Operational Consulting
Optimizing Structures and Processes
Objectives well defined, resources available, strategy superb but performance still disappointing – no matter which action the management takes, the organization simply doesn’t get things done. Such a situation frequently indicates operational problems. The challenge is to find and to eliminate them.
Achieve Objectives
While everybody is working hard, nobody is getting any closer to achieving objectives. The organization simply doesn’t get things done. A frustrating situation and dangerous as well if the situation remains for any length of time. Getting the organization up to speed again requires identification and elimination of the roadblocks.
Most companies run highly linked processes. As soon as just a single one of those process links operates below average, the impact on the overall performance will be severe. In case several links operate sub-average, the operation chain may be paralyzed completely.
The tricky part is identifying the real sub-average links, the mismatches of tasks and capabilities, the true bottlenecks, all the weak links of the process chain. Qemicon has the operational experience to do exactly that.
Optimizing Structures and Processes
- Identification of weak links
- Identification of bottle necks
- Identification of mismatches
- Elimination of operational roadblocks
Bottlenecks
Bottleneck identification seems to be easy. Just identify the unit where the work piles up and you are there. Give the unit in question a good shake up, add some resources if necessary and things should run smoothly again. Real life, however, tends to have additional layers of complexity.
Firstly, you may bark up the completely wrong tree. Some tasks are not freely scalable, at least not with reasonable investments. In that case, the bottleneck is not in the unit in question but rather in a project outline that pumps a large amount of activities into a funnel that simply cannot manage those numbers, no matter what.
Secondly, even if a unit represents the bottleneck, the real root cause still has to be identified. While management frequently tends towards the seemingly quick and easy solution of hardware investments, internal processes or leadership issues are likely candidates as well. If one of those soft factors is the root cause, changing hard factors will have limited impact at best.
Prior to management actions, the result of any intervention should be assessed and modelled. Simple questions like “can the infrastructure support additional hardware”, “is the existing headcount capable of managing additional hardware”, “has the expected hardware output a meaningful effect on overall process speed” are simple enough but real life proves that most of them are not asked often enough.