What is the SCMH?

Joining us to talk about the Supply Chain Management Handbook (SCMH) and its parent Product and Supply Chain Improvement (PSCI) is Marc Doolittle, IAQG lead for PSCI - which oversees the development and deployment of SCMH.
 
 In this podcast, we answer the questions:
 ° What is SCMH?
 ° Why was it created?
 ° Who does it help or benefit the most?
 ° How does it work?
 ° Where can you find this information?
 
 This podcast brings you most of what you need to know about SCMH and PSCI. Take a listen and give us your feedback.
 
 Doolittle is a technical fellow at Raytheon Technologies (RTX) in the Collins Aerospace division.
 
 The IAQG is the International Aerospace Quality Group and sets the standard for quality within the worldwide supply chain within the aviation, space, and defense industry. IAQG currently maintains 26 active standards that establish common/shared tools and methods for quality improvement. To learn more, visit https://iaqg.org.  

Transcript

The Quality Horizon – What is the SCMH?  

[00:00:00]  

Susan: Greetings, everyone, and welcome. I'm your host, Susan Matson, and with me today is Mark Doolittle. Mark is the Technical Fellow at Raytheon Technologies in the Collins Aerospace Division. Additionally, he is the IAQG lead for Product and Supply Chain Improvement, PSCI, which oversees the development and deployment of SCMH. Welcome to the show, Mark.  

Marc: Thank you. It's great to be here.  

Susan: Nice. SCMH was initially released in 2008, and since then, I believe your team has been extremely active and engaged in supplying materials and the howl behind the IAQG standards. One of the things I want to do today is explore that a little more for our listeners. What do you say?  

Marc: It sounds awesome.  

Susan: Awesome. Okay, great. Let's get started. First and foremost, What is SEMH?  

Marc: So the SEMH actually stands for Supply Chain Management Handbook. It is [00:01:00] the guidance material in the IAQG world. It really is, it, IAQG breaks down into what is essentially two, two products. 

Marc: One that we're most familiar with, which is our standards. These are AS documents like AS 9100. The things that have shalls, the things that we are audited to. Our certification bodies come and audit us, our customers come and audit us, and then the second product section is really the PSCI organization, which is the product and supply chain improvement section. 

Marc: This is the section that I run, and in that one of our largest products is the supply chain management handbook. And in the supply chain management handbook itself, we don't have shalls here, okay? So if the standards are the what, we are the how. So we try and take what is in the standards. 

Marc: As a standards basically state a minimum common denominator or what's minimum required to be an aerospace space or defense supplier and in the SCMH material we try and take this to best practice. [00:02:00] We try and help companies move from the middle to actually the best practice, but in this case because companies are vastly different in size and abilities, we can't create this, we can't create the best practice as an auditable function. 

Marc: Okay, the auditable function has to actually be the minimum requirement to be an AS&D supplier. So the supply chain management section and its parent, the PSCI team, was created for the single purpose of trying to take all aerospace space and defense companies up from the minimum up to the maximum, up to the best they can be and best in class. 

Susan: Wonderful. So bringing things up, bringing everything up to best in class, variety of different organizations, large and small, global, I'm assuming. Correct? 

Marc: Correct. 

Susan: Who is it really for? Who gets the most, what part of the organization really reaps benefits of SCMH? [00:03:00] 

Marc: Yeah. So probably the ones that could play advantage to most is actually the smaller companies. What we find is that the people that are helping us in the creating the SCMH material, creating our product and supply chain improvement team material are actually the larger companies. It's actually the higher level, some of the OEMs and some of the tier one suppliers. So, what we're actually gleaning from this is the best practices from these more experienced and seasoned aerospace space and defense companies. 

Marc: And the younger companies are the smaller companies that are really the ones that can benefit from this material. Again, there is a foundational baseline, which is established by our standards organization. That's the other product of the IAQG. But above and beyond that, we really want our, even the smaller suppliers to even become better than the minimum required, which is where the supply chain management handbook stuff really targets. 

Susan: So what exactly where is the FCMH? I'm assuming it's on a website. So let's let [00:04:00] everyone know that for certain.  

Marc: Correct.  

Susan: So what can you find on the SCMH website?  

Marc: So the SCMH material is actually on the website IAQG.org. Okay, so that is the overall IAQG website. It's, in recent changes, it's become quite user friendly. 

Marc: In the IAQG.org website, you will see actually a tab on there, the terminology is probably wrong, but for supply chain management handbook, SCMH, you can actually click on this and that will go into the SCMH material. Now, if you want more information about that, there is actually a tab inside of there that's called about SCMH. 

Marc: So you can click on that and you can learn a lot more about the SCMH material itself. And then we have the rest of our, the rest of our material in there, our guidance material the extranets management handbook itself, the webinars we have a question section. We have a frequently asked questions and there's quite a bit of material that's under that category. [00:05:00] 

Susan: So when you're on the site, I know that when you go to the web page, there's a product life cycle and it's broken down. So is that how people can navigate through this through SCMH?  

Marc: Yeah, there's actually a couple ways to navigate it. The first step, of course, we do require registration for it. It is free. It doesn't cost anything. But this allows us to help track, the people that are using the, using it and helps us to tailor things for the future. I think we have over, over close to 11,000 people now registered. And we just reset that in the last year. So we have a lot of 11,000 new people registered inside of there we've tried to break it down into hot links. 

Marc: The first thing you're going to see is elements under a product life cycle model. We tried to make this easy so you can select from there what in the part of the product life cycle you're in, and then go and see the guidance material, the SEMH webinars under that. But if you're not familiar with normal product life cycle models, you can also get an alphabetical list. You can ask, you can also get it by alphabetical if you're looking for a specific topic, and you can search for it as well. [00:06:00]  If you know a specific topic, you can go in there and type it in a search engine and it'll search for that as well. 

Susan: And if I can't find what I'm looking for, what kind of help is available to me?  

Marc: Yeah. So there, there is help actually in there where you can actually speak directly to the SCMH project manager. She actually works for me in the IAQG and she's an amazing contact person for SCMH material, because not only will she probably be able to answer your question directly. 

Marc: I don't, can't think of anybody on the planet that knows the SCMH material better than she does, but she can also connect you with the actual authors of the documents. There's actually a section in there we're just piloting right now we're attempting to call, ask the author, and it's only available right now for APQP. 

Marc: But what you can literally do is you can ask questions for the, our guidance material on, for the standard AS 9145, and the answers will actually come from the authors of the standard, and she manages all that. [00:07:00] So there's quite a, there's quite a lot of ways to be able to go in there and ask questions right into the project manager, right into the authors of the documents. As well as give feedback. There's a feedback section in there as well.  

Susan: So you reference documents. Is it all just PDF files or is there something else in there?  

Marc: No. So the documents themselves really are the supply chain management handbook the SCMH, if you will. And that can come in multiple forms it can be PDF, it can be word documents, it can be PowerPoints. It can be actually interactive sections where you can populate things. Then we also have, now this doesn't fall under SCMH, this falls under PSCI, The PSCI team also has webinars, so when you go into the product life cycle model, product life cycle model hotlink, when you click a specific topic you'll actually not only see the handbook material, you'll also see, you'll also see webinar material. Okay. And these are things that have been recorded in the plant in the past. And any other type of reference guidance material we have. [00:08:00] 

Susan: And if I'm not mistaken, your core documents on one side and tools on the other side, and those tools are really hands on things, right? People can download them and use them within their organization and their enabled macros and all that fun stuff at their Excel spreadsheets. 

Marc: Correct. And a lot of time we get asked for templates and this is where you'll find the templates as well. So yeah, you're absolutely right. It's split up into two sections like that to try and be easier for the user.  

Susan: And you've said handbook a couple of times, can someone actually get a copy of this, a whole copy of the SCMH? 

Marc: So, the answer to that is yes, and emphatically no. So we have no way to be able to say print me the supply chain handbook and have it go through thousands of pages and print it out. they’re PDFs their websites their templates, their PowerPoints, their interactive sites, but everything in there is printable. 

Marc: Everything is printable. But if you actually wanted to create an entire book of SCMH, [00:09:00] thousands of pages, you would have to go section by section and print out each section separately. We don't have a print all tab on there. That would be very complex for us to try and figure out how to do that. 

Susan: I can imagine. I'm sure that the stack of paper would probably be taller than me.  

Marc: Yes.  

Susan: So how often is this updated? How often is the SCMH had something new to offer?  

Marc: So the beauty of guidance material is our ability to update it is much easier than the other IAQG product, which is standards. Because we don't have shells. So our material by nature is not auditable. There is no certification body that can come into your site carrying the supply chain management handbook and have findings against you for it. Okay, we don't have shells. So because of that, our balloting process or our voting process is very simplified, is very simplified. 

Marc: We don't have to go out and do a large corporate balloting process for every single change we make. [00:10:00] Our side of the product, our product side of the IAQG is way more flexible than the standard side. So we're able to keep the guidance material very up to date. We're able to revise it very frequently. If we find mistakes, we find additions or improvements, we can go in, we can, this material is quite live. It's quite live material. So if you're thinking about how often standards are updated, that's once every five years. Our supply chain management handbook material can be updated once a week. There's nothing limiting our ability to be able to improve it again, because it's not auditable. You can't be held to it as a show.  

Susan: So I have two follow up questions to that. First one is how do you determine what goes into it? And then maybe dovetailing into the second one is how do people know when something new's been added? 

Marc: Yeah. So the material comes into the supply chain management handbook in the webinars, the guidance material in general from quite a few different processes. We have feedback from the SCMH survey, that surveys we do. [00:11:00] We have also the performance survey that we get input from member companies. All of the standards writing teams, when new standards are created or revised, they're all tasked with then going and updating their guidance material sections. 

Marc: That's actually occurring right now on the AS 91202 for the FAI and the AS 9145 for APQP. Those writing teams are now updating the guidance material. You can see all of, you can see all of this and you see this in some of the new topics we have. There is also a link on there where you can find out what's new. 

Marc: There's a what's new link. So as this stuff is rapidly changing, we're adding new things and things are being updated. You can click on that link and you can see, hey this is something that's been modified since the last time I reviewed it. This is a new guidance material. We currently have 47 guidance material documents in and we have 12 currently in writing. 

Marc: We normally don't like to do more than five, but there is just a huge appetite in our industry now for SCMH guidance. And it's not just coming through quality. [00:12:00] We're also seeing it through program management and design engineering because of the implementation of advanced product quality planning. So, the SCMH material, PSC, PSCA guidance material in general is rapidly growing so that what's new link is going to be quite live.  

Susan: Oh my goodness, I can only imagine how do you determine who, like, how do you get the volunteers to help do this? And for listeners who are hearing this conversation, what's the opportunity if they'd like to become a part of it? 

Marc: So the member company, it's very easy for a member company to become part of the SCMH or the PSCI guidance material in general. It can simply come through your member representative. So every company has a member representative from the IAQG all the way down to the sector level, AAQG, EAQG, and APAQG. 

Marc: So you could be a member company of simply one of the sectors, AAQG, EAQG, in which case you still do have a member representative. If you express interest to them that, hey, I want to get, I want to become part of some of [00:13:00] this guidance material, they receive a notice from us every time there is a new guidance material that's going to be authored and we do what's called a call for volunteers. 

Marc: So that person in your company will always receive that call for volunteers. So, if you're interested in speak to that person. They can definitely get you connected with it. We're getting quite a few people right now. We usually don't like to go more than 10 people. We're having some now that are getting up to 25, 26 people, because companies are demanding that they have representation on the guidance material.They're starting to use it so frequently for their suppliers. So this is definitely the person to go through a company.  

Susan: It sounds like 20 to 25 people, this best kept secret is not so secret anymore.  

Marc: That's true. It's going to be well known, that's for sure.  

Susan: So what are some things we can expect? What are some things on the horizon for SCMH and PSCI?  

Marc: Yeah, so I'm going to go up to that to the level of PSCI here because we got quite a few things going on at PSCI where we're changing [00:14:00] quite a bit from what we've historically been. And I'll talk to two specific things here right now although there's quite a few more things going on as far as guidance that's being created I'm not even going to speak to the guidance that's being created quite frankly, I'm going to speak to the systematic changes we're making the PSCI. 

Marc: One is in the IAQG in general. We're trying to build an IAQG ecosystem, okay, where our products start to help by pointing toward each other. This wasn't the case before, so the AS9100 document, most people are familiar with the standards, wasn't directly connected to its guidance partner. That wasn't directly connected to AIMM, which is the maturity model tool that we now have. 

Marc: Okay, they weren't pointing to each other. So if you were an AS9100 and you were reading a shell and you're wondering, how can I actually achieve this shell? There wasn't really anything in there that was pointing you to a document that existed that told you how to achieve it. So we're doing some massive improvement on right now. 

Marc: We're calling it our IAQG ecosystem, where these things are going to now interlink with each other. [00:15:00] So when you see a what, you can find the how, when you see a how, you can find the what. And then in between both of them, we have this AIMM tool, which is a maturity model tool. That will help you rate yourself, help you rate yourself and where you are in this maturity level. 

Marc: So this is a quite a big change for us. Again, it's creating this IAQG ecosystem. The second thing, which I'm not going to talk about very much because it's very new for us, but we're looking at training. We haven't looked at that before. So for the first time ever at IAQG, now we're looking at creating actual training material. 

Marc: Okay, and how that's different than what we've been we talked about webinar and people think is that training what webinars not really training if the SCMH material is a book. Okay, is a manual, a webinar is a lecture. Okay, so the SCMH the manual accompanied by the lecture gives you an in a good insight into what that guidance materials out. 

Marc: But that's not training. That's not coming out and saying it at this point, I'm I've got the adequate amount of training [00:16:00] to actually participate or to actually lead one of these sections or teach one of these sections. So we're looking at now branching out into actually creating some training. Some training for this material, but that's fairly new for us. And that's not very well known right now, but that will be growing.  

Susan: Oh, I can't wait to hear it. Maybe we can talk again when that's up and running. I'd love to talk more about that training, but Mark, I think we're at the end. Is there anything we didn't cover that you want to really talk about? 

Marc: I think you know, for everything that I have to talk about, and if you don't cut me off, I'll probably keep talking for another hour or two. So it's probably good to cut me off now.  

Susan: Oh, that's all good. We loved having you today. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm really glad we were able to shed some light on such a valuable tool. And so many people, it sounds like, are just growing and becoming more aware of that. And I think that's really what we're trying to do today. Make sure That people know it exists, right? And all the things that are available to them.   

Marc: Excellent. That's, that is correct. Yes.  

Susan: Thank you. This is Susan Matson and you have been listening [00:17:00] to the IAQG Quality Horizon. Until next time, stay safe.