When we are contacted by a prospective new client for consulting services, we typically recommend starting with a Lean Assessment. Assessments are a fast and painless way to uncover opportunities to improve your business with a plan for efficiently implementing those improvements. During the Assessment we talk to people from across the organization, tour the facilities,… 
Focus on Profitability; Revenue and Cost are just inputs To download this case study please click here. Profitability is Key! As business grows, declines, or remains steady, a clear understanding of profitability by segment is paramount. Increasing revenue is great so long as your costs are not increasing disproportionately. Decreasing costs is also wonderful assuming…
The link below shows two Performance Scorecards, one for a manufacturing business and one for an accounting firm. Performance Scorecards Download Accounting Firm The accounting firm Client was working with us on improving their Audit process. This project successfully reduced the time to produce audit reports for their clients from 45 to 22 days. As…
Client Background Recently we had the opportunity to work with a client that doesn’t make or move any material goods. Impact Group does the important work of caring for families that are being relocated because of the jobs of one of the adults. 28 years ago, Laura Herring determined that companies focus completely on the…
The Ideal Lean Process All employees show up to work every day, are motivated, can work at any operation and are constantly looking for ways to improve processes Supplies can be ordered and delivered immediately, in whatever quantities are needed and are defect free Equipment never breaks Processes have no variation and produce defect free…
Do you ever feel like all you do at work is go from meeting to meeting? Is it a challenge to squeeze all of the meetings you are required to attend on your calendar? How many meetings should a healthy company have and when do we cross the line on healthy communications and too many…
Pay-for-Performance: Quality & Throughput Many companies are worried about paying for performance because they are concerned that: 1) quality will suffer, and 2) it can inhibit teamwork. Our case study for this e-newsletter shows how to balance quality versus throughput, and teamwork versus individual contribution. Designing a pay-for-performance system that everyone believes in is hard…
The case study below is a summary. For more details click on the full white-paper. The problems with surveys Most companies that want to measure customer satisfaction create a survey. These efforts usually fail for multiple reasons. The “annual” survey measures satisfaction during too short a duration Response rates are low There are too many…
Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare The next few months’ newsletters will look at Lean Six Sigma applications in Hospitals. We all have a vested interest in seeing our hospitals continuously improve productivity and quality. These case studies will show how we used Lean Six Sigma tools to improve various aspects of administration and patient care.…
Lean Six Sigma in Hospitals – 5S Visual Management Details: 5S Implementation 1). This HR department hoarded paper. Like many people the HR Specialists felt the messier their desks the busier they must be. It was cultural! Everyone’s desk looked like these pictures. 2) Once we did the initial 5S blitz, we created a 5S…
Finding Cost Reductions in the Value Stream We used Value Stream Mapping to evaluate costs from “Field to Table”. All processing costs were analyzed. The scope was to attack overhead costs and processes that were increasing expenses or reducing sales. “Costs of goods sold” was excluded. Examples of processing costs were distribution direct labor, store…
Lean & Six Sigma in Distribution/Warehousing This Distributor began their Lean Journey in the middle of the Great Recession. Despite the fact that sales were down, they were willing to invest in reducing costs and improving Customer Service. They chose 3 problem areas of the company and combined Implementation Projects with Supply Velocity’s Lean Workshop.…
Lean Six Sigma Tools Performance Scorecard 5S Visual Management Details 1) This project was totally driven by the Scorecard. Once the team created its Bulk Delivery Department Scorecard, they quickly realized what had to be done to improve performance. We came up with a saying that “the data will lead the way”. Download Delivery Lean…
Lean Shipping Process This company manufactured products for the construction industry and distributed highly engineered components produced by other companies. Manufacturing and Distribution were separate businesses, which came together at Shipping. This project was driven by the company’s CFO, who felt that shipping processes, which had never been looked at, were wasteful. As you will…
Inbound Freight Savings Project Outline This project was fundamentally about getting two departments (Purchasing and Logistics) to see the entire process and determine how they could work together to save the company money on inbound freight. Our first objective was to understand the problem and the opportunity. We developed a problem statement. Download PowerPoint Presentation…
On-Target Sales Strategy / Six Sigma Sales We hope you find value from our examples of Lean Six Sigma at work. Due to the difficult economic environment many organizations face, we will spend the next few months looking at the application of Lean Six Sigma to Sales Strategy, or what we call On-Target Sales Strategy,…
On-Target Sales Strategy / Six Sigma Sales The economy is not getting any better… but you can buck the trend! Knowing your customer creates focus and focus creates success. Read below how we used Six Sigma to create a focused sales and marketing strategy by deeply understanding the best markets for our Client. Problem This…
Sales is like any process, it operates by design or default. Using Lean Tools we redesigned a very successful company’s sales process to improve Sales Rep Productivity, getting more Profit from every Rep. Problem This month’s case-study Client sells transportation equipment, services this equipment and sells replacement parts. The owner had executed a successful growth…
Lean Six Sigma Tools Cause & Effect Diagram Pareto Analysis Comparison Analysis (Box & Whisker Chart) This manufacturing/distribution company had 8 sales reps that covered specific geographic regions of the northeast United States. The company manufactured several components and distributed others to a very specific industry-niche. We started the project with a Cause & Effect Diagram…
Lean Six Sigma Tools Cause & Effect Diagram Scatter Diagram As stated above, the company’s sale force all wanted to lower prices to help them sell more (close more business). We analyzed what impact (good or bad) that might have on sales and profit. We started the project with a Cause & Effect Diagram of…
Lean Six Sigma Tools Cause & Effect Diagram Performance Scorecards Scatter Diagram We started the project with a Cause & Effect Diagram of everything that impacts sales and close rate. Download Estimator Inside Sales Analysis March 2011 PowerPoint Presentation. This e-newsletter will focus on estimator effectiveness, which the team felt could be a significant area…
One of the best aspects of pursuing (part time) my Ph.D in Supply Chain Management is that I get to research certain topics and apply them to help my valued Clients. I am currently writing a academic paper on SKU Optimization. It is based on a method that is case studied in this month’s e-newsletter. …
This month we will feature ground-breaking work in finding attributes that predict customer profitability. This project was done for a Supply Velocity Client (products shown below) with the support of a Ph.D Supply Chain Management study at the University of Missouri St. Louis. The Ph.D program has been a great way to learn new skills…
When it comes to winning proposals, we find that many companies, including this Client, over-estimate their Win %. Company executives stated that Win % was 80%. In reality it was 37%. Once we discovered this important fact they wanted to find out what helped them win proposal. Overall proposal data is shown on Slide 2…
This Newsletter will case study Phase 3 of the improvements made to our custom cabinet and millwork manufacturing client. The prior few months we profiled the improvements they made in their business, via Performance Measurement and On-Target™ Sales Strategy. This month we will review the improvements they’ve made in Operations. They produce custom cabinets and…
This newsletter will case study Phase 2 of the improvements made at our Transportation Equipment Distributor client. Last month we reviewed how we streamlined the sales process to give Sales Reps more time to sell and grow profit. This month we will review how we delivered on the promises we made to customers, providing this…
Lean Six Sigma Tools Performance Measurement 5S Visual Management Spaghetti Diagrams Time Study Details – Performance Measurement The team first learned about Performance Measurement and then created their Performance Scorecards. As you can see, On Time Delivery of service shows up twice as measures of seeing patients at their appointment times. (How may of you…
SKU Rationalization Project Outline Our initial analysis indicated that they had a high concentration of strong performing SKUs (70.63% of sales came from the top 25% of SKUs) and a significant number of low performing SKUs (1.47% of sales came from the bottom 25% of SKUs). SKU Analysis Presentation. The next analysis (slide #2) showed…
Lean Six Sigma Tools Pareto Analysis Spaghetti Map Process Flow Map This valve manufacturer produced a semi-finished product that its customer final assembled / packaged for their original-equipment-manufacture (OEM) and distributor customers. The final assembly/packaging was being transferred to the valve manufacturer. Instead of producing 200 stock-keeping-units (SKUs) in larger lot sizes they would be…
Reducing Overhead Labor with Value Stream Mapping This Plastics Manufacturing Company was caught in the Great Recession. They had to reduce costs when some of their customers cut back, including an auto-plant that closed. However, being a capital intensive manufacturer, the options were not obvious. Lean Six Sigma Tools This project used Value Stream Mapping…
This custom cabinet and millwork manufacturer was the in-house manufacturing division of a larger residential construction company. They grew very rapidly with a large multi-year order and were spun off as a separate company. The large multi-year order ended and sales dropped precipitously. The overhead costs from equipment and manufacturing space quickly created a loss…
We will use as a case study the same Defense Contractor Client discussed in the April e-newsletter. One of the things we learned in that project was the significant labor that can be expended developing a proposal. Depending on the opportunity, engineering, materials and direct labor costs have to be estimated at a high degree…