Lean Thinking – Apply lean thinking to minimize and eliminate non-value added activities in business processes
PDX mining faced challenges in managing the engineering work order process to deliver products that meet customer requirements accurately and on time. Lead times for releasing and completing work orders were too long and were creating too many reworks and customer complaints.
SES was approached to help apply lean thinking to minimize and eliminate non-value added activities in business processes of generating, releasing and completing work orders. The key improvement priorities were as follows:
- Clearly define roles and responsibilities to eliminate waiting and expedite the flow of work orders.
- Simplify process steps and eliminate unnecessary reworks.
- Standardize all process steps and use one ERP system, SAP, to manage order workflow.
The lean approach helped drastically improve the engineering work order process to better meet customer requirements on a timely basis. The company made significant improvements by reducing hand-offs between departments and eliminating unnecessary steps and reworks through the use of lean tools that included business process mapping, standard work and 5S. Six Sigma tools to analyze work order processing data were also applied.
Capacity Building/ Planning – Development and implementation of guidelines for managing workforce planning
PDX Mining required the development and implementation of Workforce Planning guidelines to ensure they have the right skills sets and numbers to cope with the ever changing regulatory environment and client expectations. An assessment was first conducted to understand the external environment and the need for workforce planning within the organization. This was followed by a gap analysis of the existing and required competencies. Finally an action plan with clear milestones was developed and implemented to address the gaps.