June 29, 2016 Industry Forum Blog 7 Wastes, eliminating waste, improve your productivity, lean approach., Lean techniques, lean tools, Small and Medium Enterprises, SME “That’s great, but it won’t work here” is usually among the first comments we get when we tell people we help businesses deploy lean techniques to improve their competitiveness. Whilst most people now accept that these techniques work across more sectors than just automotive, the biggest challenge is in engaging the SME community. In the UK the number of SMEs are growing. At the start of 2015, 99.9% of all private sector businesses were classed as SMEs (UK stats). They provide 60% of private sector employment and 47% of turnover, which is £1.8 trillion. The pattern is similar across the EU and the States and these important economic contributors are under just as much pressure to perform as large multi-nationals. So the question is can techniques that work in mass production environments with several thousand employees, work for companies that employ less than 250 people? Can they improve the performance and productivity in businesses that make highly customised goods, provide services, are in construction or even farming? The simple answer is yes they can, and yes they do. How? There are lots of different lean techniques. It’s not all about load levelling and keeping expensive machinery in optimum working condition. Whether you are making goods or delivering a service you will rely at some point on people and there will be some sort of process. A process is the combination of manpower, materials and machines (equipment) to provide a good or service that the customer wants. The customer judges that good or service in terms of quality, cost and delivery. The lean tools help you focus on finding better ways of combining the process inputs so that you can not only please the customer but be profitable as well. Key approach for small teams Whether you are in a company of 1, 10, or more you will benefit from even spending a small amount of time doing this: Be sure you have a clear strategy – where you want to go. Turn the strategy into a plan with clear targets – even if that’s only two items! Quickly analyse where you are against those targets, to identify the problems and opportunities for improvement. Seek advice on the most appropriate lean techniques to bring about the change you need. My recommended top tool Understanding the 7 Wastes is key to making any improvement. It’s at the heart of all the lean tools. You can use it if you work solo or in teams, manufacturing in an office, designing, making, selling or ordering. Eliminating wasteful tasks allows you to spend more time doing the tasks that add value, without actually working harder. If you can produce more output by better combining your inputs and eliminating waste you will improve your productivity. Best of all it’s really simple to learn and deploy. And you will find you can make big performance improvements for relatively little financial investment. What can we improve using the lean approach? So if you recognise any of these issues, there is a lean technique that will help you. You need a sustainable way to reduce your costs; no cutting heads or limiting spending. Poor quality levels. Late deliveries. A shortage of working space or lack of capacity. You struggle to release your time to grow the business. Can’t get your ideas to market quickly enough. Problems keeping your equipment working. You can find advice on lean techniques in many places including books, online, in our Related Posts (below) and across some of our Case Studies. Why not contact our team for more information about how we can help your business become more competitive.
June 15, 2016 Industry Forum Blog 5S, 7 Wastes, Autodata, Automechanika, cloud based solutions, connected car, foundation improvement techniques, garage, lean techniques in non-manufacturing, service and repair, Standardised Work, Visual Management Have you ever been frustrated when booking in your car in for a service or repair? Have you been put on hold, transferred multiple times or waited for a return call? Maybe you had to wait in a queue to check in? Worse still, your car wasn’t ready at the time it was promised? That’s just the customer facing side of the business. Technicians are faced with an ever increasing array of vehicles fitted with more and more complex technology. Stores and reception staff are also under pressure to accurately provide parts and information within ever decreasing deadlines. Where do we start? Although our garage is part of the service industry, the functions they perform can be described as a process. They may not be manufacturing but they are still using manpower, materials and machines (inputs) to make changes in line with customer requirements. We, the customer, judge their output in terms of quality, cost and delivery time. Once we understand this, we can capture each process and improve it. I use simple process flowcharts like this one. Many of the identified “problems” can be eliminated at very little cost by applying the foundation improvement techniques; 5S, 7 Wastes, Visual Management and Standardised Work. Once the simple, low cost solutions have been implemented, garages can look at how best to utilise the opportunities offered by cloud based technology. Simple, low cost solutions Take a look at the before (left) and after (right) shots of a repair workshop. While the before shot may look quite tidy, the improved layout and visual locations created using the 5S technique, resulted in a 50% saving in technician time searching for equipment. Improvements were also made in the time taken by each vehicle to go through the shop and a reduction in damage to parts removed during repair. Using the same techniques in the car parks and spares stores resulted in improved customer experience, time to retrieve parts form stores and part availability. Reception and customer enquiry experiences were also improved in time and accuracy by eliminating waste from the processes and creating standardised work procedures. So for the investment of some time, paint, hooks and labelling machines, you can improve competitiveness and profitability at the same time as enhancing customer satisfaction in terms of quality and delivery. Workshops of the future I recently attended the Automechanika show and saw many examples of how we can use cloud based technology to further eliminate wastes in our garage services. The example that stood out most was the vision presented by Autodata. Autodata currently provide up-to-date technical information for over 29,000 models using a cloud based system. Can you imagine even having the hard copy manuals for that, let alone retrieving the one for the job? Even if you did, they would appear in different formats and be quickly out of date. The beauty of their system is that other providers can develop applications to share the same platform. This will mean that the wastes incurred by accessing separate systems for bookings, queries, ordering parts and invoicing can also be eliminated. This system will also link with your connected car. Once your car has communicated its needs, the system will automatically arrange the details and order the parts. Then the booking slot, cost and directions will appear on your smartphone. All you have to do is press “YES”. I’m looking forward to this day, and who knows, perhaps my car will then drive itself in as well! For more help applying lean techniques in non-manufacturing situations contact the IF team.
