It’s New Year’s resolution time. Many of the things we resolve to do in the New Year are measurable—lose weight, run farther or faster, quit smoking, do more of some things and less of other things. All can be measured. But how do you measure success (or failure)? What do you measure to monitor progress towards your goal?

The annual tradition of setting New Year’s resolutions is fresh on our minds during January. If you’re progressing on a resolution for the New Year, you must be measuring something to prove it.

An obvious example of a New Year’s resolution that can be measured is losing weight. Most people set a goal to lose XX lb. by a certain date. You don’t just keep doing what you’ve been doing and then step on the scale at the end of the year. There’s a process involved. You monitor your progress toward the goal by measuring weight loss periodically. With those measurements, you judge the likelihood of success by interpreting the rate of weight loss over time. For example, if your goal is to lose 50 lb. in 2007, you might expect to lose about 5 lb. a month. However, if you get to October and find you have only lost 20 lb., it isn’t very likely you will reach your goal of 50 lbs. by year-end (unless you do something drastic, which we won’t consider here).

The weight loss example shows how important supporting measurements are in the process. Not only are you likely to measure your weight periodically to gage success toward meeting your goal, you’re also likely to measure other things that can affect your weight, such as calories. If you haven’t been measuring your weight you probably don’t count how many calories you consume and burn each day. However, if your goal is to lose weight, an obvious measure is net calories (the difference between calories consumed and calories burned). Such measurement can be performed in a number of ways. Reading labels or weighing food to control portion size is one way to limit calorie intake. Getting more exercise is a way to burn more calories. Knowing how much to eat or how much to exercise requires some measures that relate to losing 50 lb. by year-end.

Analyzing what to measure—setting a baseline
If you’re going to count calories to lose weight, you have to do some analysis. For example, you need to set a baseline—where are you today? That baseline is a combination of things, the most important of which is your current weight. If you are going to control calories, you also need to know how many calories you consume and burn each day. Without that information you have no idea what to change and by how much. “Do I eat half as much? What level of exercise do I need? Should I walk, ride a bike or run marathons?” Can you simply change how much you eat and exercise one time, or do you have to phase in the amount of change over time? If so, how much time?

Weight, schmeight—I measure BMI
Of course you might measure your body mass index (BMI) instead of your weight. BMI is a ratio of your weight and height and is a two-digit number. Changing your BMI from 33 to 30 can sound more pleasant than needing to lose 40 lb. However, it’s difficult to change your height so most people work on their weight in order to change their BMI. The same measurement concepts apply, as do those of measuring other factors that can influence the ultimate measurement of interest. Consume fewer calories or burn more calories in order to reduce your BMI (because you reduce your weight).

Measuring other factors is the key
Changing your behavior in order to meet a New Year’s resolution requires that you measure things you may have ignored in the past. Sticking with the weight loss example, you must measure factors that affect your weight. Simply eating the same amount and exercising (or not) as you did last year will not change anything. In other words, stepping on the scale every day in 2007 will tell you your weight, but you are not likely to see any change in it. On the other hand, measuring how much you change those factors that can affect your weight can help you achieve your weight loss goal.

“But I can lose weight without measuring anything”
Of course, you can do something that you might not consider a measurement, say, skip dessert every other day and not count calories, and see a change in your weight over time. But counting days and the number of skipped desserts are measurements. With enough data over time you might find that skipping dessert every other day for a month results in a 2-lb weight loss. Now you have a useful factor that you can apply toward setting and reaching your goal. Every other day means 15 days in a 30-day month. Let’s say fifteen skipped desserts equal 2 lb. of weight loss in a month (cheesecake). Each dessert therefore represents 2/15 of a lb. Now you know that if you keep up the practice of skipping every other dessert for the rest of 2007 you could lose 24 lb. (180 skipped desserts times 2/15 of a lb. = 24 lb.). Imagine the results of skipping dessert altogether.

Indirect measurement
There are other factors you can measure that can influence the New Year’s weight loss resolution. Let’s say you eat lunch at a restaurant every day. Look at your weekly budget. You might assume that the more you spend, the more you eat. For example, that rich, creamy dessert probably adds a few bucks to the tab. Therefore, reducing your restaurant expenditures might lead to weight loss. (Of course, if you eat less expensive, fast food “value meals,” all bets are off for this measurement!). Seriously, you might measure how many times you walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Or how many more steps it is from the parking spaces in the outer reaches of the lot instead of to the ones up close. Or how many times you eat a piece of fruit instead of a candy bar. These things influence the ultimate outcome of a change in weight. However, to know how well you are really doing, you have to step on a scale for direct measurement from time to time.

The point
When you consider realistic goals for New Year’s resolutions, you also take into account how you will judge success toward achieving those goals. The same process is necessary in manufacturing. If a goal is fewer rejects, for example, you might decide to measure certain parameters during the manufacturing process. What you measure, where you measure it, the resolution to which you measure it, and what you do with the data, are all part of the intelligent assessment of achieving the final goal of lowering the rejection rate. Simply counting accepted and rejected parts doesn’t resolve or change anything. And isn’t that the same for New Year’s resolutions? You need to change something in order to succeed. And if you measure whatever you change, you improve your chances of satisfying that New Year’s resolution and your manufacturing goal.

Until next time, yes, measurement matters.