Quorum

In law, a quorum is the minimum number of members of a deliberative body necessary to conduct the business of that group. In this case, an example of a quorum is the entire jury present in a court room for the purpose of attending to a court case. However, in a business or manufacturing industry setting - which are settings we are more concerned with here – a quorum means the same thing but can be defined as the number of people required to be present at a board meeting or something similar at any given time. Basically, this is a majority of the people expected to be there, although bodies or businesses may have a lower or higher quorum.

To better understand the concept of a quorum, consider the following example for a second: A company who employs over 150 staff at any given time has a hierarchy where each staff member fits in. This company in question has a management hierarchy in place and every member of staff in this group has a say in running the organisation or process plan. However, this means each member of this management group’s vote counts towards whatever decision the company makes. For instance, a change needs to be made to a manufacturing process. For the change to be put in place, each member of this group has to be present in the meeting where the final decision will be made, and each member must have voted in one way or another. This also means, if a significant number of members of this group choose not to be present for the “vote for change or whatever”, the vote will fail to be effective due to lack of quorum, and the status quo or present situation will remain.

As you may already know, a member’s vote may not have to be a “yes” or “no”; but as long as the vote is put through. This is a basic example of a quorum. And it means no decision to make any changes to the company - be it their management style, their manufacturing process, their present location, proposal for further expansion, or whatsoever -  will be made without each member casting his or her vote. In some cases, these may not be the management but the actual stock holders of the company.

So in a business and manufacturing process setting, how can a company use quorum to improve its productivity? To answer this, compare a company who has every member of its staff as part of its quorum and allows them to contribute to discussions regarding certain situations affecting the company with another who does the complete opposite. Which one of them do you think will be most productive, profitable or smooth sailing? It’s the first who has every staff member contributing of course. This is because, when staff members feel that their contribution to the company’s development matters, they tend to put in more effort to ensure the stability and productivity of the company.

In addition to that, having a quorum which includes every staff member of more than just the management staff has been proven to be very effective when brainstorming new ideas for product development, process improvement and the likes.

5S - Process or a large part of Kaizen
Lean Manufacturing - Helps develope lean process
Poke-Yoka - Process to help find average timing