Solar America Cities

WBIR reported that Knoxville has been named one of twelve 2008 Solar America Cities. (Thanks to Suzy Trotta for the link.). Interesting list of cities. I would have expected more California cities and at least one city from New Jersey (both states have high subsidies for solar installations). If the goal is to spread solar discipline, though, the cities make sense. Good for Knoxville to have. I truly hope we can achieve implementation of viable solar power generation.

Personally, I believe that the distribution of solar generation, per households, has the most promise. All those empty rooftops call out for power generation capability.

Bobsledding - the new backseat driving

I heard a great term the other day, which I had never heard, and represents the further evolution of cubical culture. While working with a client, we were referring to the "help" that you can get from others. This sort of help where you time is monopolized by people who simply want to get you to do their work and only their work, and they are going to stay until their work is done. The term was "Bobsledding" and conjures instant images of the two chairs back to front in a cube. I have been both a victim and victimizer of this technique. I thought this was a great term.

When the situation is ambiguous, do the right thing

"When the situation is ambiguous, do the right thing". On first reading, this phrase is pretty simple, yet the depth of meaning is there. Ambiguous situations exist in all walks of life, and there are plenty of opportunities to use the ambiguity of a situation to take advantage for personal gain of some kind. This is the most onerous of reactions. A second reaction, most commonly practiced, is the passive wait. In this reaction, the person simply waits until the ambiguous situation is resolved or they are "told what to do". I have seen both of these situations in companies which I have been a part and in companies where I have consulted.

This phrase, when practiced, forces a person to confront the ambiguity and also to define what the right thing is. The definition of right most often follows the ethos of God, Family, self in personal settings, or Ethics, customer, co-workers, self in a business setting. Then, the person must act within the confines of these definitions. The right actions within ambiguity and the elimination of ambiguity is one of the best things we can do as leaders, managers and people.

The Secondary Effects of Transformation

Our company (The Center for Business Transformation) is focused on helping business improve their business processes and transform how they run their business and how they ensure the success of their people. The action of transforming a company is extremely exciting. I have both consulted and been through a transformation at CTI Molecular Imaging (now part of Siemens Medical Systems). One aspect of transformation has always fascinated me, the aspect of secondary effects.

The secondary effects of transformation are exhibited in areas not directly under transformation. Our direct transformation efforts focus on operational improvement, sales improvement, supplier and customer relations and company management development. The effects seen, though, extend throughout all aspects of a company undergoing transformation. I believe the motivation for these secondary effects comes from the fact that, once improvement starts in a company, that the entire company becomes engaged in improvement. The company learns to positively question all aspects of the company and work to excel.

A classic example of this occurred at a client recently. The company in in the midst of transformation, with a focus on operations and business management. Improvement, though, was driven throughout their HR department, as they started asking and answering the right questions out how their HR processes worked. Significant improvement in retention, employee happiness and benefits were realized. The improvement in operations and business management had a lot to do with the improvements in HR, as measured by the employees, but a concerted effort in HR also yielded dramatic improvements.

Solar System Comparisons - A Start

I spent some time reviewing information on solar power generation systems, last week. I have found it confusing to compare all the different types, so I generated a quick metric which shows the energy generated per size of panel. The additional metric which I would love to add is the cost per watt of the panel. More to follow on this. I know that there are a lot of components to system cost, but these simple metrics allow a quick view into the overall cost estimate.

My blog does not support attachments, so I have added the comma delimited information from the excel file below. Simply cut and paste into notepad, then save. Open with Excel.


,,,,English,,,Metric,,,,,,,,,
Type,PN,Technology,Peak Power (W),H (in.),W (in.),Area (in2),H (cm),W (cm),Area (cm2),Weight per panel,Power,Claimed Efficiency,Power per in2,,Commercial,$4.6 per kW
Sharp Solar 216 W,ND-216U1F,Poly-Crystalline Silicon,216,64.6,39.1,2525.9,,,,,,13.30%,0.085515428,,,
BP Solar,SX 3200 B,,200,,,2179.6,168.0,83.7,14061.6,,,,0.091761962,,,
SunPower,SPR-215-WHT,Monocrystalline Silicon,215,61.39,31.42,1928.9,,,,,,17.30%,0.111464006,,,
Evergreen Solar,Spruce 195,,195,61.8,37.5,2317.5,,,,,,,0.084142395,,,
Kyocera,KD205GX-LP,,205,59.1,39,2304.9,,,,,,16%,0.088940952,,,
GE,,Poly-Crystalline Silicon,200,58.5,38.6,2258.1,,,,,,,0.088570037,,,
NanoSolar,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Uni-Solar,ES-62,,64,49.5,31.25,1546.9,,,,,,,0.041373737,,,

Operation's Role - Support Sales

As the roles of the various groups within a company are reviewed, we find that all too often, the Operations groups forget their role. Operations, in my definition, consists of procurement, stored, manufacturing and shipping. The core definition of these areas is to obtain, build and ship high quality products on-time, every time. The interface to Sales is the link most conveniently forgotten link, and with this loss come a litany of excuses. "It will cost too much....", "That will take too much inventory....", "We are understaffed to handle that....". The list goes on and on. There are many reasons why company relationships between Sales and Operations is allowed to decline, none of which are acceptable for the long term health of the customer relationship, and ultimately, the long term health of the company performance.

I propose a different relationship be established, one where the goal of operations is to exceed the performance expectations of Sales. In this type of relationship, Sales will ask for the impossible. My automatic answer is not "Yes", but is at least, " We will analze and let you know". After this answer, a real and agressive analysis of operational capability to fulfill the Sales desire must follow. The answer may still be "No", but alternatives can be presented to Sales, which will give them a lot more answers than they would have had originally. You have then turned Sales into the internal engine which is driving improvement in the Operations group. Being willing to be challenged and to work toward solutions is the first step to excellence.

I have personally setup and seen in action such an operations group. Our first response was to find a way to help Sales succeed, instead of saying "No", as a test of Sales resolve. Often the sales opportunity evaporates, yet the strength of the relationship with sales is improved each time an opportunity can be filled. In the end, Sales knows that they can count on the Operations group to do its absolute best to help them and entire company win. The result is far happier customers and far less organizational energy consumed in internal strife.

By no means is the generation of this type of group or relationship easy, but it is worth the effort to implement and the continous effort to maintain. It takes humble but agressive leadership of Operations and understanding in Sales to achieve this level of achievement.

More information on the movement of European Manufacturing to the U.S.

There is another NPR Article on European manufacturing moving to the U.S. both large and small companies are reviewing it, according to the article (BMW being the large company). Interesting in that this seems to be a trend that NPR is following (ok, ok, two data points do not necessarily make a trend). Will keep my eyes open for more articles and news.

My Original blog posting.

Interesting Post on Trust, by Steve Rubel

Through a twitter, Steve Rubel linked into his post on trust. Thought is was of general interest. His approach is toward data integrity in digital business startups, but the concept holds for all business.