Process Improvements With Measurable Results
See Our Results Below: Select an organization or industry based area below to view the related case study.
Organization Based
Broadly applicable to many companies and industries.
Support Groups:
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Marketing
- Information Technology
- Corporate Services
- Shared Service Centers
- Compliance/Audit
- Legal
- Internal Improvement Teams
Line Groups:
- Field Sales & Support
- Customer Services
- Contact Centers
- New Product Development
- Post-Sales Services
Supply Chain Operations:
- Order Management
- Master Data Management
- Procurement
- Materials Management
- Production
- Distribution
- Quality Management
Industry Based
Document operations which are unique to particular business segments and industries.
Services:
- Financial Services
- Media Services
- Broadcast
- Newspapers
- Digital
- Magazines
- Books
- Information Services
- Health Plans
- Telecommunications
- Utilities
Supply Chain:
- Pharmaceuticals
- Chemicals
- Food Production/Processing
- Paper/Packaging
- Industrial Products
- Technology
- Print and Mail
- Consumer Packaged Goods
- Retail and Distribution
- Oil and Gas
Supply Chain Operations: Production
Global Foods Producer
North America
Project Sponsor:
Project Descriptions:
Self-funding, non-technology manufacturing operations improvement initiative for a branded foods business line within the North American network. Objectives: Improve service; reduce costs; simplify processes for new ERP technology
Scope of Project:
- Order management/planning
- Materials management/scheduling
- Production operations
- Maintenance
- Packaging and supplies
- Finished goods inventory
Improvement Benefits:
- Operating cost 11%
- Annual savings $5.5M
- Head count 8%
- Break even point 5 mos.
- ROI (12 month) 4.0x
- Unplanned downtime22%
- Machine turn rate80%
- On-time customer delivery98%
Situation Analysis:
ClientCo is the North American edible oils division of an international $10B diversified foods producer.
Senior management sought operations improvement as new technology [an ERP system] was being deployed. The effort focused on bulk products sold to other producers, as well as branded and private label consumer products sold to national grocery chains.
Improvements Identified:
The Phase I effort [eight weeks] analyzed all aspects of supply chain operations from order entry through plant production and collections. Over 250 non-technology improvements were identified and incorporated into a five-month, self-funding implementation work plan, coordinated with the ERP deployment schedule. Examples:
- Product Simplification - Despite an existing sophisticated staffing model, analysis identified extensive costly levels of service [e.g., zero-wait-time]. Since customers do not place a correspondingly high value on these services, no competitive gain is achieved.
- Plant Maintenance - Revenue generation productivity was reduced by an average of over 20% by factors such as: ad hoc customization of offerings, terms; lending officers performing administrative tasks [downtime].
- Vendor Quality - In some areas, up to 60% of organizational capacity was devoted to correcting and completing inbound work products: loan applications, account openings, wire transfers, and others. Over 70% of the related improvements were non-technology. Existing improvement initiatives were technology-driven [>85%].
- Plant Housekeeping - Although largely overlooked as sources of benefits, improvement opportunities in the Finance, HR, IT and Marketing groups outnumbered the Back Office by more than 50%.
- Dedicated Service Teams - Product volumes were highly concentrated in a relatively small number of customers. Formation of a small number of dedicated service teams helped eliminate scores of repetitive issues from order entry through delivery and collections.
Overall Results:
After the Phase I effort, The Lab worked with ClientCo internal teams to implement the self-funding non-technology improvements and coordinate streamlined business processes with the new ERP technology.