Denis Leonard has a degree in construction engineering an M.B.A. and a Ph.D. in quality management. Denis is a Fellow of the American Society for Quality, a Certified Quality Manager, Auditor and Six Sigma Black Belt. He has been an Examiner for the Baldrige National Quality Award Board of Examiners a Judge on the International Team Excellence Competition and a Lead Judge on the National Housing Quality Award. A former Professor of Quality at the University of Wisconsin, he has experience as a quality manager in the homebuilding industry as well as construction engineer, site manager and in training, auditing and consulting with expertise in strategic and operational quality improvement initiatives. His work has achieved national quality, environmental and safety management awards for clients.
Denis is co-author of 'The Executive Guide to Understanding and Implementing the Baldrige Criteria: Improve Revenue and Create Organizational Excellence'.
The focus is the customer, it’s about their needs and wants. Sometimes when we try to improve our customer focus and we try to achieve a ‘wow factor’ we actually just add fluff, which at best is window dressing which doesn’t do any harm, but nor does it have benefit and it still adds cost and time. But in the worst case adding fluff can lose you a...
Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a tool that can assist in identifying where your areas of risk lie and helps structure solutions.
By using a table list, key steps in your process i.e. either a project or at the highest level, the core functions of your business. Against each of these steps note what the particular failures might be....
In 1989 Warren Bennis published ‘On Becoming a Leader’ which became a key leadership book. He stated that leaders “know who they are, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to fully deploy their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.” The key of course is compensating for weaknesses, not ignoring them.
The honest study of the...
The Belbin team roles are used to help create effective and balanced teams. Few individuals are strong in all of these roles, so ensuring you have a good mix on a team can make a real difference. It also needs to be noted that each role has its own strengths and weakness.
Investigator: Communicator, explores opportunities
Shaper: Dynamic...
The Lean Enterprise Institute surveys show that 36% of companies attempting lean give up the efforts. Customer Relationship Magazine cites 60% of six sigma programs fail to give desired results. The problem is not the tools it is the approach that has caused the problems and frankly the approach would cause any project to fail.
1. ...
A key aspect of quality management is the importance we place on employees, valuing people. We spend a significant amount of time and money officially sending this message to our team, espousing this pillar of quality. Yet, while doing this, we often directly contradict this by sending a clearer and longer lasting message. Let me give you a few...
Being creative and innovative is something that is widely touted, but how do we actually do it?
This may be needed for a particular issue during land development, most certainly necessary during design and of course during construction. In todays economy cutting costs is a constant factor and to do this whether you are using lean, value...
A Risk Management Benchmarking Survey in 2010 showed that 65% of businesses conduct no form of risk analysis prior to making major corporate decisions. While on 42% have any form of risk management audits or procedures. However, a study in the Accenture Global Risk Management Study in 2011 showed that for 98% risk was now seen as a higher priority...
Construction projects are complex in nature and prone to cost and schedule overruns. A significant factor that often contributes to such overruns is rework.
Rework is defined as the ‘unnecessary effort of redoing a process or activity that was incorrectly implemented the first time.’
Design changes, errors and omissions account...
Flat, team based and empowered organizations have the potential to out-perform tall hierarchical organizations in most every competitive industry and that includes home building! I have always enjoyed conversations on business improvement with Tom Gillespie, a NHQ Award winning builder, NHQA Judge and consultant. In this blog Tom engages us in a...
The 2012 NAHB study “What Home Buyers Really Want” shows a decided preference for crown moldings. Sixty-two percent of respondents rated crown moldings the third most...
Seattle architect Ross Chapin knows all about designing smaller, smarter homes. Chapin, principal of Ross Chapin Architects, Langley, Wash., has long been a proponent of...
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