To achieve benchmarked results as reflected in identified value drivers of: unit cost, part availability, gross stock value, safety and staff engagement.
A step into the new world
Challenge
Story
WORK TOGETHER AND BECOME “BEST IN CLASS”
Following a health check, consistent themes about the present state emerged, including: a reactive culture, inefficient processes and unclear accountabilities. Five operating principles guided the design; agility, operational excellence, visibility, connectedness and accountability. The effectiveness of any change depends on the quality of the content and the acceptance of the change by the people involved. Two streams of work therefore occurred concurrently: one the re-design of the Operating Model and the other a People & Cultural Stream. Staff were involved around proposed value stream changes to contribute to quality, and acceptance was guided by Collaboration by Design Program in the People and Culture stream.
Doing
RESEARCH SAYS THAT THE UPTAKE OF CHANGE IS THREE TIMES FASTER AND MORE RAPIDLY ADOPTED AND SUSTAINED IF DISSEMINATED THROUGH INFORMAL CULTURAL INFLUENCERS RATHER THAN RANDOM INFLUENCERS.
The CbD journey occurred in parallel to the change of Operating Model. It was the alignment of these two processes that enabled the success of the project. The beginning of the CbD journey was to map the informal culture using an organisational network analysis (ONA). Through an ONA we made visible the pattern of collaboration across the whole Supply Chain and therefore the accountability of the different teams to the key KPI, ‘turn around time’ (TAT) as counted by the number of days between a request for a part and its delivery. The ONA maps showed varying levels of collaboration across teams that made up the Supply Chain. What became obvious was that there was one group that was disconnected. This created a bottleneck/black hole that prevented TAT improvement. On the ONA, this pattern was also ‘mirrored’ in the Leadership team.
The work consisted of:
- A Lead Team Insight and Action Forum that showed the ONA maps and invited reflection to gain insights from the data and design actions to improve the key KPI’s.
- Insight and Action Forums with teams and between teams across the business to share and gain insights about the connectedness shown by the maps. Accountabilities emerged out of these conversations and actions suggested tp mitigate black-holes in collaboration. These were monitored and followed through in subsequent meetings. A record of actions was kept centrally.
- Collaboration Forums: Key Cultural Influencers who were identified by the ONA and verified by the project team were invited to monthly Collaboration Forums to assist in the transformation through continuous improvement projects that improved the KPI’s and value drivers. KCI’s were invited to assist with the Operating model stream around roles and responsibilities.
- Targeted Teamwork and Coaching: the project team targeted workshops with teams that were not working well together – therefore aiming at a key KPI of turn around time across the Supply Chain.
Building Leadership Capacity: A Connected Leadership program was designed for leaders at all levels across the business to improve agility, visibility, connectedness and accountability throughout the organisation.
To give airtime to dissent we trained senior leaders to lead dialogue groups in which people could speak their truth and be listened to (although not necessarily agreed with). These were weekly open forums.
What we achieved together
- Unit costs: down 30%
- Employee engagement: up 15 points to 80%
- Warehouse part availability: 92% – highest ever
- Safety: improved by 30%
- Gross stock value: down 50%
- In-sourcing officially announced
