How to Avoid a Supply Chain Apocalypse

How to Avoid a Supply Chain Apocalypse Dr. Tom DePaoli What are some tactics to avoid a supply chain meltdown especially an unforeseen or calamitous event? None of us wants to experience a supply chain zombie-like apocalypse. Many organizations are starting to use ISO 28000 certification to assist in reducing supply chain risk. I recommend an alternative multi-faceted approach. There is no one size fits all in the supply chain. As the importance of supply chain management grows leaps and bounds; the supply chain professional must develop multiple options and proficient tactics to insure the continuity of the supply chain. A key element in lessening supply chain risk is to have an alternative or backup supplier. With many organizations sole-sourcing now; having a backup supplier may seem like an antiquated traditional tactic, which has no place in a deep relationship or partnering strategy with a supplier. Be advised it is necessary. There are also many risk assessment methodologies available for the supply chain professional. The insurance and investments industry have many models to assess risk. The issue, as usual, for the supply chain professional, is finding the time to assess the risk and to plan for alternatives. I recommend a gradual stair-step approach. First insure your sourcing methodology addresses risk and the need for backup suppliers. Focus on your critical materials and services, not the typical off the shelve items. Do not be afraid to ask your prime supplier or a distributer for a recommendation for a backup supplier or alternative materials. Complete a small actual order from the backup supplier to insure their capability to deliver. In my book, Avoiding a Supply Chain Apocalypse, I note that there is no single silver bullet or quick fix, but I suggest a multi-faceted diverse approach to avoiding supply chain meltdowns. As the importance of supply chain management grows leaps and bounds; the supply chain professional must develop multiple options and proficient tactics to ensure the continuity and sustainability of the supply chain. Many organizations have in place a crisis management team that has written procedures for incidents like threats to employees, gunmen intrusions etc. Often, they are led and formulated by Human Resources. The supply chain organization should also have a crisis management team that creates written documentation for various supply chain meltdown scenarios. This is a great subject to network with and gain knowledge from other supply chain organizations. Finally, a supply chain organization can never completely eliminate risk but it can plan ahead for the inevitable disruptions to the supply chain. Take to first small steps before misfortune strikes. Tom DePaoli Avoid supply chain black swans. #supplychainsolutions #supplychain #supplychainmanagement https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-avoid-supply-chain-apocalypse-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom or Captain Tom), is currently an independent management consultant, the CEO of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, organizational transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, leadership training, creativity improvement, global sourcing and negotiating, especially information based negotiations. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, DOD, pharmaceutical, IT, startup, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, business services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = Website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = More information on Dr. Tom’s books and writings http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://apollosolutionsbooksandconsulting.blogspot.com/ = Dr. Tom’s blog @DrTomDePaoli = Twitter https://twitter.com/DrTomDePaoli https://www.facebook.com/ApolloSolutionsConsulting = Facebook of Apollo Solutions Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Mega Change: or, Getting Everyone Out of the Comfort Zone (Including Me) One particularly difficult transformation process was my third—which meant that I should have learned many lessons already! Nonetheless, only two people in a department of twenty showed any enthusiasm for supply management trans¬formation. Most of the personnel had long-established rela¬tionships with suppliers, and the department was divided into subgroups identified by the materials or services that they pur¬chased. Thus, people were so-called “experts” in their particu¬lar material or service. Unfortunately, many pursued their own materials and services without regard to the impact on the total product or machine. I first moved the entire department to a new area in the com¬pany. I changed everyone’s title. I developed a glossary of sup¬ply chain management terminology that they were to use in all their correspondence. I challenged them to prove to me that they were not only getting the best price for their particular materials, but also the best total cost of ownership. I also made them cre¬ate or refine metrics to measure their suppliers’ performances. I expected strong data to prove it. I insisted on monthly written reports from everyone. I gave them a template for the report, and they had to adhere to it. I insisted that they evaluated their savings in terms of the market for their materials. Thus they had to learn the market well for their particular materials. If the market price had gone down by 5 percent for the year, and they only saved 2 percent that was not good performance. For the first month, just about everyone was in an uproar just trying to cope with all the changes. This was beneficial; they had less time to resist the changes. Finally I started to broaden their knowledge of our final product. The engineering department and I conducted train¬ing classes on the packaging machine that we sold. The engi¬neers educated us on the particular sections of the equipment and their functions. Although they were experts in a particular material, I reminded them, our paying customers wanted to dialogue with us about the machine they had purchased, not just a particular material. We all had to become better at understanding total-machine functions and technology. The purpose was to make them realize the possible impact of some of their material change decisions on the function of the machine. I wanted to transform them into machine-function experts—not just partic¬ular-material experts. This tactic paid off. Our salesmen and engineers became more comfortable with my department members and invited them into meetings with our paying customers. They directly interacted with the customers and could understand their needs and concerns. When serious issues developed, we brought in our preferred suppliers to help in the problem-solving sessions. I also insisted that our people accompany our field reps peri-odically on service calls to get a better feel for what they had to go through with a customer while servicing the machine. Their feet-on-the-floor time in a third-world country, working side-by-side with a service rep, gave them an enlightened perspective of the challenges we faced with our worldwide customers. Amazingly we all survived this massive change, and we gained enormous respect with our colleagues in the company. Custom¬ers would call customer service and then ask to talk to some of my supply management people about issues. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom or Captain Tom), is currently an independent management consultant, the CEO of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, organizational transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, leadership training, creativity improvement, global sourcing and negotiating, especially information-based negotiations. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, DOD, pharmaceutical, IT, startup, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, business services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of twelve books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = Website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = More information on Dr. Tom’s books and writings http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://apollosolutionsbooksandconsulting.blogspot.com/ = Dr. Tom’s blog @DrTomDePaoli = Twitter https://twitter.com/DrTomDePaoli https://www.facebook.com/ApolloSolutionsConsulting = Facebook of Apollo Solutions Dealing with mega change in your supply chain. #megachange #change #supplychain #Businessbooks https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mega-change-getting-everyone-out-comfort-zone-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Leadership is the Art of Accomplishing the Impossible. So, what is No One Has Ever Done It Before! By Dr. Tom DePaoli For more inspiring leadership stories see Leadership by Storytelling on Amazon I worked for a large company that had a large plant. The plant was separated by a major state highway that split the production areas from the distribution warehouse area. The company had put an enclosed tube with a case conveyor over the highway connecting the two highway divided facilities. The cases would right through the tube into the distribution center. The company was expanding and room was needed for two major production lines and more storage space. At first the company went to their local state representative asking for permission for the state to consider closing the highway and rerouting traffic. The plan was to put a new complete building the highway and add more production lines and storage space. Both buildings would now be connected to a new building in the middle. The state representative objected and cited all sorts of hurdles that had to be overcome to close the highway. He stated that it would be impossible and that local opposition might be fierce. We were however undaunted by his pessimism. I was directed to develop a plan for the new building, the layout and estimate the cost. We knew we had a very difficult task ahead of us. We developed blueprints for the building but I suggested that we create an interior model of the building and three-dimensional pictures of how the building would look when finished. We put together a presentation of the building in a small folding three ring binder. We contacted the state governor and office of business development to engender more support. The business development office was enthusiastic. Next, we built the interior model of the building to scale and put it on a large table in a large conference room. Then we invited our own employees to visit the conference room with the scale model, play with the layout and make suggestions. We received many helpful suggestions that we immediately deployed in the model and the building plans. We then personally visited each house along the route that the highway was going to be diverted to and explained the concept and what the building was going to look like. We invited them to take a personal tour of the plant and most of them toured the plant. There were no objections from the home owners. Within a month the state business development office informed us that closing the highway had been approved by the state transportation department. Our next step was to get approval from corporate for capital funds. Capital money was tight that year so we created a plan that showed half the building and its layout. We did bring the plan of the whole building with us and the cost estimates. The capital committee was so impressed with the building layout and the work that we had done that they asked to see the layout of the entire building. They approved the money for the entire building. Yes, we did invite the state representative who said it would be impossible to reroute the state highway to the ribbon cutting ceremony. Leadership is the art of accomplishing the impossible so what if no one has ever done it before. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = more information on Dr. Tom’s books http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page Learn how to accomplish the impossible. Lead by storytelling. #leadership #storytelling #leadershipbooks https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lead-accomplishing-impossible-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli Video Learn how to accomplish the impossible. Lead by storytelling. #leadership #storytelling #leadershipbooks https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leadership-art-accomplishing-impossible-dr-thomas-tom-depaoli https://lnkd.in/g8bz6hf Video Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Book Review Kelly Barner Buyers Meeting Point Business Consulting Wows! Desktop Guide to Help Run Your Business “In many cities of the country there’s a fear of the streets especially if there’s disorder and things are in disarray. In many organizations there is a fear of management. No small part of this is due to employees not understanding the actions of management… Prevention of disorder and actually fixing things that employees say are wrong goes a very long way in establishing trust and credibility with management.” - Dr Tom DePaoli, Broken Windows Management in Business Dr. Tom DePaoli has written no less than eight common sense business books, and I’ve read or reviewed nearly all of them. If you’ve seen references to Common Sense Supply Management, Broken Windows Management in Business, or Avoiding a Supply Chain Apocalypse go by and wondered which one you should read first, Dr. Tom’s latest book will solve your problem for you. Business Consulting Wows! Desktop Guide to Help Run Your Business is a compilation of the best articles, reviews, excerpts, and blogs about Dr. Tom’s experiences and books. [Full disclosure, some of my reviews and interviews with Dr. Tom are included in this book among a number of others.] I’ve never opened a book to a message from the author advising me NOT to read his or her book (front to back), but there is a first time for everything. Dr. Tom has organized his chapters by book, so depending on which one title you are most interested in, you’ll know which section of the book to jump to. There is also a full index of articles, organized by title, at the end to ‘flatten’ the content regardless of book. The title might suggest that this book is for small business owners, but I can attest to the fact that even if you are not ‘running a business’ in the traditional sense, you will benefit from Dr. Tom’s advice about communication, strategy, collaboration, and leadership. And because the work and perspectives of a number of interviewers are included in this book, we get a diverse set of applications for his philosophy about spend management and business relationships. I’m partial to Dr. Tom’s thoughts on the importance of storytelling in business, so that is where I would advise new readers to start, but that’s me. He also intertwines his thoughts on authenticity and leadership throughout, and both are time-tested. If you are looking for ‘slick’ business bromides or jargon, Dr. Tom is not your guy. If, however, you are looking for strategies and advice that balance the long-term needs of business and people equally, check out any of Dr. Tom’s writing – or check out all of it by buying this book. Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom or Captain Tom), is currently an independent management consultant, the CEO of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, organizational transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, leadership training, creativity improvement, global sourcing and negotiating, especially information-based negotiations. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, DOD, pharmaceutical, IT, startup, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, business services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of twelve books all available on Amazon. He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children. https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page http://www.apollosolutions.us = Website of Apollo Solutions his business drtombooks.com = More information on Dr. Tom’s books and writings http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/ = LinkedIn home page https://apollosolutionsbooksandconsulting.blogspot.com/ = Dr. Tom’s blog @DrTomDePaoli = Twitter https://twitter.com/DrTomDePaoli https://www.facebook.com/ApolloSolutionsConsulting = Facebook of Apollo Solutions Enjoy Dr Tom DePaoli’s latest book. Great reviews. #businessbooks #leadership #consulting https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/business-consulting-wows-desktop-guide-help-run-your-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

Book Review by Kelly Barner BuyersMeetingPoint.com Business Consulting Wows! Desktop Guide to Help Run Your Business

Book Review by Kelly Barner BuyersMeetingPoint.com Business Consulting Wows! Desktop Guide to Help Run Your Business “In many cities of the country there’s a fear of the streets especially if there’s disorder and things are in disarray. In many organizations there is a fear of management. No small part of this is due to employees not understanding the actions of management… Prevention of disorder and actually fixing things that employees say are wrong goes a very long way in establishing trust and credibility with management.” - Dr Tom DePaoli, Broken Windows Management in Business Dr. Tom DePaoli has written no less than eight common sense business books, and I’ve read or reviewed nearly all of them. If you’ve seen references to Common Sense Supply Management, Broken Windows Management in Business, or Avoiding a Supply Chain Apocalypse go by and wondered which one you should read first, Dr. Tom’s latest book will solve your problem for you. Business Consulting Wows! Desktop Guide to Help Run Your Business is a compilation of the best articles, reviews, excerpts, and blogs about Dr. Tom’s experiences and books. [Full disclosure, some of my reviews and interviews with Dr. Tom are included in this book among a number of others.] I’ve never opened a book to a message from the author advising me NOT to read his or her book (front to back), but there is a first time for everything. Dr. Tom has organized his chapters by book, so depending on which one title you are most interested in, you’ll know which section of the book to jump to. There is also a full index of articles, organized by title, at the end to ‘flatten’ the content regardless of book. The title might suggest that this book is for small business owners, but I can attest to the fact that even if you are not ‘running a business’ in the traditional sense, you will benefit from Dr. Tom’s advice about communication, strategy, collaboration, and leadership. And because the work and perspectives of a number of interviewers are included in this book, we get a diverse set of applications for his philosophy about spend management and business relationships. I’m partial to Dr. Tom’s thoughts on the importance of storytelling in business, so that is where I would advise new readers to start, but that’s me. He also intertwines his thoughts on authenticity and leadership throughout, and both are time-tested. If you are looking for ‘slick’ business bromides or jargon, Dr. Tom is not your guy. If, however, you are looking for strategies and advice that balance the long-term needs of business and people equally, check out any of Dr. Tom’s writing – or check out all of it by buying this book. Enjoy a book review of my latest book. Business Consulting Wows! #businessbooks #consulting https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/book-review-kelly-barner-buyersmeetingpointcom-business-depaoli Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review

Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers' Favorite

Sydney the Monster Stops Bullies by Dr. Tom DePaoli is the story of Sydney the Monster who loved kids and liked to play with them. He always tried to make them comfortable and calm. Sydney chased away the bad monsters or locked them in the closet. While Sydney played fun games with the children, he also taught them more about the monsters and how, like humans, all of them were different from each other. Sydney's spongy skin absorbed water and parents were surprised to see their kids' rooms always clean and neat. The mean monsters, however, made fun of Sydney. This book with its message reaches out to kids, parents and teachers, and speaks about the topic of bullying and the physical and psychological effects it can have on bullied kids.

The story is engaging and it has an excellent message for young readers. The illustrations are bright and cheerful and they get the message across nicely and effectively. Sydney is a lovable character and all kids would definitely love him and his ways. It's a good storybook for read aloud sessions in classrooms and school libraries. The author handles the topic of bullying very well and conveys a strong and positive message. The book also gives confidence to readers on how to stand up against bullying. It teaches children to become friends instead of bullying each other. This simple story captures the hearts of young readers with its positive message.

Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

 

 

 

 

Purchasing and Supply Chain Professionals Need to Lead Process Improvement Transformation

By Dr. Tom DePaoli

For more leading-edge ideas see my books on Amazon:

Common Sense Purchasing, Common Sense Supply Management and Avoiding a Supply Chain Apocalypse

Often companies make the grievous mistake of not letting procurement or supply chain professionals select or source the consultant or consulting group to lead process improvement. Lean Six Sigma and Lean are too important to leave in the hands of other departments not familiar with the comprehensive evaluation of a bid or a proposal. In fact, procurement or supply management not only should lead the selection, but lead the entire process improvement transformation. Nothing can have more financial gain for a company than improvements in the supply chain! Here are some hard-learned selection lessons.

Experience trumps everything in selecting a Lean Six Sigma or Lean consultant. It’s critical that the consultant you hire has multiple experiences with multiple projects. Verification by checking with former clients is essential. Beware of consultants who want to charge exorbitant fees for all the process improvement training belt classes. You can quickly master this training internally for employees to become at least an entry level Green Belt by using the train-the-trainer concept. Belt certifications differ from company to com­pany. Insist on training effectiveness data from the consultant and examples of successful projects and tools used in their methodology. There are hundreds of improvement tools that could possibly be used in the process improvement. There are however only about thirty to forty that are used most frequently and are the most effective.

Strongly consider a fixed hourly rate especially for training, but remember that you get what you pay for. Make sure you can retain all the training materi­als developed during the process. Many of the available training materials are generic, and you will want to retain any custom­ized ones for your company. Make sure the consultant understands that you will demand process improvement self-sufficiency in two years or sooner.

The consultant’s people skills must be superb. Initially many members of a process improvement team are hostile to the process and transformation until they understand it. Strive to make the contract performance-based on the savings of the projects rather than amount of training delivered or other parameters that they suggest. Consider jointly developing online training courses that can be used with much greater flexibility. Process improvement meeting organization and facilitation skills are indispensable. Insist on sitting in on a live meeting that the consultant conducts like a kaizen. Observing a consultant in action is one of the best ways to judge their skills. Make sure the consultant can fit into your organizations culture and adapt to your organization’s standards and norms. Nothing destroys process improvement initiatives faster than cultural mismatches.

Finally prepare your organization for the process improvement transformation. The most successful proven way to make process improvement initiatives work is to make employees accountable for it. In other words, tie their cooperation, progress and training in process improvement directly to their pay or raises. You must financially incentivize it for them. Other so called persuasive or cooperative approaches have a much higher failure rate.

 

 

          Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon.  He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children.

https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli    = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page

http://www.apollosolutions.us  = website of Apollo Solutions his business

drtombooks.com  = more information on Dr. Tom’s books

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/  = LinkedIn home page

 

 

Procurement and supply chain leaders need to lead transformation.

#procurement #supplychain Leadershp #transformation

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/procurement-supply-chain-professionals-need-lea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ

 

 

 

 

Leaders Work Hard and Volunteer for The Tough Assignments

By Dr. Tom DePaoli

See my book on Amazon Leadership by Storytelling for more leadership stories.

 

I was working for a fortune 500 company as an employee relations manager, in human resources, in a large midwestern plant. The company had just undergone a very tough period. It had gone to war with its employees and tried to break the current union and implemented a take it or leave it contract. All this did was infuriate the employees and create a giant slowdown in the plant. Fortunately, the company decided to reverse this approach and work with the union and employees as a partner. One of the goals was to reduce the number of skilled trades in the plant from the current 29 classifications. This created much inefficiency and complicated rules. It literally could take three people to change a lightbulb.

The company hired a consultant in creating partnerships and improving employee relationships for three days. The fee was over $10,000 for the sessions. I sat in on the sessions. I soon realized that I was much more knowledgeable about our union, the culture, the skilled trades and the approach that we needed to implement pay-for-skill than the consultant. I decided to do research on my own and discovered some articles on pay-for-skill and skilled trade consolidation. After a discussion with my boss I volunteered to lead the skilled trades consolidation and implement a pay-for skill compensation system. This was a tough and contentious project. I was to be the first in the company to lead the implementation of the compensation system.

Despite the company’s attempts to destroy the union, the union president and the union committee still trusted me, and considered me fair and open to compromise. I decided to become an expert on pay-for- skill compensation and started researching the concept. I had always considered getting a PhD, and now I investigated options for a PhD, and made a dissertation proposal to a university. I would research organizations that already had similar pay-for-skills systems and study the factors that made them successful. They accepted the proposal. My logic was since I had to do the research anyway for my work-life, why not jointly take an academic approach to pay-for-skill. I received help from the local university in my research and the use of a super-computer to analyze my data. After working long and hard with the union, we jointly reduced the skilled trade classifications from 29 to 5. Crafts persons could also become multi-skilled and have multiple skills such as welder pipe-fitter and carpenter combined! The more skills, the higher pay they received. Crafts persons were not pressured to have multiple skills, but if they did not, their pay would not be as much as a crafts person with multiple skills.

Their skills training was subsidized by the company and we established an on-site tech-school for them to gain the skills. We also extended the opportunity for skills training to production workers and management.

 

I finished the PhD in four years and published the results of my data. The overall knowledge and understanding of the workforce improved dramatically. Pay-for-skill is a long-term investment in employees that is exceptionally successful. The project gave me a reputation for volunteering for tough assignments. Leaders work hard and volunteer for the tough assignments.

 

Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon.  He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children.

https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli    = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page

http://www.apollosolutions.us  = website of Apollo Solutions his business

drtombooks.com  = more information on Dr. Tom’s books

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/  = LinkedIn home page

 

 

Learn to lead by stories. #leadership

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leaders-work-hard-volunteer-tough-assignments-depaoli-1c

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ