Now,let's consider two types of mistake that canoccur when a manager actually starts to set up aduplicate system to replicate a successfulprocess.Firstly,perhaps he forgets that he was justtrying to copy another process,and starts trying toimprove on it.Another mistake is trying to use thebest parts of various different systems,in the hopeof creating the perfect combination.
Unfortunately,attempts like these usually turn out tobe misguided and lead to problems.Why?Well,forvarious reasons.Perhaps there weren't really anyadvantages after all,because the information wasn't accurate.Or perhaps the business settingsweren't really comparable.More typically,the advantages are real enough,but there are alsodisadvantages that have been overlooked.For example,the modifications might compromisesafety in some way.
So,what's the solution?Well,I don't intend to suggest that it's easy to get things right thesecond time...it's not.But the underlying problem has more to do with attitudes than theactual difficulty of the task,and there are ways of getting it right.These involve adjustingattitudes,first of all...being more realistic and cautious really.Secondly,they involve exertingstrict controls on the organisational and operational systems.And this in turn means copyingthe original as closely as possible.Not merely duplicating the physical characteristics of thefactory,but also duplicating the skills that the original employees had.Reliance on a templatelike this offers the huge advantage of built-in consistency.