Study the case titled General Motors Technical ProblemSolvin

Study the case titled, “General Motors Technical Problem-Solving Group Drives Excellence” by Megan Schmidt. Write a report summarizing this case in your own words. Also, discuss the lessons learned in your report. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzMHBplydvmxcG5tUUxDdUZEcDg/edit?pref=2&pli=1

Solution

Summary Report

This post tell about the problem solving approach adopted by General Motors, known as Red X as a technical problem tool mainly at vehicle launching stage.

Main Step of Red X Problem Solving Approach is

Queue –

Identification of problem to be resolved-Defining the project

Team formation accordingly-Work load prioritization & orders warranty part needed

Duplicating the Green Y –

Experiencing the problem by creating same situation to have the original feel, this can be also done by GEMBA

Clue Generation –

Team utilizes his/her skill to solve the problem by identifying root cause analysis and verifying the measures which are the outcome of brainstorming and other problem solving tools

Implementation – Implementation of corrective & preventive measure identified

Learning Of This Process:

Data capturing & Interpretation most important step in problem solving.

At initial level there was no system to track the issues in GM motors , they randomly work on any of the issues. They implemented Problem Resolution Tracking system along with value map streaming, to identify the area where first to attack and were improvement is must, can say priority decided of projects to be handled

Tracking of project

Tracking task with time duration is must as it speed up the projects

Again above data used for tracking the projects in some meaningful metrics like Resolution time of problem etc

Competency Matrix Study & Development Of Competency Level

They started monitoring the competency of their problem solver in terms of BOB & WOW in terms of time taken to solve the problem & analyze that a part of problem solver was not able to perform well & found that the major failure was in second step of problem solving process Green Y step.

To resolve above issue they implemented some step like describing Standard operating procedure etc so that competency level on a subject should match of entire team

Engaging your target with Customer Satisfaction

They identified that customer is happy with resolution time of 65 days and they reduced there targets to this level

Involvements of every stake holder

PDCA Cycle

Helps us to validate the preventive measure we have taken and identifying new scope of improvement