DTE and their consultants had the represented
workforce, and others, collecting and submitting cost savings ideas focused
primarily (on the represented side) in the area of their own specific jobs.
This may have been a too narrow focus as evidenced by the fact there were about
4500 ideas collected and not a lot of information supporting substantial
savings. (as of about April Fools Day). The input by a
large majority of employees (thousands of people) and 10 of thousands of hours
involved over the 6 or 8 month process to this point, may have cost as much, or
more than the first year savings when you factor in the considerable fees of
the 3 or 4 consulting firms involved.
Personally I didn't get to be involved with
as much of the process, or make as many visits to the Service Centers as I
would have liked because I was often engaged elsewhere. I had about 15 savings
opportunities I thought were significant, however faced with considerable time
constraints, and other issues, consequently I didn't get to research most of
them. The handful I did complete should demonstrate what might have been
achievable had DTE and the consultants not had everyone on such a narrow focus.
If everyone had been focused more globally, enterprise wide, we might have have
been able to generate ideas making a difference of billions to the bottom line
over a 5 year period. (in Nov. 2005 effects of the process was stated as
lasting through 2010)
The 5 cost saving ideas I did get to
research could affect DTE's bottom line in excess of
a half billion dollars, should DTE choose to pursue the ideas. Previous
experience tells me that isn't likely to happen, as in the words of one of my
Union brothers, DTE often spends dollars trying to save dimes. Couple with
that, the fact these ideas came from a source DTE rarely acknowledges as having
meaningful ideas.
One thing to remember, DTE, or any company,
can take an idea and do a minimum of 2 things with it. If it's something the
company is in favor of, they can prove it successful regardless of it’s merit or potential to save money. On the other hand,
someone can offer them the grandest idea since the light bulb, but if it's an
idea they don't want to pursue, or if it was tabled by the wrong people, the
Company can prove it unworkable, and/or unprofitable and squash any real
potential it may have. Much will depend on how vigorously the Company pursues
the ideas, and the person or persons assigned. If the players aren't totally
dedicated and committed to embracing the opportunity, it will go nowhere.
Really good ideas, might resurface later with a slightly different spin and and
someone else's name attached.
My initial guess was that over the last 5-6
years DTE spent over 200 million dollars on consultants. I have since learned
that since 1999 that figure may be over 300 million. If the other consultants
rose to the same level of incompetence as those currently onsite appear to have
risen to, we've wasted a lot of money. Either the consultants are grossly
incompetent, or they never were looking for significant savings, which could
very well be the case. One of the process pieces I was involved with actually
suggests this could have been the case.
For example we were asked to put together a
list of duties we routinely perform and the time, by percentage, we typically
spend on each of the job functions per year. I made the list of Stores duties
as comprehensive as I possibly could, and was just as diligent about putting
accurate percentages devoted to each.
When I gave it to the consultant, he told me
I had too much information and too much detail, following with, they didn't
need all that. Given where the PEP process has taken us, I now understand his
dilemma at being given so much information with considerable detail.
It may have been DTE’s
consultants didn't want the whole picture because they only wanted enough
information to establish a set of basic duties, thus it would be like taking a
stroll by the Stores window, looking in and seeing 2 people engaged in primary
duties and 2 engaged in other duties, then saying only 2 workers were busy with
Stores work, so we can cut the other 2.
What better way to help justify the need to
cut heads than by collecting thousands of ideas, yet fail to find any
significant savings, then disregard all the duties one does in the performance
of their job that might help justify their need? Then essentially lock Union
members out of the process once the ideas are collected and the evaluation
process begins, and you have the makings of a process, that
from the Union perspective, can best be regarded as suspicious. The information
can easily be molded behind closed doors by DTE and their consultants to say
whatever they desire it to say.
As stated earlier in the Introduction, Union
Members were there for the idea collection process representing the bargaining units, and as eyes and ears for the Local and to lend expert
support to the respective teams as Subject Matter Experts. It’s highly
suspicious that the experts were no longer needed once the ideas were collected
and the feasibility of the ideas were being evaluated.
Cutting heads or shaving heads by the way
were the words of a not too sympathetic D.O. Supervisor at Trombly who told his
workers back in November or December, cutting or shaving heads is what the PEP
was designed to bring to them.
The workers were highly upset and called me
while I was sitting across from the D.O. team lead, who at the time, was trying
to romance Stores and Motor Trans into joining his team. This wasn't the lone
incident of this type. I received numerous complaints from other locations
about a number of Supervisors upsetting the membership by telling them their
jobs were going away, they were going to be laid off, half their jobs were
going to be cut, they were going to end up on the streets and similar remarks.
In stressful times, it's comments like these
that cause unstable and volatile situations to boil over and erupt into more
dangerous situations. It appears much of this is being done across the board,
so I hope Supervision hasn't been doing this with the expectation someone will
get angry enough to get themselves disciplined or
fired.
During the merger we were involved with a
number of consultants on numerous issues. Even afterwards we have continued having
consultants coming in, up to and including the ones onsite today. From my
involvement with them, one thing I have noticed is most bring little new
information or ideas to the table. Most of the current new ideas came from
actual experts. I mean the real experts, the ones that do the work and know
what's involved, inside and out.
DTE could save 10's of millions a year,
maybe as much as $200-$250 million or more over the next 5, by going to the
workers to ask questions and get expert information instead of hiring
consultants to ask the employees and potentially provide skewed information
that may be modified to suit the consultants agenda.
One of my coworkers said the consultants were
even taking part in conference calls during a storm recently. Maybe DTE should
hire people that knows how to run a company instead of
having to bring in so many consultants to tell them what to do. With 9
presidents and at least 27 vice presidents, one would think they should have
the collective knowledge to know how to run the Company without consultants. If
they don't know, an obvious question then would be,
why do we have them?