• January 29, 2017
  • Faber Infinite

Crafting Operational Excellence in Engineering Sector

This post is a prelude to our research paper on ‘Growth Drivers for Engineering Industry. Background The Indian Engineering sector has witnessed a remarkable growth over the last few years driven by increased investments in infrastructure and industrial production. The engineering sector, being closely associated with the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors of the economy, is of strategic importance to India’s economy. While large scale production in the segment is organized, the sector in India is also home to a vast, unorganized, mid-scale operations setup, which feeds this large scale production. However, the next couple of years may remain challenging for the engineering and construction companies. While execution pace is slowing down due to various internal as well as macro issues, margins have also come under pressure due to feeble demand, rising competition and over capacity in a few sub sectors. Thus, unless the macro-environment improves overall growth will continue to remain sluggish in the near term. Further, in the light of recent event of demonetization there are some repercussions, which are likely to hit the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, we take the various purchasing manager’s indexes as a good indication of where the economy is going. The manufacturing PMI for India which has fallen might be taken as a sign of how demonetization is affecting the Indian economy. Hence, the operational excellence in Engineering and building competitiveness are key to sustenance for the industry. Building Competitiveness in Engineering Sector The highly competitive and dynamic environment, market competition forces organizations to improve productivity and enhance their competiveness. Consequently, the matter of assessing and improving competitiveness in different industry of several countries has received increased attention in recent times. Building Competitiveness, Zero Defects and Zero Effects, Skill Analysis & Development is a three pronged approach required to bring about a holistic development. While implementing efficiency improvement solutions at several leading engineering manufacturing companies in India, Faber Infinite created breakthroughs in building competitiveness and leveraging the hidden potential of the organization. The focus was on implementing various drivers of building competitiveness. It also encompassed the study of all activities to find out non value adding activities (NVA) e.g. search time, material availability, setup change time, etc. To eliminate all NVAs various fundamental tools such as SMED, Kanban, 5S, layout design, logistics management and systemic changes in organizational design were rolled out. Implementation of Tools In addition, it has been observed that engineering industries need to focus and invest more on operational improvement and optimization. Value adders/ operators play a key role in operations in spite of the application of machinery and equipment. As per challenges raised by the industry, few listed are low productivity, over staffing, poor labor relations, inefficient handling of operator challenges, high wages and lack of trained or skilled workforce. It can be inferred that all these issues are fallouts of lower manpower productivities and, hence, scientific approach towards efficiency improvement is the need of the hour. Further implementation of focused approaches like Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and Time and motion study in the existing system can give phenomenal results in domains of machine performance, material flow and manpower productivity respectively. There by addressing 3Ms of operations. Efficiency Improvement Parameters Auto industry is mature and leader in efficiency parameters across the globe and same in India as well. Reducing material cost and increasing manpower productivity is considered to be must have to survive the competition and are no longer drivers for higher profitability. However, it has now become imperative for them to look at basic stability of all 3Ms of operations and the 4th M – Methods (man – method – material – machine). The Faber Infinite framework has improvised the scope of progress in terms of cost and productivity improvement and it can be further enhanced by sustaining the existing methodology. Phenomenal results have been realized through the design, implementation and refining of systems and processes. Insights from the real experiences, solutions deployed and further research findings have been covered in the research paper. Please reach out to us on publishing@faberinfinite.com for further details. Are you ready to achieve operational excellence in the engineering sector? Take the first step towards success by filling out the form below. Gain exclusive insights and practical strategies to elevate your engineering operations and drive exceptional results. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to craft a path to excellence! Written By: Faber Mayuri Pandya and Faber Devna Chaturvedi

  • January 6, 2017
  • Faber Infinite

Crafting Operational Excellence in Plastic Industry

  The Indian plastics market is comprised of around 25,000 companies and employs 3 million people. The domestic capacity for polymer production was 5.72 million tonnes in 2009. Gujarat in Western India is the leading plastics processing hub and accounts for the largest number of plastics manufacturers, with over 5,000 plastics firms. The growth rate of the Indian plastics industry is one of the highest in the world, with plastics consumption growing at 16 percent per annum (compared to annual 10 percent in China and around 2.5 percent annually in the UK). With a growing middle class (currently estimated at 50 million) and a low per capita consumption of plastics, currently 8 kg per head, this trend is likely to continue. Despite India having a population of 1.15 billion and a work force of 467 million, plastics companies have reported problems with labour shortages. This has led to increased investment in technology such as automation and conveyor belt systems. Apart from the shortage of a skilled labour, the plastics industry is also facing the problem of a nationwide power deficit. The electricity demand deficit is 12-13 per cent. This provides excellent opportunities for firms offering energy saving solutions, power saving machines and ancillary equipment. Operational Excellence in Plastic Industry Industry is constantly trying to find ways to lower production costs in order to maximise profit margins. But this goal becomes more difficult in today’s environment of fluctuating raw material costs, variable market prices, rising energy and transportation costs, and reduced consumer discretionary spending. Growing competition from emerging countries, condensed product lifecycles, an increase in the number of product configurations, and complicated supply chains all add to the complexity. Mastering these challenges means making improvements to production and productivity. With such hyper competitive market environment, the competition is getting intense. Increasingly organisations from all sectors and all sizes are looking at operational excellence (OE)/ world class manufacturing (WCM) practices to eliminate inefficiencies across their value chain which ultimately helps them drive costs down and deliver quality goods and services to customers. The expertise behind operations excellence implementations is not a core competency for most companies, nor should it be. It makes good business sense for most companies to use consultants for implementation of these systems. Most of these consultant-delivered programs deliver quick productivity improvements. Unfortunately, however, most of these programs are not sustainable for long after the consultant leaves. There are many operational excellence programs that the consulting companies implement in the plastic industry. While TPM, as per Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM), can be very powerful yet several times TPM is partially understood and deployed. The results are normally related to overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)/ mean time to repair (MTTR)/ mean time between failures (MTBF) improvements while it has impact on throughput time and inventory, nevertheless it’s indirect. Let us look at the classical operational excellence (OE) and world class management (WCM) practices. Classical OE/WCM OE focuses on efficiency improvement and waste elimination while TPM focuses more on higher asset utilisation. This is debatable; however, the need for classical LEAN/OE in plastic industry is high. This results in shorter manufacturing throughput time and, thus, reducing inventory in pipeline related benefits. Typical actions include: Current state analysis will enable you to see the complete door-to-door flow in your facility and to identify and prioritize areas for improvement. It should be followed by setting goals for future state. The future value stream map has as its main aim, the identification of improvements to the value stream that will lead to a shorter ‘lead’ time. In lean thinking this is the time taken from the raw materials being brought into the business, until the time they leave the facility destined for the customer. Balance the line so as to create smoother throughput Find approaches to eliminate temporary storage, staging, holding vessels Eliminate redundancies in equipment by improving reliability Identify potential areas for reduction in cleaning/ changeover/ startup time Once the fundamentals of the current value stream map and the future map are ready, there is a strong need to ensure that the implementation of improvements is carried out in a structured and methodical fashion. Without someone driving forward the improvements, they are unlikely to happen and the improvements to performance will be negligible. Numerous plastic manufacturing organizations have been transformed by implementing such operational excellence practices. Typical improvement areas in the plastic industry include improvement in OEE & labour productivity, yield improvement through waste reduction, inventory management through Kanban, low cost automation, manpower optimisation through productivity improvement, workplace improvement, reduction in change over times, and equipment & mould breakdown reduction. In conclusion OE/WCM practices have a tremendous scope in plastic manufacturing environment. The first visible change is to create a dust/dirt free work environment. It has been observed, over and above TPM, WCM/classical lean in the improvement program of plastic industry results in approximately 30 percent reduction in cost of production/ conversion. It also helps in predicting customer demand better, reducing inventory levels, streamlining & standardising business processes, improving on-time & complete shipments, and increasing access to data for faster decision-making. All these directly adds to the bottom-line while simultaneously customers receive on time delivery and high quality products. Operational excellence means adopting best practices, having a culture of continuous improvement, and utilising the latest technologies in products and production methods. These are the guidelines that any organisation needs to follow to achieve operational excellence. About the Author:  Faber Aakash Borse is Director and one of the founding partners of Faber Infinite Consulting (www.faberinfinite.com), with operations in Asia Pacific, Africa & Middle East. He holds a masters degree in Operations Management with his 1st degree being Mechanical Engineering. Ready to craft operational excellence in the plastic industry? Fill out the form below to gain exclusive insights, strategies, and expert guidance on optimizing your plastic manufacturing processes. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to take your plastic industry operations to the next level! This article was originally published on Business-standard.com. Original link available – here

  • September 13, 2016
  • Faber Infinite

Operational Excellence Do’s and Don’ts

One of the keys to the implementation of Operational Excellence principles is to become a learning Organization through persistence and continuous improvement. Implementing any change initiative is difficult.  If it wasn’t, each person would be doing it, but they are not. Although many organizations begin with their journey to bring about a change in the organization, only 5% organizations are successful in implementing and sustaining it. In this blog, we will talk about Operational Excellence Do’s and Don’ts. The following parameters of do’s and don’ts aim at keeping Organizations focused on the facts thing rather than indulging in unwanted waste. Do’s  of Operational Excellence Communicate: As in every part of life, communication across the entire supply chain network is essential. Implementation strategy: Every Organization has limitless improvement opportunities and potential along with the challenges. The opportunities, if correctly identified and properly realised can transform the Organization. Identify the implementation strategy to achieve transformation. Coaching and Training: A good coaching program is essential and could increase productivity leaps and bound. Training and validation of training assures that all associates understand the “steps for success.” If people don’t know the proper processes, they create inefficient steps gradually chipping away at productivity numbers. Know your operations: A beneficial step is to go through a process flow mapping. Initially this is challenging but a great tool for the future and should be maintained ongoing with any changes occurred over time. Employee Engagement: Employee buy in is a key component for the success of transformation initiatives. The focus should be to dive into the key strategies, training, and programs that increase employee engagement, align operational and financial goals and metrics, and improve performance through effective leadership and processes. Implementation: During the implementation phase, the drivers for improvement are rolled out along with appropriate training/ orientation for the employees involved in the transformation journey. Don’t’s of Operational Excellence Don’t just set it and forget, don’t blindly copy: Don’t just set it and forget it. It is important to continually reevaluate your transformation efforts. Even when you take the long-term into consideration, changes in your plan, dynamic changes in demand levels and industry trends can create possibilities to further improve your Organization. Operational Excellence Operational Transformation is not a quick fix and you cannot pick and choose the tools you want to use: The key to ongoing success is to embed transformation as a philosophy, and a requirement in everybody’s role; safeguarding the right levels of line-management responsibility and accountability for gradually implementing the various tools and techniques that support it. Operational Transformation, in fact, is hard work and it’s a challenge to keep it going.Companies that are leading the way with their ability to effectively drive it in their production operations have aligned their people, processes, and supporting technology to do so. Experience has shown that it is critically important to address the leadership and people issues as a first priority. Once these issues are addressed, it facilitates the ability to build deeper Organizational capabilities and use proven process methodologies to make continuous improvements.

  • July 30, 2016
  • Faber Infinite

Improvement in Engineering Industry through Operational Excellence

In today’s highly competitive and dynamic environment, market competition forces organizations to improve productivity and enhance their competiveness. Consequently, the matter of assessing and improving competitiveness in different industry of several countries has received increased attention in recent times. In addition, it has been observed that engineering industries need to focus and invest more on operational improvement and optimization. Value adders/ operators play a key role in operations in spite of the application of machinery and equipment. As per challenges raised by the industry, few listed are low productivity, over staffing, poor labor relations, inefficient handling of operator challenges, high wages an d lack of trained or skilled workforce. It can be inferred that all these issues are fallouts of lower manpower productivities and scientific approach towards efficiency improvement is the need of the hour. Owing to these factors every year, companies and contractors are hit with crores of rupees in engineering sector due to inefficiency factors impacting business. A decline in productivity means an increase in costs and therefore deterioration in the competitive position of an organization. On the other hand, an improvement in productivity can lead to a decrease in cost and duration of production, an improvement in quality, and therefore a growth in the market share. Team Faber is supporting a leading organization from engineering domain situated in South Gujarat. The client is a global leader in the textile industry equipment manufacturing. The journey was initiated to improve productivity and throughput by deploying different operational excellence tools to deliver exceptional results. The benefits delivered have been phenomenal and well received by the client. The crucial challenges that required sharp focus on productivity improvement for the organization include: Inability of assembly line to meet increased market demand Rising issues of product quality Issues related to Work station design Lack of standard operating procedure in place Unbalanced operations creating Muda, Mura, Muri etc The improvement in productivity was conducted via following key drivers: Conducting a detailed Value Stream Mapping Exercise (Current State Map and Future State Map) to study all the steps, identify all wastes (Muda, Mura and Muri) in the process and devise solutions to eliminate them Defining standard times (fair days work) by conducting time and motion study for the ongoing process Considering all the factors such as environmental conditions, difficulties encountered, nature of task, as per ILO standards Apply operational excellence concepts/ tools such as line balancing, change over time reduction (SMED), and Five S, etc to eliminate waste Work station redesign exercise was extremely fruitful and well received to arrive more ergonomic workplace (and replace traditional work benches) to eliminate operator fatigue and improve productivity The exercise has helped client organization: Improve productivity from 24 spindles per shift to 64 spindles per shift Work content improved by 61% Overall Productivity improved by 167% Total 10 newly designed work station layout as per ergonomic design This exercise helped to improve the production techniques, increase labor productivity, and efficiency improvement, all of which resulted in cost and wastage reduction – building more competitiveness. These fundamental concepts like Value Stream Mapping and Time and Motion study facilitates to arrive at better capacity realization and robust planning system. The success stories and case studies are plenty, and it is here to stay for long. These concepts are answers for building competitiveness for Organizations and overall industry!   Written By: Faber Mayuri Pandya and Faber Devna Chaturvedi

  • June 22, 2016
  • Faber Infinite

Achieving Operational Excellence in Laboratory Improvement

It goes without saying that, accurate clinical practices and laboratory testing services for proper output has to be standardized. It is necessary to be ensured about the quality testing as it is the base for any detailed treatment. The clinical laboratory accounts for the majority of health services in India. Though the advances in technology have kept improving in the present decade, but the delivery of those services still seems to be a debatable issue. The current developments and innovations will definitely improve the future of laboratories, but to make that transpire in future proper deployment of tools is quintessential. Laboratory practices, the medical specialty that deals with testing of specimens from patients and consulting with physicians who order the tests, has undergone major transformations during the last decade and preliminary step for all major treatments. The most challenging problem faced by the laboratories in terms of testing of specimens is timely organization and allocation of resources required to deliver apt results. A properly designed inventory management tool can help in eliminating the concerned issues. The services offered by clinical laboratories are transforming to get automated by each passing day. However, there are times when the laboratory is stuffed with samples during the time of peak loads. There are times when there are more samples to be tested in the morning shifts, but the capacity increases during other shifts during off peak hours. Enhanced efficiency, and as a consequence improved cost and quality, can be recognized through increased ‘operational excellence’ via various concepts like quick change over and load leveling tools like heijunka. Operational Excellence in Laboratory Improvement Though laboratory services occupy a small part of hospitals budget but they have a major influence in the critical decisions of the hospital. It helps in providing solutions through different tests which can avoid unnecessary hospital stay and also adds to the revenue of hospital. To ensure whether the criteria of safety and qualities have been fulfilled, NABL guidelines can definitely help. It stresses on continuous improvement and its implementation under the guideline# 4 which lays a strong emphasis on proper process improvement and management through various tools like process parameter monitoring, internal audits, quality of technical records etc. Almost every patient accesses the laboratory, so proper streamlining of diagnostic tools and protocols is required for the smooth functioning and to avoid cluttering. Guideline# 5 of NABL focuses on physical workplace management and proper information flow for optimal process flow and clutter-free work environment, leading to better availability and quality for diagnostic tests. Emphasis should be given towards reducing the process wastes (inefficiencies or Muda), quality enhancement via elimination of variability (Mura) and augmenting the usage of available material and machinery via error-proofing to reduce the chances of any accidental errors, mix ups, etc. All of the above requires a close association and culture building amongst the laboratory staff and clinical staff. The core lies in highlighting the needs and working towards patient-oriented healthcare. Written by: Faber Jalay Pandya Faber Jalay Pandya is Director and one of the founding partners of Faber Infinite Consulting, with operations in Asia Pacific, Africa & Middle East. He holds a masters degree in Marketing Management with his 1st degree being in Engineering. This article was originally published on Economic Times – ETHealthworld.com as part of Operational Excellence in Healthcare Industry series. Original link available – here

  • June 4, 2016
  • Faber Infinite

Operational Excellence Concepts paving way for NABH

Precise delivery of qualitative healthcare services is one of the inevitable concerns which the hospitals have been trying to deal with. There are various anomalies owing to the upsurge of population followed by various inhibitors changing disease profile/ re-emerging diseases, lack or absence of infrastructure, paucity of experts (Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics), inaccessibility of healthcare services, lack of safety measures. Further there is a necessity for building up quality and safety initiatives pervading health care.  Although there is an extensive expansion occurring in the healthcare industry but the expansion is not equivalent to match the appropriate standards. The effective implementation of policies and proper enforcement of standards needs to be effected. There has been a set of guidelines to maintain various operating standards at hospitals and healthcare service providers by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH). It has been setup with the vision to establish and operate accreditation programme for healthcare organizations. Similar framework for quality control and standard guidelines of laboratories is called the NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories). These guidelines shall aid in effective and better operations in healthcare industry or hospitals. In any hospital, having implemented operating standards shall ensure effective, safe, patient-centred, timely, efficient, and equitable functioning. The guidelines in the standard reflect on two major aspects of healthcare delivery i.e. patient centered functions and healthcare organization centered functions. One of the important cornerstones of framework is continuous improvement – to have a positive impact in improving care and service delivery, which also happens to be the foundation of Operational Excellence (OE) framework as well. OE concepts, when deployed, leads to continual improvement environment in hospitals, on top of ensuring utmost care in delivering clinical services. OE concepts addresses various guidelines such as orienting clinical staff members on operational excellence, quality management, continual improvement, manpower productivity improvement, physical workplace and process improvement. Guidline #6 of NABH, stresses on  identifying and eliminating root causes via Problem Solving Mechanisms to improve internal – external systems & processes. Further providing appropriate and timely medication is crucial to meet patients’ needs within safety and security controls. This safeguards judicious treatment and eludes any uncertain situation pertaining to medication. Medication management as discussed in the earlier posts aids in addressing Medication Management guideline #3. Quality health care ultimately encompasses the desired health outcomes and also requires consistent improvement of the existing management and infrastructure. Similarly more than half a dozen guidelines like Hospital Infection Control, Facility Management and Safety, etc can directly be addressed by proven Operational Excellence concepts. The crux lies in the proper implementation of various solutions which needs to be customized as per the requirement. Needless to mention that the patients are the biggest beneficiaries, however these tools and standards also aid in receiving desired results, higher efficiencies and returns for the institution and helps to set benchmarks for progress of the health care industry. These practices and standards are accredited by International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQ) and can further boost medical tourism as well. It is not only requirement of tomorrow but demand of today as well! Written by: Faber Aakash Borse Faber Aakash Borse is Director and one of the founding partners of Faber Infinite Consulting (www.faberinfinite.com), with operations in Asia Pacific, Africa & Middle East. He holds a masters degree in Operations Management with his 1st degree being in Engineering. This article was originally published on Economic Times – ETHealthworld.com as part of Operational Excellence in Healthcare Industry series. Original link available – here

  • May 3, 2016
  • Faber Infinite

Healthcare: Operational Excellence and Growth Strategies

A multipronged approach that puts patients and healthcare. The heart of performance transformation efforts can help hospitals and health systems deliver more financially sustainable, patient-oriented, and physician-friendly care. Healthcare Operational Excellence uses a variety of process improvement and change management concepts.  And approaches to increase operational efficiency and improving care quality. Because waits and delays are so common in health care, patients and providers assume that waiting is unassumingly part of the care process. But studies and work on assessing the reasons for delays suggests otherwise. With enhanced patient flow, timely and efficient flow of patients through important care settings can be offered. There have been cases in India where teams have been working on typical and rampant issue of long queues and waiting times at the Outdoor Patient Departments (OPD). With concepts like Swim lane Process Mapping (another variation of Value Stream Mapping) the team was able to achieve 20 to 30% reduction in average time spent at the OPD by improving the patient turn around times. There should be strong sense of belief that healthcare exists for patient care and serving them quickly and efficiently should be the focus. Operational Excellence in Healthcare Industry Concepts like functional layouts vis-a-vis process driven layouts are all the more critical in healthcare facility or hospital design. At several locations it is observed due to the functional layouts of the hospital which is not patient oriented, patients have to traverse substantial distance. In one instance, patient with fractured leg had to walk almost 1500 meters which is ‘one and half kilometers’ inside the hospital to get admitted and treated. Such scenarios can be improved by designing the layout considering the patient and process flow. Similarly, specific areas of focus to improve patient flow can include reducing waits for patient admission through emergency departments, achieving timely and efficient transfer of patients from the intensive care unit and the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) to medical/ surgical units. Hospital areas must be designed to achieve optimal flow of patients, the emergency department, intensive care unit, and operating rooms. Their related pre- and post-care areas tend to be major bottlenecks because they are non-interchangeable resources. And as per classical Theory of Constraint by Goldratt, one must focus on improving the bottlenecks. Reducing delays and unclogging bottlenecks depends on assessing and improving flow between and among these departments, and throughout the entire system, rather than in isolated departments. Improving the efficiency of delivering service and treatment is the single way forward. We all know that only the healthcare sector is directly connected to lives of people and it must be well organized. Written by: Faber Vishal Kulkarni Faber Vishal Kulkarni is one of the founding members and Director of Faber Infinite Consulting, with operations in Asia Pacific, Africa & Middle East. He holds a masters degree in Operations Management with his 1st degree being in Production Engineering. This article was originally published on Economic Times – ETHealthworld.com as part of Operational Excellence in Healthcare Industry series. Original link available here.

  • May 3, 2016
  • Faber Infinite

How Operational Excellence can impact Healthcare Industry

Healthcare sector is one, which is directly connected to lives of people, and there must not be any operational issues, everything must be well organized. Hence, it gets all the more important for healthcare providers to devote more management focus towards hospital operations improvements in order to boost patient centricity, quality treatment and productivity enhancement. A multi-pronged approach that puts hospital and patient care at the heart of performance transformation efforts can help hospitals and health systems deliver more financially sustainable and patient oriented care. Healthcare personnel should actively participate in performance improvement efforts and be open to changes. The continual improvement not only aids operational excellence but also quality patient care, patients’ satisfaction and staff satisfaction as well. Hospital Operational Excellence deploys a variety of process improvement & change management concepts and approaches to increase operational efficiency and reduce clinical variability; ultimate objective is to drive the total medical care cost down while improving care quality. The inefficiencies are the major barriers toward excellence. In hospital environment also the inefficiencies can be categorized into various types, which can be identified and addressed with ‘eye for inadequacies’ and ‘awareness of continual improvement’. Several tools & concepts of Operational Excellence (OE) like Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Inventory Management, Five S, Visual Management, Standardized Work, Poka Yoke – Error Proofing in hospitals can lead to dramatic results. Several hospitals across the world have adopted various operational excellence frameworks. Implementation of Operational Excellence concepts have addressed several issues concerning patient care and management in hospitals such as: • Time spent at OPD can be reduced by 40% approximately via concepts like work balancing and improving patient flow • Distance covered by patients can be reduced 20% approximately by streamlining the layout and reorganizing • Space utilization can be increased by 60% • Inventory management modules based on scientific calculations can lead to improvement in medicine inventory management to avoid stock outs and over stocking (near to expiry scenarios), reduction in stock taking time, huge cost savings in inventory carrying costs, etc • 95% reduction in the time nurses spend searching for supplies and equipment • 77% reduction in door-to-bed time • High standards of housekeeping and hygiene can be achieved through Physical workplace improvement tool Five S • Other advanced operational excellence tools can further assist in reducing patient hospital stay duration, bed occupancy improvement, operations theatre utilization and others The transformation projects have shown several tangible benefits and have wide scope for countless improvement avenues. These above mentioned tangible benefits shall pave the road for cultural change and will further improve the team morale, discipline and patient centric efforts. Considering country like India or any developing nation, even today the healthcare is not affordable for the needy. Hospital Operational Excellence is a panacea to address these challenges. Further looking at accreditations from NABH and NABL, which shall be pre-requisite and not optional; operational excellence and continual improvement shall be part and parcel of the industry. These concepts are not only applicable for manufacturing industry but also equally applicable for hospital management. Concepts remain same, application changes! It is a philosophy that can change the way hospitals and healthcare industries are managed and organized. Healthcare professionals are good at administering patient care, blending it further with operational excellence shall enhance life for all stakeholders! Its time healthcare industry takes the leap, this leap year! If not now, when? We shall delve upon various aspects (element by element) of Operational Excellence in Hospitals and Healthcare sector in coming posts. Written By: Faber Aakash Borse is one of the founding members and Director of Faber Infinite Consulting (www.faberinfinite.com), with operations in Asia Pacific, Africa & Middle East. He holds a masters degree in Operations Management with his 1st degree being in MechanicalEngineering. This article was originally published on Economic Times – ETHealthworld.com as part of Operational Excellence in Healthcare Industry series. Original link available here.

  • February 15, 2016
  • Faber Infinite

Operational Excellence in Healthcare Industry

Healthcare sector is one, which is directly connected to lives of people, and there must not be any operational issues, everything must be well organized. Hence, it gets all the more important for healthcare providers to devote more management focus towards hospital operations improvements in order to boost patient centricity, quality treatment and productivity enhancement. A multi-pronged approach that puts hospital and patient care at the heart of performance transformation efforts can help hospitals and health systems deliver more financially sustainable and patient oriented care. Healthcare personnel should actively participate in performance improvement efforts and be open to changes. The continual improvement not only aids operational excellence but also quality patient care, patients’ satisfaction and staff satisfaction as well. How Operational Excellence can impact Healthcare Industry? Hospital Operational Excellence deploys a variety of process improvement & change management concepts and approaches to increase operational efficiency and reduce clinical variability; ultimate objective is to drive the total medical care cost down while improving care quality. The inefficiencies are the major barriers toward excellence. In hospital environment also the inefficiencies can be categorized into various types, which can be identified and addressed with ‘eye for inadequacies’ and ‘awareness of continual improvement’. Several tools & concepts of Operational Excellence (OE) like Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Inventory Management, Five S, Visual Management, Standardized Work, Poka Yoke – Error Proofing in hospitals can lead to dramatic results. Several hospitals across the world have adopted various operational excellence frameworks. Implementation of Operational Excellence concepts have addressed several issues concerning patient care and management in hospitals such as: Time spent at OPD can be reduced by 40% approximately via concepts like work balancing and improving patient flow Distance covered by patients can be reduced 20% approximately by streamlining the layout and reorganizing Space utilization can be increased by 60% Inventory management modules based on scientific calculations can lead to improvement in medicine inventory management to avoid stock outs and over stocking (near to expiry scenarios), reduction in stock taking time, huge cost savings in inventory carrying costs, etc 95% reduction in the time nurses spend searching for supplies and equipment 77% reduction in door-to-bed time High standards of housekeeping and hygiene can be achieved through Physical workplace improvement tool Five S Other advanced operational excellence tools can further assist in reducing patient hospital stay duration, bed occupancy improvement, operations theatre utilization and others Operational Excellence in Hospitals The transformation projects have shown several tangible benefits and have wide scope for countless improvement avenues. These above mentioned tangible benefits shall pave the road for cultural change and will further improve the team morale, discipline and patient centric efforts. Considering country like India or any developing nation, even today the healthcare is not affordable for the needy. Hospital Operational Excellence is a panacea to address these challenges. Further looking at accreditations from NABH and NABL, which shall be pre-requisite and not optional; operational excellence and continual improvement shall be part and parcel of the industry. These concepts are not only applicable for manufacturing industry but also equally applicable for hospital management. Concepts remain same, application changes! It is a philosophy that can change the way hospitals and healthcare industries are managed and organized. Healthcare professionals are good at administering patient care, blending it further with operational excellence shall enhance life for all stakeholders! Its time healthcare industry takes the leap, this leap year! If not now, when? We shall delve upon various aspects (element by element) of Operational Excellence in Healthcare Industry in coming posts. Find original article at : Economic Times

  • November 22, 2015
  • Faber Infinite

Operational Excellence in Textile Industry

“We are, what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore is not an action but a Habit” – Aristotle. ‘Operational Excellence is a philosophy of leadership, teamwork and problem solving resulting in continuous improvement throughout the organization by focusing on the needs of the customer, empowering employees, and optimizing existing activities in the process.’ Operational Excellence (OE) is a critical driver for business success and a key part of Continuous improvement journey for any organization, regardless of industry/ sector. Continuous improvement is a never-ending journey, and it can lead any organization to world class performance. The Operational Excellence program provides a framework to understand why and how performance needs to improve. Textile Sector is one of the oldest sector and one of the largest contributors to economies in India and across many other countries. The textiles industry is extremely varied, with the hand-spun and hand-woven textiles sectors at one end of the spectrum, while the capital intensive sophisticated mills sector at the other end of the spectrum. The decentralized power looms/ hosiery and knitting sector form the largest component of the textiles sector. The close linkage of the textile industry to agriculture (for raw materials such as cotton) and the ancient culture and traditions of the country in terms of textiles make the textiles sector unique in comparison to the industries of other countries. Operational Excellence in Textile Industry With global competitive market environment the competition is getting intense. Increasingly organizations from all sectors and all sizes are looking at Operational Excellence (OE)/ LEAN to eliminate waste across their value chain which ultimately helps them drive costs down and deliver quality goods and services to customers leading organizations to world class organizations. Lean manufacturing has traditionally been thought as being applicable mostly to the discrete manufacturing industry. However, there is considerable interest in extending lean to the textile industries due to the dramatic results in manufacturing with discrete production systems. Few lean techniques initially created for discrete usage are beneficial in textile with robust design and inflexible machines. The key focus of operational excellence in textile industry is to reduce the manufacturing throughput time from the raw material receipt till the finished fabric is ready for dispatch. It is noticed in textile industry the common challenges are as follows: Capacity imbalance between spinning, weaving, process house, finishing and dispatch which results in long throughput time which finally builds up work in process (WIP) inventory High pile up of WIP between department resulting in multiple handling and stocktaking High WIP results in stains and damages, which call for rework later Great potential for changeover/ setup time reduction at spinning, weaving and dyeing exists Setup time reduction enables small lot production with higher variety Tremendous potential for downtime reduction through TPM exists which impacts spare part consumption and quality Cost reduction through focused defect/ quality rejection projects, consumable reduction projects, etc. are often undertaken in the lean initiatives. Faber Infinite Consulting strives towards excellence and continuous improvement and has supported numerous manufacturing organizations by implementing Faber Infinite 360 Degree Transformation model. Typical Improvement areas in the Textile Industry: – Improvement in On Time In Full (OTIF) supplies to customers – Reduction in Customer complaints and returns – Creation of flow from raw material receipt to finish goods dispatch – Improvement in Overall Equipment Excellence (OEE) – Improvement in labour productivity – Rejection Reduction – Inventory Management through Kanban – Low Cost Automation – Creation of improvement oriented culture Operational Excellence enables any enterprise/ organization and its leadership to continuously improve all areas of performance, including decision-making, ongoing investment, profitability, customer and partner services and human resources capabilities. Ready to achieve operational excellence in the textile industry? Take the first step towards optimizing your processes and maximizing efficiency. Fill out the form below to unlock exclusive insights and strategies from industry experts. Start revolutionizing your textile business today! Contributed and adapted by: Faber Aakash Borse & Faber Raveena Rathi