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Have you read Forrest Breyfogle’s new book on Integrated Enterprise Excellence? Thoughts/comments?

Written by: Jon Hansen

Article Overview: Member Question: I recently read one of Forrest Breyfogle’s new books in his 4 book-volume series on the Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) System; i.e., "The Integrated Enterprise Excellence System: An Enhanced, Unified Approach to Balanced Scorecards, Strategic Planning, and Business Improvement." The subtitle to this book describes what is covered in varying details in the other three volumes. My sense is that Breyfogle has pushed his (and our) thinking to the next level and addressed issues that many of us struggle with regarding Continuous Improvement efforts. His “Integrated Enterprise” thinking makes sense to me, what are your thoughts or feedback?

Have you read Forrest Breyfogle’s new book on Integrated Enterprise Excellence? Thoughts/comments?

The fruit of the poisonous tree.

A telling statement regarding IEE is as follows:

"IEE is a system of checks and balances that will stay in place regardless of management continuity, changes in competitive conditions, or the economic climate."

This is textbook equation-based modeling whether in the form of Six Sigma or SCOR or for that matter any model which attempts to establish an absolute standard in which success is based on the organization adapting to the model versus the model adapting to the organization.

It doesn't work as the standards by which these checks and balances are based, specifically their sustainable veracity, begins to degenerate from the very moment they are first established as static attributes of a sound process.

I have provided a link to a recent article I wrote titled Similarity Heuristics, Iterative methodologies and the Emergence of the Modern Supply Chain.

This should serve as a solid starting point for drilling down into the specifics of why the IEE theory is inherently flawed.

However, and as I tell my audiences at every conference I speak, to be considered successful I have to inspire you to think outside of the framework of that with which you are most familiar and most comfortable.

This means that you do not take what I have to say for granted or accept it as being gospel. Instead with the tools that are available (i.e. Google) you should challenge everything because no one has all the answers.

Even Jim Collins who wrote what I consider to be breakthrough books (Built to Last and Good to Great) has his detractors.

The fact is that any research and its resultant findings must be constantly challenged. If they are right, they will stand the sustainable light of scrutiny (note the word sustainable).

A good portion of my research has been funded by the Government of Canada's Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Program. During the years of testing and retesting a number of theories including strand commonality and the existence of commodity characteristics, a healthy balance between skepticism and enthusiasm has served me well.

This being said, the dichotomy between futuristic visionaries and the belt-with-suspenders-number-crunchers is one of the most critical elements in defining the success or failure of any model.

I wrote an article titled Bridging the Communication Gap between Finance and Purchasing which was then followed by a supplemental piece which provided specific references to several points of disconnection between finance and purchasing. (Note: I refer to purchasing/supply chain as 85% of all ERP/eProcurement initiatives world-wide fail to deliver the expected results.)

The question is why? And a statistic which stands out as one of the key reasons can be found in this excerpt:

A May 4th, 2006 article titled How to Speak Like a CFO stressed that "Too often, finance executives in Corporate America simply don't believe that purchasing departments are really bringing in the savings they claim. That may be because finance and purchasing don't speak the same language."

For example, the finance department isn't interested in cost avoidance. They are interested in hard cost savings. This is perhaps one of the main reasons why a recent study revealed that of the 11.9% of average identified savings presented by the purchasing department, only 3.2% actually gets booked by the finance department - a difference of 73% from identification to realization.

A 73% difference! The problem with most models that are offered as the framework for "best practices" is that they attempt to standardize on a single stakeholder stream of attributes. This then creates stakeholder conflicts at the operational level that has historically been at the root of organizational vacillation between a focus on top line and bottom line objectives.

Therefore, and given the increasing importance and influence of supply chain practice, until the 85% rate of failure has been reversed can any model claim to be truly successful from a collective outcome perspective?

Note: to obtain corresponding reference materials, please contact the author.

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Article Tags: breakthrough books, checks and balances, continuity, detractors, economic climate, ed program, emergence, experimental development, fruit of the poisonous tree, google, government of canada, jim collins, methodologies, recent article, scor, similarity, six sigma, specifics, system of checks and balances, veracity



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