Héloïse is about to ask another question when the phone rings. She gets up to answer it, and after listening for a minute, says, “Yes, Roger, of course I agree. You must not ship it if you know there are defective components in it. Why doesn’t he want to wait? Look, just ask Hubert what he thinks. Or you can come and join us in the meeting room. I’m talking to Pierre Chevalier, our new total-quality consultant. I’ll introduce you.”
Héloïse can’t help grumbling as she hangs up the phone. “We’re still having quality problems with one of the orders, and the two shop supervisors can’t come to any sort of agreement. It’s an epidemic. There really needs to be some kind of process in place to deal with this particular situation!”
Roger knocks at the door and enters timidly. Héloïse makes the introductions, and then Roger announces, “I’ve told the shipper that you’ve decided to stop shipment on this order until you have Hubert’s opinion.”
“Good,” says Héloïse, reassured. “Keep me posted. We’ve just been talking about well-defined processes, and what the company can hope to gain from them. What do you think?”
Roger sits down, and answers promptly, “The most important thing is to keep our customers happy.”
Hearing the word “customer,” Héloïse gives him a look of admiration.
Pierre speaks up. “Have you already formalized the main processes of your company?”
Roger suddenly seems ill at ease. He fidgets with a notebook in his lap. “Well, I actually answered as quickly as I did because Thierry always said that when you don’t know what to say, you should always say ‘customers.’ But I actually couldn’t tell you offhand all the names of all our processes. I only remember that Thierry Ambi outlined five main ones that cover all our different departments. He used them when he wrote the IT procedures. If you’d like, I can look in my notes. I wrote everything down.”
“Yes, please go ahead,” answers Héloïse, calmly.
Roger thumbs frantically through his notebook. Pierre gets ready to take some notes of his own.
“OK. There are: the Sales and Marketing Process, the Supply Chain Process, the Human Resources Process, the Financial Process, and finally the Total-Quality Process. These five processes cover all the activities of the business.”
Pierre stops writing and asks, “Do you have any details for the individual steps for the supply chain process?”
“Yes. I’ve written them down—there were five of these also, but a sixth step was added: plan, source, make, deliver, return, and enable. This follows the SCOR model,2 which stands for”—here, Roger makes a huge effort to remember—“Supply Chain Operations Reference model. When talking about this model, Thierry always used to say that there’s no point in reinventing the wheel: we needed to use the SCOR model as a starting point—even if it meant simplifying it for small businesses like ours in order to take into account our level of maturity, as he said.”
With a big smile Pierre murmurs, “Well, well ... clearly this is how you move from traditional logistics to supply chain management.”
Roger is about to respond to this but, seeing Héloïse’s impatient look, continues with what he was saying. “As I said to you in the meeting the other day, I wanted to work on the total-quality processes, but I never had time to read the booklet. Maybe Mr. Chevalier—”
Héloïse interrupts. “Yes. It would be really useful not only to have a process to avoid quality problems, but also a process for reacting to problems when they arise. This would save you time and energy, particularly when Hubert and I aren’t here. Can we look at it together?”
Héloïse turns to Pierre and notices his stiff expression. She understands and continues, “But before we do that, Pierre will obviously need to visit the company and meet each person. Roger, could you inform your colleagues of his visit?”
Pierre seems soothed and adds with another big smile, “I’ll meet you on the shop floor soon.”
Roger agrees, and takes his leave. Héloïse looks at her watch. “Well, how are you going to proceed?”
“I’m going to take Roger’s advice, and start with the customers,” answers Pierre promptly. “I’m going to see which operations represent added value in their eyes.”
“But how do we add this value?”
Pierre leafs through one of his books and scans his notes. “In industry, we add value that the customer expects by transforming raw materials, assembling the various components, and packaging the products. Administrative tasks can also add value—for example, if we send out specific information that the customer needs, or if we implement systems that systematically respect the specifications of the products or services that the customer requires. In the lean-management book, they’ve colored in green the operations that add value. Those that don’t add value are colored in red. Their case studies show a great deal more red than green. They must be exaggerating ...”
“Actually, I get the impression that we’re doing a lot of red operations here,” Héloïse comments. “I don’t know if there’s more red than green, but there’s certainly a lot of red.” She looks at Pierre mischievously. “I know how you could proceed! You only have to follow the whole chain of operations, from the arrival of the raw materials to the shipping out of the finished products, all on the pretext of eliminating the red. That will give you the chance to interrogate everyone!”
“That’s just what I intend to do,” says Pierre, smiling. “But I’m going to start with the finished products, to understand how they need to be put together to conform to the customers’ deadlines and quality expectations. It will be the best way to identify the green operations too—by seeing how they contribute to the finished product. Now, if I’m going to start the interviews, you’ll need to tell me who does what, and who is the boss of whom. I will need the organization chart.”
Seeing Héloïse’s perplexed expression, Pierre explains. “The organization chart is the visual representation of the various positions in the company and their hierarchical relationships to one another. Then, I’ll visit some customers and suppliers and ask them relevant questions.”
Héloïse raises her eyes to the ceiling. “Well, the subject of hierarchical relationships got me off to a bad start. I asked Georgette about that. She told me she’d tried to get my father to clarify them, but, since his own responses were never clear, she eventually gave up. I tried to work out who was the boss of whom by looking at job titles from pay stubs. Same problem. They weren’t up-to-date and no longer corresponded to existing jobs in the company. No wonder no one knows whom to ask for instructions, and no wonder certain people act as if they’re boss even when the real boss is there.”
Pierre raises an eyebrow, dismayed. “Just imagine being in the police force or the army and not knowing who was in charge of whom! Or imagine that there were several people in charge and that team missions weren’t clearly defined, even for the people who were meant to be carrying them out—” he breaks off as he hears a knock at the door. Hubert pops his head in, clearly very annoyed.
“I’m really sorry to bother you, Héloïse, but I need to speak with you at once.”
“Come in, Hubert. I’m with Pierre Chevalier, our total-quality consultant. I have to leave before four o’clock to be on time at the conservatory, so let’s talk right now. Mr. Chevalier has signed a confidentiality agreement.”
Hubert comes in and moves toward Pierre. The two tall men size each other up briefly and then shake hands.
Hubert says, “Good afternoon, and welcome. In fact, it’s good you’re here because the problem is in your area of expertise.