Why Projects Go Awry

How to Get Your Project Moving
This is the first of seven articles that will feature a critical element to project implementation. The topic of this article is how to define success.

If you've been working any length of time, you've either experienced or witnessed some real train wrecks. Here are the top ten ways that projects fail:

1. The project gets bogged down in approvals.
   
   
2. Your assumptions about project goals are way off base.
   
   
3. You discover halfway through that the scope is much greater than you'd imagined.
   
   
4. Feature creep. Your client continues to add little bits of functionality until you're behind schedule and over budget.
   
   
5. Disenfranchised people become obstacles.
   
   
6. Nobody listens to you, even though you're supposedly in charge.
   
   
7. Nobody understands what you're saying, maybe because you don't have the same understanding of the project.
   
   
8. Someone important and powerful (like the CEO) hates the final solution a week before launch.
   
   
9. Your proposed solution can't be implemented.
   
   
10. The members of the team keep changing.
    
    

Define Success

First, you need to know what a successful project looks like. Success means that you and your team create a great solution to an important problem, that the solution is implemented relatively quickly with an appropriate amount of time and money invested, and that everyone has some fun along the way. It's a low-stress, high-results vision of success where creative, technical, and business people are mutually respectful and work together to accomplish something neat.

Somehow, though, stuff always gets in the way—schedules crunch, people get laid off—and more often than not, the important people don't really notice that something good happened. Or, what's worse, they do notice but don't see the value in it. Let's say you're a logistics director presenting the work at a company meeting. You point out the excellent process flow design, the layout and the astute way that will improve the flow of product in the facility. At best, the CEO smiles politely and gives some platitudes about what a great accomplishment it is. At worst, he or she asks how much additional improvement you expect as a result. You stammer for a moment and are actually grateful when the operations manger steps up to give some random figures you've never heard before and don't believe.

Learning to speak the language of business will help you garner respect in your organization. An inability to do so can become a real source of frustration, and it's completely fixable.

The next article will feature describe how you should start at the top to communicate your project goals.

You Do That? - FKI Conveyors

Package Handling Conveyor Systems
Moving items through a busy warehouse just got easier. Adding to their capability, Morrison Company has expanded its capabilities by expanding their partnership with South Shore Controls, Inc.

The enhanced partnership enables Morrison Company to offer design capabilities for small to intermediate sized conveyor projects.

What is the ideal application? If your operation has packaging handling processes involving a moderate level of diversions, then contacting Morrison Company to devise a solution should be your next move. Adding on to an existing conveyor or adding efficiency to your operation using a packaging conveyor will go smoothly with our experienced team.

The FKI Logistex conveyor line provides fast, accurate and efficient material handling, sorting and order-picking solutions for the warehouse and distribution operations. Their conveyor installations include some of the world's most sophisticated high-throughput distribution centers and warehouses for retail, mail-order, e-commerce, technology, apparel and pharmaceuticals, all of which share a common need for dependable, productive and efficient product distribution.

You benefit from the partnership as the capability for mastering more advanced conveyor projects can now be realized. Morrison Company’s expertise designing and implementing conveyor projects in warehouses for retail, mail-order, e-commerce, technology, and pharmaceutical clients, all of which share a common need for dependable, productive and efficient product distribution, is available to meet your needs.

Do you have a project to discuss? If so, contact Morrison Company today.

Operations Best Practices

Joint Application Development Teams
Joint Application Development (JAD) is a technique that allows the development, management, and customer groups to work together to build a product. IBM developed the JAD technique in the late 1970's, and within a few modern variations, it is still the best method for collecting requirements from the users, and customers. JAD refers to the joint process of collecting requirements and resolving issues as early as possible through a series of meetings. In earlier days, these meetings were off-site, multiple-day "marathon sessions." The JAD team consists of a mixture of customer functional experts to systems professionals in the ratios from 2:1 up to 3:1.

Collecting requirements is an inherently difficult problem due to the psychology of expressing uncertain desires. Computerworld magazine reports that 95% of all projects slide into cost and time overruns and 93% of all runaways stem from poor communication; 65% overrun by a factor of 2 or 3.

The general principles of JAD apply to performing all of these tasks. JAD sessions adhere to these principles:

• Involve the stakeholders, including the project sponsor and manager, tech writer, and subject matter experts as part of the project team. In some companies, the largest user stakeholder co-leads with the technical lead. Some companies rotate IS professionals into the user groups or move user experts into the IS group for duration of the project.
  
  
• JAD teams must have support from upper management, both to allow the time and effort spent, and to accept the team's conclusions and results.
  
  
• A technical facilitator with skills in both systems analysis and group dynamics is essential; someone who can speak both the languages of customer and developer. With a neutral facilitator, scribe, high level business sponsor, project manager, end users, and programmers, this team composition will produce faster and more exact results.
  
  
• Ensure that each stakeholder has a representative empowered with decision-making - JAD sessions are working sessions. Mid-level managers are preferred over executives.
  
  
• The sessions may rotate-in special workers, typically subject matter experts or members of the line staff, to answer detailed questions.
  
  
• Users drive the speed of the project in this phase. Sessions are scheduled at the discretion of the user, but weekly meetings are recommended.
  
  
• Each session should last about 2 hours, although rush projects may justify 4hr sessions (effectiveness drops quickly after the 2hr point). JAD teams should not be more than 15 people, and should be properly selected.
  
  
• Each session must produce JAD minutes, which contain attendees' resolutions, action items, and open issues. The facilitator sends copies to all team members and their managers. This is a critically important deliverable to maintain project momentum, accountability, political visibility, and to avoid rework and priority shifting.
  
  

Material Handling Industry Trend

Ergonomics vs. Productivity
Can you have your cake and eat it to? This expression refers to a “truism” in life, that most people experience. When looking at the potential trade-off between productivity and an ergonomic work environment, you may ask, can you have both?

What is Ergonomics? The term ergonomics is derived from the Greek word ergos meaning "work" and nomos meaning "natural laws of" or "study of." The profession has two major branches with considerable overlap. One discipline sometimes referred to as "industrial ergonomics," or "occupational biomechanics," concentrates on the physical aspects of work and human capabilities such as force, posture, and repetition. A second branch, sometimes referred to as "human factors," is oriented to the psychological aspects of work such as mental loading and decision making.

The profession is comprised of practicing and academic engineers, safety professionals, industrial hygienists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and occupational medicine physicians.

The following points are among the purpose/goals of ergonomics:

• occupational injury and illness reduction
  
  
• workers' compensation costs containment
  
  
• productivity improvement
  
  
• work quality improvement
  
  
• absenteeism reduction
  
  
• government regulation compliance.
  
  

• evaluation and control of work site risk factors
  
  
• identification and quantification of existing work site risk conditions
  
  
• recommendation of engineering and administrative controls to reduce the identified risk conditions
  
  
• education of management and workers to risk conditions.
  
  

Workplace Description

The work setting is characterized by an interaction between the following parameters:

1. a worker with attributes of size, strength, range of motion, intellect, education, expectations, and other physical/mental capacities.
   
   
2. a work setting comprised of parts, tools, furniture, control/display panels and other physical objects.
   
   
3. a work environment created by climate, lighting, noise, vibration, and other atmospheric qualities.
   
   

As the physical demands of a task increase, the risk of injury increases. When the physical demands of a task exceed the physiological capabilities of a worker, an injury will likely occur.

What are potential work risk factors that influence productivity and ergonomics? They include physical and environmental characteristics.

Task Physical Characteristics (primarily interaction between the worker and the work setting)

• Posture
  
  
• Force
  
  
• Velocity/acceleration
  
  
• Repetition
  
  
• Duration
  
  
• Recovery time
  
  
• Heavy dynamic exertion
  
  
• Segmental vibration
  
  

• Heat stress
  
  
• Cold stress
  
  
• Whole body vibration
  
  
• Lighting
  
  
• Noise
  
  

What can be done to provide a worker with an effective and ergonomically safe work environment? Morrison Company has several lines of ergonomic assistance products to fit almost every circumstance. An experienced Territory Manager conducting a facility assessment can provide you with options to consider. Want to learn more? Request a white paper on Ergonomics today.