Organizing Improvement Efforts

Transparency in supply chain performance is a prerequisite for analyzing performance hitches, prioritizing any improvement efforts, monitoring the impact of the measures taken, and focusing the organization s attention - which by itself can lead to huge improvements. 

Approximately 89 million metric t of organic chemicals and lubricants, the majority of which are fossil based, are produced annually in the United States. The development of new industrial bioproducts, for production in standalone facilities or biorefineries, has the potential to reduce our dependence on imported oil and improve energy security. Advances in biotechnology are enabling the optimization of feedstock composition and agronomic characteristics and the development of new and improved fermentation organisms for conversion of biomass to new end products or intermediates. This article reviews recent biotechnology efforts to develop new industrial bioproducts and improve renewable feedstocks and key market opportunities. 

The success of this publication, which will appear periodically in volumes of about twelve chapters, depends upon the cooperation of organic chemists and their willingness to devote time and effort to the preparation of the chapters. They have manifested their interest already by the almost unanimous acceptance of invitations to contribute to the work. The editors will welcome their continued interest and their suggestions for improvements in Organic Reactions. 

Selection of the metrics is critical to the success of the process safety system improvement effort. The metrics must provide valid information to support successful changes to the process safety system. Tracking a metric that does not accurately reflect performance will not provide useful information and be of little value. Poorly selected metrics may cause the organization to focus upon the wrong process safety components and to believe, erroneously, that its process safety system is performing quite well. 

Communicating with those who can and do influence process safety is a key to improvement. Many individuals across an organization share objectives to improve process safety. Metrics are a valuable resource to everyone involved in improving performance, and communicating results is a key activity in maintaining a successful improvement effort. Effectively sharing results in a timely manner is the central objective for the communications strategy, and it is important to plan how results will be clearly communicated. 

Advertising successes of the process safety improvement effort demonstrates that improvement is possible. Well-crafted stories also explain the benefits that accrue to everyone in the organization. Of particular interest are stories where a process safety weakness was observed, possibly during a process safety audit, and an improvement effort corrected the identified weakness before it could manifest into an accident. Metrics can validate such improvements. Another example is improved reliability from timely maintenance of safety devices as demonstrated by metrics that educate personnel not only about the hazards, but also about the importance of reliable safety systems in managing those hazards. 

Many organizations track the number of process safety incidents, and some even share that information with others. However, while a higher incident rate may indicate weakness in the overall process safety system, the incident rate alone will not identify which process safety system elements need improvement. Detailed benchmarking with industry peers can aid in developing a targeted performance improvement effort. 

Many improvement efforts can be successfully completed using only subject matter knowledge to answer the three questions of the model for improvement. In other cases, additioned knowledge is needed to develop a change. What are some ways to obtain this knowledge A number of different tools and methods are described in this Handbook and are summarized in this chapter. These methods and tools for improvement in this chapter are organized into five use categories ... 

Beyond the obvious safety implications, a Just Culture may improve morale, commitment to the organization, job satisfaction, and wilUngness to do extra, to step outside their role. It encourages people to participate in improvement efforts and gets them actively involved in creating a safer system and workplace. 

For example, with the recent interest in fiber-related illnesses, the techniques to measure levels of fibers such as cotton dust, wood dust, enzyme dust, and asbestos have been improved. Efforts have been concentrated on developing membrane filters and on developing techniques that will yield reproducible results (79, 22, 44, 66, 121). Similarly, a new chlorine gas concentration monitor was developed that is portable and does not rely on mechanical pumps for air sampling, which could be critical in the event of a power failure (72). Another new technique involves the use of porous polymer beads to sample for organics followed by gas-chromatographic/mass-spectrographic analysis 32). These developments are only illustrative of the types of advances that are being achieved as instrument reliability and detector sensitivity are increased. 

Another obstacle is a reluctance to go beyond the organization s boundaries for inputs about supply chain design. The appropriateness of this will vary from company to company. However, as a general principle, the input of both customers and suppliers will increase the return on the improvement effort. Chapter 11 described how to use QFD to gather customer insights. 

Both top-down and bottom-up mapping are required in supply chain improvement efforts. Table 24.1 describes the role for process analysis in the application of these tools. A column in the table indicates the likely type of mapping — top down or bottom up. Depending on the needs of the organization, the Design Team can employ Table 24.1 in designing its documentation approach to a particular process. Teams should review the list to be sure they are capturing the information required to apply a listed concept or tool. 

Small group improvement efforts. These efforts keep moving the organization toward better operations. It also improves worker satisfaction by offering each a stake in the improvement effort. 

Costs will always be a focus of supply chain improvement efforts. These efforts will be for both strategic and tactical advantage. This section describes some common and not-so-common approaches. It is organized armmd the root causes for unnecessary supply chain cost. In the section, we address six root causes ... 

The previous chapters addressed our second supply chain task for creating collaborative relationships inside the organization. Internal improvement efforts require one type of collaboration — getting departments on board for supply chain change. This section reaches outside to relationships between companies along the chain. This requires another type of collaboration, and we describe the building blocks for partnerships in this and subsequent chapters (Chapters 15 to 19). 

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