Glasgow, what is World Class Mail?

[fishtank]

WCM in D.O's before the end of the financial year is the info my DOM has been given recently.

Can we not aim lower and work our way up to a World Title?
I vote for starting with Village Class Mail and see how we perform at that level.

[dvbuk55]

WCM in D.O's before the end of the financial year is the info my DOM has been given recently.

Can we not aim lower and work our way up to a World Title?
I vote for starting with Village Class Mail and see how we perform at that level.

TBH a couple of us had a chat about WCM and although we had heard of it none of us knew what it was exactly.

I approached the DOM to ask him what it was and his reply to me was more or less on the lines that it was a system whereby every office was designed in the same fashion, set out the same way, with uniform working practices I thought that was the idea of collective bargaining but obviously the japanese bloke who came up with the idea knows best.

When I was with another company they adopted the japanese system of "just in time" for stock. The idea being that you did not order to a specific number, ie, holding say 30 days, 20 days stock or whatever was considered necessary to maintain service but only ordered it as and when required - it didn't work because the infrastructure wasn't in place. For arguments sake say you normally ordered a pallet of whatever, that was worth shipping, then your order went down to 2 items - the the distributor would hold it until it was worth while to ship with a larger order in the same area - in the meantime you ran out.

[fishtank]

World class mail

Our World Class Mail programme (or WCM) is already starting to revolutionise the way we work. Through this initiative, we are introducing new techniques to help our people improve safety, productivity and quality across everything we do. WCM is a comprehensive system of continuous improvement. It works by giving each individual the freedom as well as the responsibility to use the techniques to improve the way we do things, from small, practical efficiencies to large overhauls of major processes. When a suggestion turns into a better way of working, we then share that best practice across Royal Mail, helping every part of our operation to be the best they can as we learn by the examples we set for each other.

Through adopting this sensible and structured approach, we are seeing measurable improvements already. We have collected over 1,000 improvement ideas from colleagues, many of which have already been put into action. We calculate that we've saved £1.5m over the course of 16 major World Class Mail projects. We're recycling more, reducing accidents, improving productivity, delivering to a higher quality - and giving people a reason to be very proud of what they've accomplished. This fundamental shift in our way of thinking as a business is positioning us for success in a more competitive future.

Opportunities to strengthen our business are everywhere and we encourage everyone on our team to spot and share potential improvements. Our main areas of focus are commercial transformation, operations transformation and people transformation. We believe that through building an engaged, flexible and well-rewarded workforce, we can meet our goals to deliver £500m of new revenue while becoming the UK's lowest-cost operator, without compromising on quality - within the next five years.

These plans are incredibly ambitious. Only through the hard work and dedication of our people will we achieve everything we want to. To make sure they can continue to provide a fantastic service to our customers and be fulfilled in their important jobs, we continually develop and improve our relationships with each and every one of them.

To me it just sounds like a very expensive employee suggestion programme.

[dvbuk55]

Put that way ft, it sounds like a crock of crap. The devil is in the detail of course, how are they ever going to implement it? They can't even implement AGREED changes - so I would imagine there would be some reluctance in the usual areas to an ad hoc system of "well it works in nomansland so it will be OK everywhere".

[DGP1]

To me it just sounds like a very expensive employee suggestion programme

It would do if they actually listened to their employees

[clashcityrocker]

Opportunities to strengthen our business are everywhere and we encourage everyone on our team to spot and share potential improvements. Our main areas of focus are commercial transformation, operations transformation and people transformation.

So if we all suggested "lapsing" every line manager's duty - they would consider it?

[dvbuk55]

Opportunities to strengthen our business are everywhere and we encourage everyone on our team to spot and share potential improvements. Our main areas of focus are commercial transformation, operations transformation and people transformation.

So if we all suggested "lapsing" every line manager's duty - they would consider it?

Probably - well for at least 10 seconds they are hardly likely to do away with their lap dog class.

[fishtank]

I don't see anything wrong in the theory behind trying to reduce accidents,improve recycling and quality...productivity/performance,well that tends to be a contentious issue and maybe people who design posters and apply sticky tape for a living are not best placed to quantify either.
You also have to question whether a closed WCM team which appears to be the model might come up with 10 good ideas the first month,5 the second,1 the third month and then completely run out off steam.
I would imagine ideas from the floor will be thin on the ground if.a) it increases workload and b) it puts jobs or earnings at risk....that's human nature where "big pictures" are a luxury.

It's the whole "lets pay some guy a fortune to tell us the bloody obvious" mentality of WCM i don't get.
Are our senior managers so poor that they couldn't have put this together themselves?

[Tman]

Senior managers are all crapping themselves that they might be gone by Xmas, so rocking the boat re the current flavour of the month, is hardly sensible or conducive to individuals' long term employment.

Like most RM initiatives, it's never pursued or pushed enough to make any worth-while difference at the so-called sharp end, and usually are quietly dropped ASAP, as this will undoubtedly be in the very near future.
Great though painting yellow lines and multi-coloured machines may be to some, it's hardly going to pay for it's own launch let alone bring savings long-term, although some have argued that British Gypsum didn't see any noticeable improvement either...

[clashcityrocker]

Senior managers are all crapping themselves that they might be gone by Xmas, so rocking the boat re the current flavour of the month, is hardly sensible or conducive to individuals' long term employment.

What about their personal integrity?

[DGP1]

Senior managers are all crapping themselves that they might be gone by Xmas, so rocking the boat re the current flavour of the month, is hardly sensible or conducive to individuals' long term employment.

What about their personal integrity?

[music4essex]

[quote]""though some have argued that British Gypsum didn't see any noticeable improvement either... te]"

Well as the headquaters of British Gypsum is in the south of the TN Area I cannot see WCM coming in anytime in the future if a particular office has to go by, I would bet the senior managers would go first lol

Essex mum