Challenge:

Our Client is a Logistics, multi-sites Business whose objective was to deliver sustainable improvement in operational performance through engaging its employees and applying lean practices on operational floor.  Externally, Client’s volumes had been shrinking for first time in 25 years.  New, more nimble competitors began to enter market by setting up alternative products and services at cheaper prices, directly threatening business profitability and posing an existential threat.   Internally, the deployment of elements of strategic vision was inconsistent at best.

Leadership appeared confused as to strategy’s purpose and accountabilities, pointing towards a certain lack of capability to deploy. A suboptimal culture prevailed and large capital investment was required in technology to manage obsolescence and provide opportunity for growth.

Client’s ultimate goal was to establish a culture of Continuous Improvement.

Objectives:

We agreed on a vital few objectives. Namely, (1) to establish a community of leaders capable of embedding a culture of continuous improvement through an engaged workforce, hard-wired into application of basic standards of production control. (2) To be able to demonstrate results by identifying clear operational improvements brought about directly as a result of CI programmer and (3) to create a hard core of plants where CI activities were to become integrated and aligned with Company’s overall strategic vision.

Solution:

We set-out to develop a continuous improvement trial programme within most likely-to-succeed client’s location.  The site was carefully selected based on some key parameters such as:  strong and focused leadership, a clear vision and on existence of core operating standards.  We began by establishing Continuous Improvement (Lean) capabilities within Client’s senior and middle-management teams by delivering Lean for Leaders workshops and training sessions. We established a Continuous Improvement (CI) programme incorporating Lean practices, Leadership Development and encouraging autonomous, facilitated and structured problem solving events.

Instituted our Lean Development Plan based on 3 Levels: Foundation, Improve and Excellence and cascaded upskilling programmer onto a number of Lean Ambassadors. What followed was deployment of visual management (communication points) at every work area level, displaying relevant KPIs and measures by function.  Team leaders were then better equipped to hold daily huddles by these communication points, focusing on yesterday’s performance and anticipating today’s operational outcomes.  Problem solving and root cause analysis skills followed organically from that stage in CI development, leading to many bottom-up solutions and idea-generation being suggested by engaged staff, at every stage of production line.

Result:

The outcome was a 30% increase in leadership through workforce engagement.

Client
SquareSparc Ltd.
Date
December 11, 2016
Services
Web Design, Web Development