Deliver On Time - A Process Improvement Case Study

The Situation: Medium Sized High Quality Chemical Manufacturer

Current products are delivered late 35% of the time.
Costs are escalating due to inefficiencies in the development of new products and production.
There is a lack of trust between departments. Each department is working hard to achieve their own and differing objectives.
R&D and Manufacturing are competing for resources and in many cases do not communicate critical information to each other in a timely manner.
Business opportunities are lost due to the company's inability to deliver quickly.
Profits are dropping rapidly.
Several previous attempts to improve the process have failed and people are disillusioned.

The Goal:

Reduce the time it takes to produce and deliver customer orders while maintaining high quality products.
Improve on-time delivery from 65% to maximum permitted by current financial constraints.
Create a collaborative environment where people are aligned across functions and departments.

The Solution:

Develop effective leadership skills.
Shift the focus from evaluating others to looking at your own actions in leading business improvement.
Communicate and enroll the whole management team in the change effort.
Engage all departments in mapping the current process from customer request to product shipment.
Involve all workers in identifying constraints and opportunities to improve the process.
Facilitate departments to communicate and resolve differences between each other.
Establish processes that all workers and leaders agree to use to help build trust and cooperation.
Create an on-time measure for each department, with everyone working to achieve the same objectives.

Services Provided:

The Results:

On time delivery improved to 85% within 90 days.
People are cooperating and working across department boundaries to achieve their common objectives.

ChoiceWorks