Dear friends and regular readers of Good Morning Yesterday. I am very happy to announce that I have just published my first book, something I have always wanted to do. The title of my book is ideas@work and it is available at the online bookstore Lulu.com. It is about how to manage the suggestions programme or what is more popularly known here in Singapore as the Staff Suggestion Scheme or SSS. I have written a more detailed article about this book in my other blog; My 5S Corner.
I should explain why I chose to publish my book on Lulu.com and not through a local publisher. The main reason is that the Singapore market is too small and I doubt any publisher would want to publish my book here. Unfortunately, going the ‘Lulu.com route’ pushes up the price considerably especially for Singapore buyers. This is because at Lulu.com, the books are manufactured on a Print-on-Demand mode.
I want to take this opportunity to thank some people. Besides the three Japanese experts who taught me about Japanese management concepts, Mr Hajime Suzuki, Mr Motomu Baba and the late Mr Kazuo Tsuchiya, I should thank three Singapore friends. They are Mr Koo Sem Khen, Chia Yew Heng and Peh Seng Ket.
Koo Sem Khen, or Koo-san as friends would call him, was formerly manager of the TQC promotion office at Matsushita Electronics (Mesa). I remember one occasion back in 1987 or thereabouts, when my employers the National Productivity Board wanted to send me to Penang to conduct a seminar on SSS for the Malaysian Productivity Association. At that time, I was still quite new at this and wasn’t very confident. I remember Koo-san actually coming to my house on the night before my trip to share with me about the SSS at Mesa. He was very proud of his company’s SSS calling it the ‘kingpin’ of their TQC movement.
The second gentleman is my old friend from my NPB days, Chia Yew Heng. Chia and I both went to Japan for our Productivity Development Project Fellowship training in 1985. After he left NPB, he worked as the training manager of TIBS; doubling as their productivity manager and taking charge of their SSS. I gave his managers a talk about SSS and gave him advice on how to manage and promote their SSS. Subsequently he went on to CIAS where he held a similar appointment. Whilst working with him on their SSS at TIBS, I gathered quite a bit of information from him.
The third person is another old friend, Peh Seng Ket who was head of the SSS secretariat at ODE. Likewise, I did some training for them and also worked with him and learnt a lot from him about how their suggestion system.
They say that a consultant is a person who borrows your watch, tells you the time and then walks away with it. I should thank these three old friends for their fine watches.
As I turn the bend on the last stretch of my career, I want to move away from ‘hardcore’ training and consultancy (which is very energy-sapping) and do more writing. Hence, regardless of whether or not my first book sells, I aim, God willing, to write two more books. One will be on my pet subject, 5S, and the second I have not decided. Maybe with all the interest in Productivity being stirring up in Singapore lately, I will write something on this subject.
My book is listed at Lulu.com online bookstore here.
Seiso is Cleaning (1) – The Importance of Seiso
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The third ‘S’ in 5S is *Seiso*; and it simply means *Cleaning*.
*Example 1: Our beloved AR-15*
Many of us who have gone through NS (National Service) will ...