SAPICS (The Association for Operations Management of Southern Africa) and IT vendor SYSPRO are joining forces to celebrate their 30th birthdays this year.
To mark the shared milestone, SYSPRO has announced it will sponsor the annual SAPICS Conference and Exhibition, and will fund a presentation at the event by UK-based lean management coach and "sensei" Ian Glenday.
Glenday's presentation will shed light on the magic of "levelled scheduling", a little-known term in the lean dictionary, but one which has helped many companies boost their output, growth and bottom lines, explains SAPICS president Ken Titmuss.
Glenday started out working with large process industry manufacturers in sectors like foods, chemicals and paper, but found that his approach worked well in virtually any area. It has been implemented very successfully in various hospital departments, including operating rooms.
One 3M operation with which Glenday has worked has increased output by a third and almost halved material waste, without any extra investment in machinery or people. Kimberly-Clark has seen throughput increases of 15% at no extra cost, with much more predictable and stable production. For Wrigley, the chewing gum manufacturer, an output leap of 10% at its Plymouth factory was just the beginning. After levelled scheduling was introduced, vast amounts of space were freed up (50% on the packing floor) and that space filled with new machines to produce new products for new markets.
Glenday believes professionals seeking to benefit from lean thinking need to consider four significant questions. Are daily or weekly plans ever changed after being issued? Is the prime focus of lean eliminating waste? Is the accuracy of demand forecasting an issue? Would "fire fighting" be an appropriate term to describe the way things are, at times, done?
"If you answer 'yes' to one or more of the questions posed, then my presentation is for you," Glenday suggests. "It will address each of these questions as well as covering an approach - lean flow logic - that is counter-intuitive and flies in the face of conventional supply chain wisdom. It will explain how this approach can be practically implemented using examples from several different companies that are successfully applying the logic of lean flow to the way they operate.
"Most people think lean is about focusing on eliminating waste. I don't see it that way as to me it is about creating flow. My views are not necessarily shared by all 'lean experts', but I have found ways to describe this approach so that people can quickly relate to it and find they can practically implement it in order to enjoy its dramatic impact on performance.
"Worldwide, lean is increasingly being recognised as the 'next big thing', largely because of the phenomenal results it has yielded for Toyota," Glenday comments.
In 2006, following the implementation of Lean Management, also known as the Toyota Production System, the motor manufacturer achieved a profit of $11.6 billion with a year-end market capitalisation of some $240 billion - which is greater than that of General Motors, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Honda and Nissan combined.
Glenday began his lean journey as a micro-biologist, running a fermentation plant producing enzymes. It was here that he first began developing lean concepts and principles for application in process industries. After time out to gain an MBA from Bradford Business School, he joined Reckitt & Colman where he led an MRPII project to class "A" status in its pharmaceutical division. He then moved to the household and toiletries division, where he was responsible for initiating and implementing a pan-European supply chain strategy based on the lean concept of "every product every interval". He then became Head of Policy Deployment at Colman's of Norwich, where substantial increases in sales per employee, market share and profit margins were achieved by applying lean thinking across the entire company.
More recently, Glenday has been working with companies as an independent lean coach. He currently divides his time between working at the Lean Enterprise Academy in the United Kingdom, where he is a senior fellow, delivering workshops for Lean Enterprise Institutes around the world, and helping businesses to make their own lean transformations through his company Repetitive Flexible Supply Ltd.
The 30th Annual SAPICS Conference and Exhibition, which is co-hosted by the Supply Chain Council, takes place at Sun City from 29 June to 2 July 2008. For further information, please contact Cynthia at the Conference Secretariat on (011) 805-6616 or upavon@icon.co.za. Up-to the-minute information is continuously posted on the SAPICS Web site at www.sapics.org.za.
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