Selected Case Histories

Lean Manufacturing Consultant, Park Cakes Bakeries, Oldham

Background & Business Context
Park Cakes is a £140 million turnover bakery employing several hundred staff and supplying a wide range of cakes to Marks & Spencer and major supermarket chains. At the time the business was acquired by a Venture Capital company from Northern Foods in January 2006 it was making significant losses. A new management team were tasked with turning the business around and achieving the goal of 20% annual revenue growth. Following a period of consolidation and “right-sizing”, where the losses were stemmed, the MD and GM recognised that the target necessitated optimising the use of their resources so they engaged me, initially to assess production operations and recommend an appropriate action plan.

Actions
Using my knowledge of Lean, Systems Thinking and Theory of Constraints, I put together a generic approach for improving production lines by targeting the non-value-adding activities and also a roadmap for the journey from a batch-and-push to a Lean manufacturing operation. The initial stages of the approach were trialled to demonstrate the benefits on one of the production lines and identify the best ways of engaging the workforce and managing the change. The improvements were successfully rolled out to similar lines on another bakery floor.

Acting in the role of change agent and mentor for the resource optimisation programme, for the following months I supported numerous employee engagement and operational improvement initiatives by developing educational materials and appropriate Lean practices, processes, tools and techniques in order to establish a sound basis for, and then begin transitioning the factory from a mass production ethos to a Lean operation. The initiatives included tactical projects, such as supporting new product and production line launches using Lean principles, to Lean-enabling infrastructure changes and supply chain improvements to reduce raw material inventory.

Outcomes
A generic process improvement approach was documented plus a roadmap for the Lean journey. The financial benefit of just the optimisation of material flows through the factory and inventory reduction projects proposed was worth in excess of £1million per year. An appropriate set of KPIs was developed to support the roll out of the programme. Other potential capital infrastructure business cases were proposed, such as pumping wet batters and powder handling facilities. A set of some 50 short articles was produced for the Lean Log Books and Lean Newsletter to support the employee engagement initiative. A number of production lines were improved using various Lean techniques, such as 5S, Kaizen, JIT, material and WIP flow and line balancing. The benefits were captured into the following year’s budget and are currently on track.
 
Business/Systems Analyst, Argos, Milton Keynes
Background & Business Context
Most of the 800+ Argos stores are replenished daily from their Regional Distribution Centre (RDC). These consignments are typically made up by assembling part orders that are sent to the RDC from three Distribution Centres (cross-docking). Stores receive delivery advice in the form of an Electronic Delivery Advice Document (EDAD). This is raised from every sending Distribution Centre based upon what was picked, so each RDC consignment may have up to four EDADs. Some stores were reporting a general dissatisfaction with their replenishment service.

Actions
An investigation of the as-is end-to-end process and a root-cause analysis revealed that the replishment process was generally very efficient, with a few notable problems. Deliveries in which loads received did not match the accompanying delivery advice triggered inconvenient remedial processes and the notification/documentation of known anomalies was inconsistent. It was inconvenient for stores to wait for roll-overs and to manage “incorrect” EDADs. Stores reported delayed stock arriving later than advised, or not at all, impacted customer service, which had an adverse effect on store performance KPIs (e.g. put away times). In general, time was being wasted:
  • Auditing corrective action processes
  • Chasing misplaced replenishment stock
  • Monitoring & correcting stock record anomalies

From a service delivery perspective, anomalies were leading to inaccurate replenishment orders because the system record of anomalies can be “out of synch.” with the physical stock whereabouts for several days. This can cause:
  • Lost sales opportunities as store waits for replacements
  • Double picking & transportation of deleted stock
  • Return of over-stocked items if deleted stock arrives
  • Denial of stock to stores that need it

A study of replenishment delivery defects experienced by stores revealed a number of deficiencies in systems and in operational practices at both RDCs and DCs, which could mean that the delivery advice provided (EDADs) did not always reflect the cages actually delivered. This lack of integrity was resonsible for triggering remedial processes, degrading the overall quality of the replenishment distribution service perceived by stores, and could impact on the stores’ ability to service customers.

Outcomes
By observing the picking and cross-docking processes and consultation with operatives and mangers, twelve countermeasures were proposed to reduce each category of delivery defect noted. These stemmed from very simple, no-cost solutions, such as securing the bar code scanner at each out-loading dock to the door with a chain to prevent forward scanning of cages, to a costly software enhancement to consolidate the 4 EDADs (the management’s original preferred option).

Process Engineer (Credit Cards) – Abbey / Santander, Milton Keynes
Background & Business Context
Abbey/Santander was developing a new credit card and required an operating model for the customer service processes to handle complaints and enquiries arriving through the postal service at a third party mail-handling facility in Leeds (to be handed on for action in Spain). A partially-developed operating (process) model was available to handle their existing debit card customer services. The brief was to work from the debit card model with a credit card domain expert to develop the credit card customer services operating model, specify process controls based on the COSO Enterprise Risk Management framework and user interface procedures for system-supported activities.

Actions
Some 100 draft debit card processes were reviewed, enhanced and corrected or consolidated as necessary to establish the operational credit card servicing process model. Several additional, major processes were mapped that were required for credit but not debit card operations (notably disputes, charge-backs and refunds, balance transfers). Some 220+ operational control points, necessary to ensure effective and efficient credit card operations and to mitigate internal and external risks, were identified and the 65+ controls that were unique were documenting at a high level.

Outcomes
A virtually complete card-servicing operating model was delivered, consisting of about 100 process diagrams with task descriptions, operational controls with most of the user interface procedures for system-supported activities specified. The processes were handed over in stages to be trialled at the Iron Mountain mail facility in Leeds.