What are the most pressing problems you want to address?
Quality Improvements
Common Problems
- Customer quality complaints or warranty claims
- Internal rework, defects, and variability
- Material recovery or yield issues
Delivery Problems & Long Lead Times
Common Problems
- Missing delivery dates to customers
- Big order books and long wait times for customers
- Opportunity to sell more
Poor Equipment Performance
Common Problems
- Equipment breakdowns and low throughput
- Frequent short stoppages
- High cost of maintenance and equipment ownership
Poor Strategy Objective Completion
Common Problems
- Unclear line of sight to company strategy
- Goals and objectives of the organisation not achieved
- Low level of goal ownership and engagement of staff
Problem Solving
Common Problems
- Recurring problems
- Constant firefighting and expediting
- Fixes that don’t work
Learn more and more
Workload leveling
Common Problems
- Uneven work across teams and individuals
- Overall low output
- People and teams waiting
Materials Storage
Common Problems
- Damaged and lost material
- Hard to find materials
- Long time to pick and pack orders
Ineffective Meetings
Common Problems
- Meetings go on and on
- Not sure who should attend what meeting
- No time left to do actual work
Team work issues
Common Problems
- lots of arguments and complains
- Challenging the leadership
- Avoiding responsibility
Factory Layout
Common Problems
- Factory moves if current factory too small
- Motion (people) and transportation (materials) waste
- Safety hazards and risk of material damage
Workplace organisation (5S)
Common Problems
- Clutter, outdated and unnecessary items and information
- Hard to find information, materials and tools
- Quick regression after focused tidy-ups
Poor Standard Work
Common Problems
- Variable quality and throughput between workers
- No way to easily instruct, train and assess competency of new staff
- No way to test new methods for effectiveness
Vertical Startup
Common Problems
- Loss of throughput and quality after commissioning of new equipment
- Long time before payback of capital projects achieved
- Staff not properly trained and involved in new equipment
Leading a Change Programme
Common Problems
- Staff not interested or under-involved
- No clear plans or milestones
- Risks and other priorities derail the change programme
Performance Improvement Projects
Common Problems
- We don’t know what our biggest opportunities are
- We work on many projects we don’t finish
- Project benefits are not measured or realised
No Structured Team Training
Common Problems
- Staff not working together
- Staff not trained or competent
- Single person dependency
Toolbox meetings
Common Problems
- Teams not reviewing performance and improving
- Staff not aware of the plan or their tasks
- Problems not solved or escalated
The Visual Workplace
Common Problems
- You can’t see at the glance the status of the work
- We often run out of materials
- We don’t understand what needs to be done
Confusing Leader Standard Work
Common Problems
- Leaders work on what’s in front of them
- Leaders forget important (but not urgent) tasks
- Leaders don’t check the processes
Weak Customer Service
Common Problems
- A customer’s experience with us depends on who you deal with
- No agreed service standards
- Complaints are seen as a ‘problem’ and challenged
Lack of Planning and Scheduling
Common Problems
- Targets and deadlines often missed
- No visibility of performance to plan
- Operational activity is ad hoc and reactive
Supply Chain Issues
Common Problems
- Sales demand not aligned with operational capacity
- Everyone working off different numbers
- Suppliers not delivering to promise
Poor State of Equipment
Common Problems
- Equipment is dirty and in a poor state
- Workers don’t care for their equipment
- Frequent small problems affecting equipment performance
Process Improvements Needed
Common Problems
- Duplication and gaps in duties
- Problems resulting from gaps elsewhere in the company
- Disconnected workflow and tasks
Bottleneck Elimination
Common Problems
- Constraints and hold-ups in the process
- Work in progress building up
- Workstations empty and staff waiting
Set up Time Reduction
Common Problems
- Long times switching from one product to another
- Lots of scrap and quality problems after start-up
- Doing long runs to make stock
Insufficient Workforce Engagement
Common Problems
- People not coming up with ideas
- Staff only doing the minimum required
- Low productivity
We believe New Zealand has to lift its performance.
We help businesses think and act differently.
We are productivity improvement experts.
