A project that has recently come to fruition was for Greenleaf Recycling Ltd in Bedlington, Northumberland. The have just gained their PAS100 / CQP accreditation, which we supported them with. PAS100 is akin to ISO9001 for compost producers, and includes a full QMS (Quality Management System), Standard Operating Procedures, HACCP controls and NCR system. Accreditation was notified on the 24th April 2012 and our congratulations go out to Greenleaf for achieving this success. From an on time delivery performance perspective we were particularly interested in how the lead time for compost production could be reduced, and through design of the process schedule and defining some standard working practices the lead time for compost production has been taken from 6 months down to 3 months. You can view the Greenleaf website here . Smartspeed Consulting Limited Taking the frustration out of on time delivery.

When you are trying to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of a business process you are often presented with in-trays. They may look quite innocuous as they sit there on the edge of the desk, but the way that they are used can greatly affect the ability to close out project tasks, or affect the lead time of the process that they are part of. As an example, one of my clients was having problems with the length of time it took to produce their manufacturing orders. As I was engaged to lead some lean transformation work in this area I scoped the sales order processing part of the business into the project. There was initially some scepticism as to why I would need to look there when it was a manufacturing problem I had been hired to resolve. However, after explaining the lead time was from order receipt right through to despatch of the products my client agreed that the administrative function may have some effect on the overall time taken. The analysis from the offices in that

Continuous Improvement, or CI, is a heavily used term that often doesn't create the results that we would hope for. Common approaches to CI often help people move from having problems to being 'OK'. However, most people find that it is much more difficult to use these approaches to move from being 'good' to 'excellent'. From his past work with clients who struggled to move from 'good' to excellent', Giles Johnston, a business improvement consultant, has devised a simple method for generating new improvements (hence helping your staff to take the tiny steps that embody CI). From the most junior person to the most senior within a business this simple tool can be applied to provide new insights and ideas to improve your business. This booklet gives you a step by step guide to using this approach and ideas on how to best use it for your business. Quick start templates are also provided (via a download link in the resources section). So, i

NBSL have announced a new round of funding to help Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the North East of England with their change management and process improvement projects. The funding is up to 40% contribution (to a maximum project value of £3500.00 excluding VAT) and requires that a number of criteria are met for eligibility. For more information and advice about this potential source of funding please visit the NBSL website ( http://www.nbsl.org.uk ) or contact us ( info@smartspeed.co.uk ). Smartspeed Consulting Limited Taking the frustration out of on time delivery.

How many times do you find yourself in a rush to complete a task that you also had to rush a year ago? There are many tasks that only take place once a year, but because of a lack of preparation or scheduling they seem to appear out of the blue. Of course these sorts of things never are out of the blue, it's just that we weren't paying attention. If we did properly schedule these items (once we knew what they were) then we could ask different questions, such as 'what would be a better way of doing this?' Many times however the task re-appears and we do just enough to get the job off our lists. What would happen if you listed all of those quarterly and yearly tasks and scheduled them properly? What improved results would you get? Smartspeed Consulting Limited Taking the  frustration  out of on time delivery.

Good to see that one of my clients has had a story about them published on the bdaily website. I was involved in delivering part of the business improvement work that the story refers to. Read the story here . Smartspeed Consulting Limited Taking the frustration out of on time delivery.

Impedance is one of those good words that, when applied to the context of business improvement, you can quickly find ideas to improve how your business operates. For example... What gets in the way? What obstacles are there in your business that stop you from being as fast as you can, or delivering your product or service to the highest quality levels? How you do make it difficult to do business? Does your business prevent your customers from doing business? Is there any way that you can re-design how your customers interact with your business so that their life becomes easier and you can deliver more products and services for them in the future? What stops good ideas from taking effect? If you are trying to implement changes to the way that you work what gets in the way? Can you better understand how changes are stopped (or impeded) and then design a different way for your business to behave in this area? If you find certain activities in your business aren't happening

I question I often get asked is "does all of this business improvement activity work outside of manufacturing?" The answer is yes, and the charity I am a Trustee of got in the press because of it. I was even interviewed for the article. Read the article here. Smartspeed Consulting Limited Taking the frustration out of on time delivery.

One of the most common phrases you hear when you first embark on improvement project work is 'we've done all of this before'. Have you had this said to you? If you have then there is a simple antidote to the situation, finding a 'statue of change'. Find something in your organisation that doesn't work and that fits in to the remit of the change you are trying to make. Then, put all of your efforts into making sure that this specific change takes effect and works. Sometimes this requires extra effort to ensure that everything runs smoothly. The key to making this strategy work however is to make sure that the change is visible. The change needs to be the statue referred to in the title, a monument for everyone to see that change really can happen. If you are finding that your business change projects are being faced with resistance then it may be worthwhile  to consider a 'statue of change' for your business. Find the one thing that every

5S is a much used Lean tool that is often seen as a good launching point for business transformation projects. In many cases however, its application into the office environment is rather lacking . This is a shame because it can offer some really good benefits for the business who does embrace the five steps (sort, set, shine, standards and sustain) fully. For example, when you implement 5S on your computer server files become easier to find and time that was wasted trying to get the information that you need is now used for more important tasks (plus it's less frustrating!). Physical files and information are better organised and clutter in the workplace reduces. Again, this makes retrieving information quicker, trip hazards reduce and morale can improve. Also, if you run some form of software to manage your business (such as a CRM system, or MRP/ERP system) then having this same mentality with the data in the system will allow you to improve the quality of the business

'Business Process Improvement' is a practical how to guide based on the author's experience of helping businesses to improve their operational performance. It is aimed at the person whose job it is to make operational and on time delivery improvements happen. During the time he has worked as a business improvement consultant, the author, Giles Johnston, has identified a number of approaches that work for his wide range of clients time and time again. Different clients, different businesses, different needs… but similar approaches.. ‘Business Process Improvement’ outlines these approaches in a simple way that makes them easy to apply to your business. If you are short of time and need to quickly make tangible changes in your business, then this practical guide book is for you. Shorter lead times, improved on time delivery performance and less fire fighting are just around the corner. Click here to view on Amazon.com. Smartspeed Consulting Li

I heard a statement recently about how SMED was something you do to ‘polish’ a process, after you have done everything else you need to do to that production process. When I worked through the experience part of gaining my Engineering Chartership I had never heard of the term SMED, it was just something you did to streamline a process – to remove the ‘dead time’ when changing over. Since the lean movement has grown (where I first heard the term SMED) we understand better the need for flexibility within production environments and how quick changeovers can really help. As you can imagine, I disputed the statement that SMED was something you do at the end. I’m sure that you agree that it is just good working practice. If you aren’t familiar with SMED it is a really useful method for taking the work out of a changeover and minimising the time where the process is not running at full speed. A common approach is to: 1 - List all of the activities required to changeover.

If you need to increase your effectiveness in the workplace and need a visual tool to help with day to day task management then this short guide is for you. Giles Johnston, a business improvement consultant for small to medium sized businesses, takes you through the steps needed to implement a low / no cost solution to your day to day management problems - a 'Kamishibai' board.  A Kamishibai board can help to improve discipline within the workplace and ensure that the working days / weeks / months are more effective. Common within businesses that use 'lean' methods to improve efficiency and performance (and very effective to use when implementing 5S), a Kamishibai board can be used in its own right, in any kind of business, whether you are going through a lean transformation or not.  Click here to view on Amazon.com. Smartspeed Consulting Limited Taking the frustration out of on time delivery.