Have you ever felt that your current processes are not fit-for-purpose? Have you ever felt that there is too much waste in your current operations which is hurting your business? Time to do something about it? Here’s an example from real life and how we managed to turn around a process by reducing waste, increasing efficiency and time to market resulting in reduced cost and increased revenue at the same time – working the WE (Waste/Efficiency) Factor.
Sometimes, even the simplest spare part can halt your operations, costing your company significant amounts in lost revenue while waiting for the spare to be returned and replaced again – a process that in some case can take considerable time if spares are not immediately available and need to be sent to a maintenance partner with stock levels and back again. What can be done to resolve such costly situations?
By applying Lean methodology, we conducted several workshops with key stakeholders across the organization and mapped, from their different perspectives, each step and interaction it took for the spare part in question to be sent to the maintenance partner and back again. For each step of the way we mapped all stakeholders involved in the current process, what actions were taken and by whom before proceeding to the next step. For each interaction we also flagged if this was considered a waste in the process and needed change to be more efficient.
At the end of these workshops we had identified 66 different waste items in the current process. By applying a fishbone diagram, we categorized the waste items identified in different areas and later prioritized these based on ease of implementation and impact on business. Based on this prioritization, we were able to agree on different waves of action to focus on when starting to change the current process in order to eliminate the waste we had identified.
It is often a difficult task to implement a change and takes time to realize. Often it also has to be done together with your Partner to make the change happen. However, it is well worth the effort as at the end of this exercise, you stand stronger with a much leaner process with less waste/high efficiency and with direct impact on your bottom line.
Checker Consulting has the experience to facilitate you through this process and help your company to achieve the WE factor that you need for your business. Please contact us to learn more!
