Page 218 - Lean six sigma demystified

196 Lean Six Sigma DemystifieD

Education’s Core Score

I recently worked with a school district. The school district gets money on the
basis of attendance.
Who do school systems serve? The student! So I’m wondering if a school’s
core score shouldn’t be the dropout rate. Dropouts are more likely to struggle
with finding work and resort to crime. It’s an indicator that we’ve failed to
prepare that student for life. Attendance is a predictor of dropout rates; it’s what
I call a process indicator. The dropout rate is a critical to quality indicator that
measures the end result.

What’s Your Core Score?

Who do you serve? What do they want? How can you measure that you deliver
what they want?
Measurements drive behavior. Bad measures will drive bad behavior. Good
measures will drive good behavior. If you aren’t getting what you want from
your business, adjust what you measure and how you reward it. The system
will change!
? still struggling

Sometimes it’s easier to start with someone else’s product or service to deter-
mine core scores. What might be the core score of a help desk? Percent of issues
resolved on the first call. What might be the core score of a credit card company?

Accurate, fraud-free bills. Once you start to see the core scores of other indus-
tries it builds momentum to figuring out your own.

Customer—Supplier Relationships

Lately I’ve noticed that too many suppliers are willing to deal with all of their
customer’s mistakes to get the job which ends up costing them both more
money and more time.
Recently, we sent out a mailing to our customers about some new products.
Little did we know that our mail house has been cleaning up our file for the
last several years. This time, however, a new member of their staff pulled the