Business Solutions

What is stability in any system?

Would you agree that every system that we use has a slight variation? Does this mean that any system is perfect or good enough. To capture a clear picture of a perfect system we need a system that is accurate and considered to have truth. We must first look at the funnel and how this applies all forms of business.

Our experiment will include a blank piece of paper, a funnel held at X-distance, a funnel opening of Y-diameter, and a ball of Z-size. Lets say that X= 6 inches, Y= .25, and Z=.15. Now what we want to do is test the stability of the experiment. What we will do is drop the ball into the funnel and then mark where the ball comes to rest. The first ball enters the funnel, hits the paper, and comes to a rest at 1.5-inches from the center. We continue to repeat the test and the ball comes to rest at a range of .5 inch to a full 7-inches. What we get after a hundred trials is a concentrated dot that has a diameter of approximately 7-inches.

Lets try to improve the system by moving the funnel to see if we can better place the ball near the center. Can you blame us for trying?

Lets say that after the first trial we simply move the funnel 1.5-inches to the exact spot the ball came to a rest. We run the trial again and the ball rolls another 2 inches in the same direction. Again we repeat the experiment by moving the funnel over the next resting spot. By trying to predict the system and constantly adjusting we have spread the diameter of the resting place. Our exactness decreases and our system no longer is functioning properly.

Statistically speaking we have a stable system, with no objective influences, and no tampering other than simply adjusting the system. How is this funnel related to business. Simple. All businesses from manufacturing to sales use a set of funnels to produce an output of variation.

What systems due you see around you that act like this?

Think about a gun. A bullet travels through the air and may not hit the exact target due to variation in the shape of the bullets made, the amount of gun powder, or the wind. We would logically try to move the gun to improve the accuracy. This may be hard to swallow, but we will only make the accuracy worse if the system is stable.

If you have never heard of this and are seeing this for the first time, it must be a bit of a shock to realize that some of our best efforts are actually making things worse. Take a moment to think back. Maybe to some of your first jobs. Everything runs smoothly until management tries to adjust for “big problems” by over adjusting and making the problem continue. What this brings up is Tampering. There is a big difference from adjusting for improvement, adjusting for no improvement, and tampering.  Tampering is the motion of worsening, even ruining, a system.

The secret is small adjustments to business systems. The one thing to remember is that all systems have variation — some may be small and some maybe be large — all systems have variation.
Can you remember a time the boss came in and started yelling about how things were messed up, but everything from what you could tell was due to variation and chance, and really wasn’t that big of a deal? Maybe they keep changing the incentive program. Perhaps no adjustments are made at work until they are large.