Game in the Brain

The company has 3 resources:
The Plant – this is the manufacturing of the furniture and the shipping to have it on the site. this is Cabuyao Laguna 50 km from our Makati Office.
Tech Center – this is where all the Customized Furniture, System Furniture (any modular cubicle or desking furniture), and Technology (cabling, and electrical) Installers are based. This is also where Fast-moving building materials are stored.
The Main Office is in Makati – where the Purchasing, QA, and Designers are based. Purchasing mobilizes Subcontractors. QA inspect the projects for conformity.  Subcontractors are limited by the cashflow, so multiple PMs demanding at the same time will be competing for the cash on hand at the time.

I had to keep explaining that 20-40 projects which is about a 1,000 sqmeter each of work each at any given time are competing for the resources of 3 Resources.

That the Project Managers cannot have a 1-way imposed date of demands in light that he’s competing with 19-39 other Projects. That means he has to give their Schedule – the Project Gantt to the 3 Resources and negotiate for : Installers, Furniture, Building materials, and Subcontractors.

The PMs are expected to give Project Schedules.
The PMs are given the Scope of Work and Bill of Materials. These have the labor broken down already so they can make manhours plans. These have materials and they can plan how much the site can hold. But I’m predicting the 20% of the PMs do this, but complications arise. They don’t do this for many reasons that if my team investigates will be embarrassing and face losing. We would have to protect “face” until they can start doing it.

I can explain how Unplanned Work leads to Unplanned Costs. That Unplanned costs are costs we can’t Bill the Clients. This is obvious, people have a knee jerk reaction to say Obviously, but never create systems that account for this. heck having a System is Obvious, but again many departments have no Charter, and No Procedure issued to the QMS for approval.*

This was the practice when we started Fitout actually, they had a GANTT and we coordinated based on the GANTT of all the projects. But that was done by somebody in the Tech Center who left. No one in makati knew what he was doing and thus when he left, no one covered for him. His replacement (not successor) didn’t do this and didn’t understand why the job became harder – there was no GANTT/Project Schedule so people were all Calling for resources LAST MINUTE. He quit.

I manage to piece this bit by bit because of our team studying these and getting the stories from everyone. Particularly the Tech Center. the Project Schedules did more than just Manage the Constraints – the Finance Director took it to the Banks for loans. that allowed us to have more CASH, this allowed us to Finish to Bill projects more frequently, and this created a virtuous cycle.

It was around late 2018 that I decided to add the Tech Center to my Weekly Rounds. to GEMBA and learn what I can from it. To have a complete picture of how the system worked. MWF at the Main Office, and Tuesday at the Plant, and Thursday in the Tech Center.

I’ll probably get people saying “this is obvious” and no action.

Meditation and Active Listenting

When I encounter Learned Helplessness a lot of emotions kick in. Several things happen in my head, like a Me that just doesn’t care plays out. Someone could be telling me their problem and another me just walks out the room not caring. In the mindfulness training that apathy and petulance walks out like a ghost. When I said meditation is discomfort or wanting to do something else but doing what needs doing – actively listening to people when parts of me wants to be distracted by my own problems, by what I would rather be doing, and all the petty things my mind would raise is an exercise of me focusing back to the person with the problem and telling me that problem.