DILEMMA BETWEEN COMPETENCIES AND COMPETITIVITY
Building skills to transform the company into a DDAE: Demand Driven Adaptive Enterprise
discovery workshop
skill buffers
Excerpted from Appendix A
p. 185, The Demand Driven Adaptive Enterprise by Carol Ptak and Chad Smith (Industrial Press, 2018)
The Demand Driven Skills Model
www.themissinglinks.info by Caroline MONDON
Much has been written about how a Demand Driven Operating Model (DDOM) protects and promotes flow with stock, time, and capacity buffers in companies facing competition in today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. What about the people and skills that it takes to operate, support, and adapt a DDOM?
Too many businesses experience symptoms of flow disruption due to missing skills at critical times. Depending on how often and how long it takes to find an alternative, skills scarcities are like bottlenecks, obstructing a company’s profitability, growth, and capability to innovate.
In order to anticipate future flow blockages due to missing skills, decisions to finance hiring or training for specific skills are taken at the strategic level, with feedback loops at the tactical level to secure implementation. A visual approach to priorities can be used in a similar fashion as stock, time and capacity buffers. Assessment of the company's buffer enables monitoring of the progress in change management.
The Demand Driven Skills Model (DDSM)
Used in combination with the DDOM, the DDSM allows visualization of where, in its own complex system of departments and workshops, a company must invest to protect its flow (figure 1).
To acquire and maintain the essential resource of human skill, the DDSM addresses where the priorities are by means of a fourth buffer type, a skill buffer, to be used in combination with the other buffers of the DDOM.
Fig.1 : Example of a DDSM combined with its DDOM including a Drum Buffer Rope, during DDI trainings
The Skill Buffer Symbol
The symbol for the skill buffer is a head shown in profile, facing left (when no training is in progress) or right (when training is in process); red, yellow, or green in colour; marked with a number from 1.0 to 4.0. Red means there is a short-term risk to flow if only one employee can manage 100% of processes related to the skill. Yellow anticipates a risk of insufficient contingency for variability. Green means all is good.
This first step is the visual approach to gaining missing skills per department. As a second step, when a company has gained maturity in protecting flow, the colors can be used to show internal trainers’ availability to teach innovation that will promote flow in each of the key processes of the company.
The Multiskills Matrix
The numbers shown in the skill buffer symbol derive from a simple calculation based on the Multiskills Matrix (figure 2). This grid describes the level of skill each employee can demonstrate for any function.
All the functions will be listed in order to encompass all the processes of the company.
Fig.2 : The four levels of skill in the Multiskills Matrix
The requirements for each level must be customized to each company’s activity and maturity.
The number shown on the skill buffer symbol indicates the average level of employee skill, calculated using the green squares, that a group of skills, a function or a department can demonstrate.
As with all Demand Driven buffers, color is considered first. Then, within the highest priority color, strategic decisions about training plan priorities start with the group of functions having the lowest number.
Fig.3 : DDSM promoting innovation: calculation for two departments shown in Fig.1 before DDI trainings
skill buffers
étude de cas
capE TOWN - SOUTH AFRICA
08 juin 2025
skill buffers
étude de cas
frankfurt - allemagne
17 octobre 2024
skill buffers
atelier
frankfurt - allemagne
15 octobre 2024
skill buffers
découverte
amsterdam - pays-bas
10 octobre 2019
skill buffers
conférence
bad nauheim - allemagne
02 octobre 2024
skill buffers
découverte
minneapolis - usa
10 avril 2019
skill buffers
étude de cas
bordeaux - france
12 mai 2022
découverte
des skills buffers
tanger - maroc
14 mars 2019
Project started on site on March 2019 in Oregon, West USA.
Update August 2024.
We continue to track our DDSM progress in a monthly meeting with our Production Supervisor Team.
We’ve added some new equipment, quite a few people and also a supervisor this year, so the Skills Buffer status helps us identify where we need to focus our training efforts. Progress is sometimes slow, but the visibility the Skills Buffer provides is an important piece of information for us.
I’m grateful we have this in place. Craig JOLLY
Project started with a DDSM workshop on April 2019, in Minneapolis USA with Juan Camilo TRUJILLO and John MELBYE both DDI Affiliates.
Implemented by the team of WA solutions, on line, from end of 2019 to end of 2021.
Let us listen to Juan (to be completed)
Juan Camilo TRUJILLO
CEO of WA solutions
Same
DDWorld 2024
The project began with an AEF (Adaptive Enterprise Foundation) training course in July 2017 at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon France during the FAPICS - DD World congress.
Etude de cas
Hassan HAYOUN
Directeur Supply Chain
The DDSM project began in Mitry with 2 DDSM workshops in February and May 2022 for 14 managers. It was repeated in October 2024 with 5 managers from Mitry and 1 from the AL group.
Demand Driven Skills Model
Groupe 1 Air Liquide Mitry
Février 2022
Demand Driven Skills Model
Groupe 2 Air Liquide Mitry
Mai 2022
Demand Driven Skills Model
Groupe 3 Air Liquide Mitry
Octobre 2024 à janvier 2025
Pod cast du dirigeant de YELHOW
Le flux de compétence facteur clé d’une croissance pérenne de l’entreprise
Dans ce nouvel épisode des VISCONTI TALKS, Caroline MONDON, partner coach chez VISCONTI, reçoit Baptiste GENDRON, fondateur et dirigeant de la société Yelhow, éditeur de logiciels qui propose des applications mobiles et web sur étagère pour les femmes et les hommes de terrain de l’industrie, afin de les aider dans leur quotidien. Baptiste GENDRON est ingénieur de formation, sérial entrepreneur depuis 15 ans dans l’industrie ou il a notamment conçu et développé la solution de tests et essais du dernier avion d’Airbus l’A350 ou encore développé des systèmes d’hypervision 4D pour les centres de commande spatiaux. Il nous explique comment avec YELHOW, il contribue à rendre les entreprises plus performantes et résilientes en mettant en adéquation leur savoir faire et leurs ressources humaines avec leur stratégie de développement, grâce à un traitement en temps réel des informations du terrain pour avoir les bonnes personnes bien formées, au bon endroit et au bon moment.
