I recently co-hosted a CCi webinar alongside Ed Koch, our Chief Solutions Officer, where we discussed how to rapidly unlock value in your supply chain. Ahead of the session we asked our audience, made up of senior leaders in supply chain and manufacturing, to share the top challenges they’re facing. Below we explore some of those challenges in more detail and how CCi Accelerate, our rapid deployment program can help address these challenges and unlock value in your supply chain.
Implementing fundamentals
Implementing fundamentals such as the basic processes, best practices and foundational strategies in your supply chain can be a complex process. It can raise several challenges including cultural resistance, lack of buy-in, skills and knowledge gaps, data integrity and data availability.
Supply chain complexity can intensify these challenges, particularly if we’re dealing with a global supply chain, implementing new fundamentals across different regions, cultures and regulatory environments. Equally, implementing fundamentals across multiple tiers of suppliers and partners can be difficult.
And then, how do we sustain the improvements? These are some of the challenges that we face when we implement new fundamentals throughout the supply chain. So, what are some of the strategies to overcome these challenges?
Implementing a Daily Management System is one of the key fundamentals that provides the structure teams need to carry out, evaluate and continuously improve their day-to-day work. It is an important part of the following two structures in an organization: one that “runs the business” and another that “improves the business” – both structures are required to lift the organization out of firefighting mode and into a culture of continuous improvement.
How we go about implementing the change is very important, but most important is what do we do in the process and how we ensure that we stay the course.
Line efficiency and process losses
Many businesses struggle to maintain efficiency and reduce loss, and this is really the bread and butter of the CCi Accelerate program. The loss and waste analysis will highlight where you are doing well and where you’re not doing so well. It will show us exactly how you’ve performed throughout the period that the data is covering. And based on that, we can safely identify what performance level we should aim to attain.
The loss and waste analysis delivers an output that can guide us to identify what projects can be run to get where we need to go, where are the improvement areas and what can be done within these improvement areas. These projects could be quick wins, longer-term improvement projects or work streams and processes that we need to put in place. And as we identify the performance improvement projects and the quick wins, we can then identify what will be the contribution of these elements towards the overall goal.
Leading and managing change
The leading and managing change practice within CCi Accelerate can address many of the cultural challenges organizations face. When it comes to change and adapting to change, the ability to lead and manage change effectively is consistently rated as the number one issue for CEOs of leading organisations. The challenge is to develop the muscle to effectively navigate the unavoidable rapid change that customers in the global marketplace now demand. Comprehensive team training to embed the processes and best practices, alongside strong leadership and governance to model the behavioral changes is required.
The organizational performance is paramount and must be consistently improved, while at the same time ensuring that the organization is developing it’s change agility as a core organizational competence. And this is really key here. Change agility is acknowledged as the major competitive advantage ensuring operational sustainability in a world where only the fittest survive.
How can Accelerate help unlock value in the supply chain?
Accelerate is our rapid deployment program that can help organizations take the first step in their journey towards world-class. The Accelerate program is made-up of four steps:
Step one: Identify Loss and Waste
A site wide data-driven loss and waste analysis. This study identifies the performance improvement projects, quick wins and work streams that will contribute to achieving the overall objective and goal.
Step two: Apply problem-solving techniques
Conduct a series of training and workshops to enable the project teams to launch and complete the improvement projects and implement problem solving practices themselves.
Step three: Initiate your daily management system
Implement a series of interrelated meetings and reviews to ensure running and improving the business practices is happening effectively. This helps to manage the progression of those projects on a weekly basis and involves everyone from the project leader all the way up to the site leader, to ensure that all projects are progressing as they should.
Step four: Deliver dramatic performance uplift
Validate your ROI through detailed reporting and recognize the cultural impact on your team. Celebrate and praise your team for their efforts!
About the author
Tony Riachi is CCi’s Operations Director. With 20+ years of successful international leadership experience in South America, Europe, Middle East and U.S, Tony is an experienced Management Consultant specializing in business start-up, strategic management, operations management, business excellence, program and project management. Certified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with extensive experience in delivering related training and consultancy services across wide range of industries globally. Tony has trained, mentored and certified over 350 Lean Six Sigma Green and Black belt candidates.
Unlock value in your supply chain by viewing the on-demand webinar here.
To find out more about how Accelerate can help you rapidly unlock value in your supply chain get in touch today.