe condition of the workplace. Generally, an inspection team is formed from laboratory staff on a rotating basis to verify items such as operation of eyewash stations, fire extinguishers, waste containers, etc. as well as record any hazardous conditions that are observed. The problem with this approach is that people tend to overlook the familiar so that staff members can miss the hazards that they are exposed to everyday as part of the normal routine. One idea to overcome this problem and gain additional value is to swap inspection teams with a neighboring lab for one of the monthly cycles. By bringing fresh eyes into the lab, the hazards associated with accepted practices may be spotted and at the same time the teams can look for new ideas for safety improvements for their own labs. This arrangement is a win-win situation in that both labs correct persistent problems that otherwise would go unnoticed and both collect ideas to enhance safety. These cooperative exchanges could be arranged by networking with other managers through local ALMA or American Chemical Society section meetings.
The popularity of quality management and performance management (Baldridge Criteria) philosophies led many to consider customer satisfaction as the driving force in managing our organizations. For laboratories, the rationale for this concept was that identifying customer needs tells us which activities are most important and leads to greater efficiency, lower costs, etc. by focusing attention on delivery of the most critical services. Many labs began measuring and tracking customer satisfaction to judge organizational performance and to guide improvement strategies. With the economic downturn of the last couple of years, this concept has lost stature as the new emphasis shifted toward managing to achieve the lowest possible cost. Even the dogma of customer satisfaction/loyalty leading to lower costs/greater profitability has been challenged by recent studies (“The Mismanagement of Customer Loyalty,” Harvard Business Review, July, 2002). Some lab managers are now asking whether the attention to customer satisfaction with surveys or other means of measurement are worth the effort. In pondering this question, remember that the lab is a service organization that typically carries little political clout in the larger organization and depends on the support of more powerful patrons such as Manufacturing, Marketing, or R&D. Reducing lab costs by providing lower quality services to these influential customers is a losing strategy in the long run and ignores the reality of corporate politics. Even in these challenging times, our best chance to prosper is to maintain an impeccable reputation with our customers by working as partners to satisfy their needs.
It’s time to register for the 23rd Annual Conference in St. Louis on October 16-18. The program includes presentations on benchmarking, chemometrics, and outsourcing in addition to the round table discussions on these topics. For more information, visit the ALMA website at www.labmanagers.org or call Miquela at 505-989-4683. Be sure to visit with me at the conference to let me know what you think of e-News and pass along ideas for future editions.
If you have any comments, cost saving suggestions, opinions, etc. let me hear from you .
Wayne