Tell me something I don't know but somebody else does

So you want to be world class. Well, doesn’t everybody? In fact, if you listen to what most organisations say they’ll tell you they are there already. Best not to look under the bonnet though!

Situation
One of our clients had been struggling for some time with their ambition to achieve world class performance in their operations. They already had an unsurpassed reputation for product technology and capability, established across the globe over many decades, but somewhat incongruously the operational activities that created and delivered these products were far from being best-in-class. They were keen to replace the clapped out operational engine with something that really purred, something that befitted their global marque.

But exactly how do you go about creating world class operations when your organisation consists of tens of thousands of employees working in hundreds of sites in many different cultures and countries? This becomes especially difficult when the kind of people you employ are intelligent, creative, challenging individuals attracted to the organisation because of its reputation for engineering excellence. The problem with people like that is, well, they tend to challenge everything! How else do you think they end up designing such great products?

The Solution
The first step towards developing operations that really deliver is to obtain the knowledge of what needs to be done and make it accessible to those creative, talented individuals within the company who can make best use of it. Our client had started to do this by employing significant numbers of managers from the automotive industry where, let’s face it, they’ve been doing this world class manufacturing stuff for decades. This proved to be a good start in laying the foundation for the changes that needed to take place. It also made use of a well-proven principle: if you want to radically improve what you already have then copy someone else who is already good at it. The strategy of drafting in a tranche of experienced managers did meet with some success.

A few islands of excellence were established and some areas started to slowly improve. But it wasn’t fast enough and there was no consistent approach to improvement: the new guys tried to do what they had done elsewhere but their efforts shared no common methodology beyond the basic principles. And as for the existing employees, in the absence of a structured approach to learning, they retained their cynicism and resistance to the solutions that were ‘not invented here.’

Model for Success
In re-thinking their approach, our client realised there were four key elements needed to create a knowledge system that would drive a learning organisation capable of adapting lessons learnt elsewhere, and applying them successfully within their own environment.

The elements are:

• A clear business need and vision to change
• Rich, technical content that would inform the change
• A community of people to make the changes happen
• A technology platform to make the knowledge accessible

Vision
The business need was clear enough – the business operations, especially those associated with the supply chain, had to improve radically in order to improve customer service and reduce costs. The appointment of a Director of Manufacturing Strategy responsible for creating this improvement added urgency to the cause and helped ensure a clear vision of future performance and capability was established.

Content
Creating the content for the system proved to be an enormous challenge. The scale of operations was so vast that simple production systems which, for example, call for the universal implementation of two-bin kanban replenishment systems, were never going to adequately address the complexity of our clients’ environment.

The operations included such diverse activities as assembly, forging, machining and highly technical processes operating on the edge of engineering possibility. What was needed was a coherent set of processes that sought out the appropriate data, described in detail the required analysis and finally guided the optimum solution. (To complete the replenishment example, the system needed to take the user through a structured process to select one of a number of replenishment techniques, not necessarily a two-bin kanban.)

This was precisely the system that WCI created, using not just our experience of our client’s industry but our knowledge of a broad range of sectors where world class operations have been developed.

Not only were the operations wide ranging but the new system was required to address every conceivable element of the supply chain, including supply chain design, shop floor operations, planning, logistics, supplier management and even new product introduction. This vast body of work took nine months to assemble into an easy-to-use, fully tested, working system.

Community
So how did the smart, challenging employees take to their new system? Well, of course they challenged it. Smartly! But this took place during the development phase to ensure that the real company experts had the opportunity to influence the content and customise it to their specific needs, without diluting the power of the material. Then, as the system was completed a focused training programme was deployed to bring up to speed the people who would pioneer the use of the system within the company. A series of pilot implementations were then launched so that the system could be effectively road-tested in live situations. The lessons learnt from these pilots were incorporated into the final versions of the material prior to full launch and roll out.

Improvement projects using the new system were launched across the organisation synchronised with a far-reaching training programme to ensure employees knew how to navigate through and use the new system. With each completed project a case study was published and a list of those involved made available so that others wanting to achieve similar results from the same material knew who to call for advice.

Technology
The material was largely produced using Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel as the communication media. This enabled a wide range of concepts, models and analytical tools to be communicated consistently in formats familiar to the end users. All of the material is hosted on the client’s intranet, which ensures accessibility to all those who need it. The content can be found easily and navigation is straightforward.

Benefits
Judging by the continued demand for training in the system, the completion of hundreds of projects using the content, the quantified benefits achieved and the fact that the system now underpins all operational improvement programmes, the exercise has been a huge success. Material is continually being added to the content in terms of case studies and the organisation is learning to become world class internally as well as in the products it sells.

The journey to world class is never easy, but it is a lot easier if you travel with someone who knows the way.