Pages

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Planning is a best practice at Moog Baguio

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B3
Thursday, May 26, 2005
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/may/26/yehey/business/20050526bus12.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino, FPM
Planning is a best practice at Moog Baguio


FOR an entrepreneurial venture to stay in business, there is a need to differentiate itself on the bases of service, quality and value-creating processes that are hard to copy. These are determined via a thoughtful strategic planning.

At Moog Controls Corp. in Baguio, one such value-creating process is their annual strategy development process. This is done with the all-important inputs from all its customers collated and reported twice a year by their operations managers. They have regular weekly and teleconferences with customers. Their customers play a pivotal and active role in overall planning. They also have a formal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to get a big picture of their internal and external environment.

Annual and long-term objectives that support company goals are, then, set at the corporate and operating areas levels. They also determine monthly production plans and daily and weekly planning flow and metrics.

They do a regular management metrics review weekly and monthly. A few examples of these metrics are customer satisfaction, quality, on-time deliver and performance. They, likewise, do a weekly and monthly operational reviews to insure Moog Baguio is making the progress desired and for adjusting deployment immediately as needed.

They make sure that everything adhere to all requirements of quality audits such as AS9000 and rigorous aerospace system incorporating ISO-9000. Moog Baguio is regularly inspected by aerospace regulatory authorities such as JAA, ATO and FAA as well as customers’ customers like Boeing and Airbus.

They take their planning seriously and even have a module on strategic plan included in introductory training for each new employee. All their goals and goals accomplishments are rolled out before the employees through general employee meetings, department meetings, bulleting board postings, and company newsletter. Performance expectations are then set.

Regular agenda in their Weekly Production Reviews are shipment deliveries, labor utilization (budgeted hours, indirect labor vs. direct labor, labor standards and variance, capacity), work-center queue, machine utilization, gages and tools calibration, new projects implementation and status, quality and process qualification implementation status.

Monthly Operations Reviews assess performance in sales per standard labor hours, product deliveries and orders, shop capacity and load, labor efficiencies—utilization and labor standards. Quality and financial performance are further reviewed in these meetings.

Moog gathers its data and information through its extensive use of Moog Business System, Material Requirement Planning system and extensive IT network, desktop systems with e-mails and the Moog Intranet.

They adhere in all ways to Itars and FCPA rules and all laws of both the Philippines and the United States. They strictly follow their corporate ethics program embodied in their Moog Philosophy of mutual trust, sense of individual responsibility, self discipline and mutual respect that governs employee discipline and conflict resolution and problem solving.

Twice a year, Moog Baguio’s general manager attends a formal review and planning strategic meeting with their corporate headquarters officers at Moog Inc., New York, USA. In between these formal occasions, visits are made by corporate officers to Baguio and corporate directions, including organizational development and human resources matters are taken up.

Measures and indicators are reviewed, monitored, updated and modified during the semi-annual and annual strategic planning sessions. Moog Baguio relentlessly pursues this virtuous cycle of planning, deploying, measuring, analyzing and planning, deploying, etc. No wonder Moog Baguio was recognized in the recently concluded Philippine Quality Award.

In the Philippines, many entrepreneurs have yet to discover the significance of planning and performance measures as a competitive edge.

In our continuing Journey on Entrepreneurship, we will again look at other best practices by exemplary organizations right here in our country.

(Moje Ramos-Aquino, president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp., can be reached at moje@mydestiny.net)

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Benchmarking with Moog Baguio

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B3
Thursday, May 19, 2005
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/may/19/yehey/business/20050519bus12.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino, FPM
Benchmarking with Moog Baguio


Everything changes, nothing stays the same. Products and services evolve. Markets shift. Customer needs and preferences vary. As entrepreneur, you need to continuously change, adapt, adopt, create. You need to benchmark your product, services and processes with your competitors, industry, substitute products and services and new entrants in both local and global arena.

This will be useful in building your strategy and balanced scorecard.

One of our benchmarks is recognized for its Commitment to Quality Management by the Philippine Quality Award (PQA): The Moog Controls Corp., Philippine Branch. It is a worldwide manufacturer of precision control components and systems. It is based in Baguio City Economic Zone. It manufactures servovalves and servoactuators used in primary flight controls of large commercial airliners made by Boeing and airbus.

Prior to this PQA recognition Moog was a recipient of important awards, e.g. two Tower Awards from the Rotary Club of Manila, Personnel Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP)’s Personnel Manager of the Year and Employer of the Year Awards, and Gawad Kaligtasan at Kalusugan (GKK) Individual Award.

Its vision statement reads: Moog Baguio will drive itself, its capabilities and its resources to become recognized as the best company in the world in its business. It’s core purpose is to provide the business units of Moog a unique opportunity to capture market-share and improve margins.

To fulfill these vision and purpose, Moog’s mission is to supply its operating groups with products, components and services that are cost competitive and of the highest quality and reliability. Doing this are 560 full-time employees, 20 of whom are management staff.

Moog was founded on one original product, the electrohydraulic servovalve. Today, it designs and manufactures complete control packages, where required, and hundreds of configuration are found in aerospace systems as well as industrial applications. As such, the individual testing of every product is thorough and vigorous.

Moog Baguio considers itself a “green” company. It is proactive in monitoring and regulating the amount and type of waste produced in its operation. They practice recycling and proper disposal of waste especially the hazardous type.

Moog conscientiously maintains good ethical standards practices. It espouses a Shared Core Values under the culture of mutual trust and confidence. This starts during the Orientation and Indoctrination of new employees to the biweekly brown bag meetings and through day-to-day operations. These values are: treat each other with respect; maintain a bond of trust among all employees, communicate openly, regularly and honestly; encourage individual achievement that benefits the Moog community; encourage problem solving and the search for solutions; discourage faultfinding and the assignment of blame; empower all employees to initiate changes that lead to improvement; achieve pay levels that match the quality of our products; provide employment security for all employees; and provide all employees with health care and retirement benefits that result in genuine financial security.

These are indeed solid foundations on which Moog Baguio stands. Next column, let’s discuss how they operationalize their strategic thoughts and plans through their key value creating processes and key support processes.

Service Above Self. Congratulations to Rotary Club of Quezon City North on its 10th Charter Anniversary. This year, under the leadership of centennial president Elsa CaƱete, the club was able to strengthen membership and to assist the communities of Payatas and Purok 10, Barangay Commonwealth, help themselves build their home and basketball court.

(Moje is president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp. Please send your feedback at moje@mydestiny.net)

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Benchmarking with Philippine Quality Award

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B3
Thursday, May 12, 2005
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/may/12/yehey/business/20050512bus12.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino, FPM
Benchmarking with Philippine Quality Award


ENTREPRENEUR is derived from the Latin words entre means enter, pre means before, and neur means nerve center. As entrepreneurs you are expected to go where more established firms wouldn’t dare go, e.g. new markets and seemingly chaotic or single-serve opportunities using available tools and techniques or benchmarks, if you may, to beat the odds.

You need not look hard and far for these benchmarks. In 1997 no less than our past President Fidel Ramos signed Executive Order 448 creating the Philippine Quality award and, in 2001, President Gloria arroyo institutionalized it as Republic Act 9013, the Philippine Quality Award Act. The implementing agency is the Department of Trade and Industry Center for Industrial Competitiveness.

The PQA establishes a national performance-improvement system that is comparable to the standard used by world-class organizations patterned after the Malcolm Baldrige Criteria. It also recognizes organizations that practice effective total-quality management, providing a source of inspiration for others to emulate.

Eligible for awards are small, medium and large private enterprises; local and national government agencies; state universities and colleges, government-controlled corporations and government hospitals.

Evaluation and judging is based on the seven criteria of the PQA built upon a set of 11 core values and concepts. These are:

• Visionary leadership—anchored on the fundamental belief that strong leadership is the key to progress in the journey to becoming world-class.
• Customer-driven excellence—directed toward customer retention and loyalty.
• Organizational and personal learning—ability to constantly improve current approaches or adapt to new ones suitable to organizational needs.
• Valuing employees and partners—commitment to the well-being of its employees and other stakeholders.
• Agility—capacity for rapid change and flexibility
• Focus on the future—strong future orientation and long-term commitment to key holders.
• Managing for innovation—create new value for stakeholders and make meaningful changes
• Management by fact—performance measured and analyzed based on facts.
• Public responsibility and leadership—ethical behavior, good corporate citizenship and responsibilities to the public.
• Focus on results and creating value—results used to create and balance value to stakeholders
• Systems perspectives—core values and categories that provide an integrating mechanism for performance excellence.

So far, no company has been awarded the highest distinction of the Philippine Quality Award for Performance Excellence. The following companies have received PQA Recognition.

Only three companies have received recognition for mastery in quality management: Panasonic Mobile Communications Corp. of the Philippines (2003), Intel Philippines Manufacturing./Intel Technology Philippines (2001) and Integrated Microelectronics (2001).

Nine companies have been recognized for proficiency in quality management: United Laboratories (2004), MOOG Controls Corp 92004), PSi Technologies (2002), Philips Semiconductors Philippines. (2000), Texas Instruments (2000), American Microsystems Philippines. (1999), Marikina City (1999), Amkor Technology (1998) and Acbel Polytech Philippines (1998)

Finally, 14 organizations have been honored for commitment to quality management: First Sumiden Circuits (2004), National Economic Development Authority-Region 1 (2004), Indo Phil Group of Companies (2003), ON Semiconductor Philippines (2002), Cypress Semiconductor Philippines (2001), Astec Power (2000), Makati City (2000), PSi Technologies (2000, 1999), National Statistics Office (1999), American Microsystems Philippines (1998), Electronic Assemblies (1998), Marikina City (1998), San Miguel Yamamura Asia Corp (1998) and Yazaki-Torres Manufacturing (1998).

Next columns, we will describe to you what made these companies win PQA recognition. In the meantime, you might want to do your own benchmarking by downloading and filling up the application form at www.pqa.org.ph.

ASTD 2005. Those who are interested in attending the 2005 American Society for Training and Development International Conference and Exposition on June 5-9 at the Orange County Convention Hall, Orlando Florida, may use the delegation code 10429860 to avail of discounted registration fee. You may also call Ms. Grace Victoriano at 715-9332 for other concerns.

(Moje is president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp. She awaits your reactions at moje@mydestiny.net)

Thursday, May 5, 2005

When ‘kalamansi’ turns to gold

THE MANILA TIMES
Business Times p.B3
Thursday, May 05, 2005
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/may/05/yehey/business/20050505bus13.html

LEARNING & INNOVATION
By Moje Ramos-Aquino, FPM
When ‘kalamansi’ turns to gold


THERE are many things I love about summer—light traffic, seasonal fruits like watermelons, different varieties of mangoes, sineguelas, langka, singkamas, melons, cantaloupes, mabolo, makopa, duhat, pomelo, durian and many others.

What I am very uncomfortable with summer is the soaring temperature. Gosh, the heat really gets inside your skin. I am also developing allergy to dust and the heat. My nose continuously runs and I sneeze at a rapid fire rate.

I am thinking, what products and services could tap these opportunities and address concerns? I received this mail from a budding entrepreneur who just might have the solution for my woes.

Lucy and Nomer Landayan assert that their Saint Claire Honeymansi definitely makes for a refreshing drink and its abundant Vitamin C content, according to health experts, could protect us from respiratory ailments.

Lucy, Nomer and their helpers have been producing delicious honeymansi for three years now from their house. They are awaiting the approval of the Bureau of Food and Drugs in order to market their product in supermarkets and groceries nationwide. Right now, they only do direct selling.

Their mission is to provide Filipinos with all-natural, thirst-quenching, freshly squeezed juice drink. Their competitive edge is that their product has no preservatives.

While the absence of preservatives gives their product shorter shelf-life (six months if refrigerated) compared to competitors’ products, they are able to establish a niche among more discriminating and health-conscious customers.

Thus, their marketing strategy is direct selling. They cater to private and government office workers. They have informal distributors in many offices.

Another key value-creating process is the sourcing of the right size, type and maturity of kalamansi. If the fruit is too ripe (yellowish), the taste is sweetish. So far, they discovered that the really sour kalamansi comes from Bicol and Davao. Lucy says that the ones from Nueva Ecija are not as sour and leave a bitter aftertaste. Likewise, it is important, according to Lucy, to use the proper container, size and material. They find the PET bottles to be just right.

Finally, since they like to preserve the nutrients in kalamansi, they never boil the kalamansi juice. The extract is added after cooling boiled water and honey and just before bottling.

In the end, Lucy and Nomer measure their success not only with a positive return on investment, neat profit after tax, repeat sales and growing new customers, but also in terms of maintaining consistent quality and taste of their product and giving employment opportunities to their neighbors. Lucy and Nomer have, indeed, turned green kalamansi into a profitable business and hope to strike gold when they get their BFAD permit.

Mother’s Pride. My sons have just rewarded me priceless gifts I will always treasure and will form a special part in my memory bank for my retirement. Ronjie, a civil engineer, is on a two-month scholarship on wind engineering at the Tokyo Polytechnic University. At the same time, he is doing research for his thesis to complete his graduate studies at the University of the Philippines, majoring in structural engineering. He works with Vibrametrics, Inc. Most of all, he is enjoying living on his own.

Adrian is one of the carefully selected recipients of the Country Business Manager Award for Service Excellence at Citibank for being an exemplary trainer and for outstanding performance and service above self. Adrian is passionate about lifelong learning which he is able to impart to his trainees. He is also working toward an MBA at de la Salle University.

These are more than all the material gifts they could buy for me. These are blessings. Next year, I wish to have daughters-in-law and grandchildren (Hint! Hint!).

Congratulations also to Cynthia and Bon Asis, whose son Paolo graduated summa cum laude, Electronics and Communications Engineering at the University of the Philippines.

(Moje is president of Paradigms & Paradoxes Corp. and her e-mail address is moje@mydestiny.net)