Management and Operations

Management Overflow:  High level issues that do not require the permanent hiring of an employee can be resolved by a partner with a broad range of experience and intimate knowledge of your firm. 
 
Lean Manufacturing:  Organizational and cultural change can increase throughput and productivity as well as elevating employee satisfaction.  By maximizing efficiency and effectiveness, firms can expand operations with limited additions of space, equipment, and manpower.
 
Location Strategies:  Labor productivity, proximity to markets and suppliers, political risk, competitor location, and currency risk must be weighed when locating a site.  Effective analysis of these and other factors allows for informed decisions which decrease costs and increase sales. 
 
Material Requirements Planning (MRP):  Development of a material requirements plan protects production from disruptions in the supply chain.  MRP is an integral part of operating a lean manufacturing business. 
 
Process Improvement:  Processes must be efficient as well as efficacious.  Inefficient processes can be identified by quantifying non-value added time, redundancy and rework errors.  Successful and collaborative implementation of process improvement measures can dramatically enhance an organizations bottom line.
 
Employment Compliance:  Conducting supply chain audits to ensure compliance to local, state and federal labor standards shields organizations from supplier externalities.  Strong labor relationships increases employee retention and reduces the likelihood of costly litigation and negative publicity.

Six Sigma:  Six Sigma is a data driven approach with the goal of eliminating defects from products or services.  A defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications.  The methodology strives to achieve no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities, or six standard deviations from the mean.  Six Sigma is often combined with Lean measures to enhance project ROI.
 
Technical Product Specifications: In order to achieve a high level of quality with little to no defects, technical specifications must be clearly defined and communicated to suppliers. 
 
Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC):  Many organizations administer ad hoc QA/QC measures that are typically reactive as opposed to proactive.  Proactive systemic process and product controls are essential to organizational success.

​Break Even Point (BEP) Analysis: Supply side analysis such as BEP allow a firm to understand at which point revenue received equals the cost of receiving said revenue. In addition to determining the point at which a firm will become profitable, BEP can be used to identify the margin of safety a firm has before declining revenues become a loss. 


 

Project Management:  Proactive planning, scheduling, and project controls are necessary to ensure timely and successful completion.  Human resources, costs, quality, and budgeting parameters must be identified and monitored in a systematic approach to facilitate effective project management. 
 
Statistical Process Control: Application of statistical analysis increases control of processes to ensure product and service standards are achieved.  Natural variations that occur in all processes must be identified and monitored as acceptable.  Assignable variations must be identified and monitored as intolerable and traced to factors such as machine wear, uncalibrated equipment, untrained or fatigued workers, or defective raw materials.
 
Supply Chain Management (SCM): Materials, information, and finances move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer.  Money only enters the supply chain when a final good is purchased.  Modern SCM involves collaboration with the entire chain to reduce waste and add value to the end user.
 
Supply Chain Development: Inefficiencies exist throughout the supply chain of any given final product or service.  For example, the cost of waste at one firm is passed down the supply chain as a shared burden.  Firms can collectively cut costs while improving efficiency and effectiveness by coordinating efforts throughout the entire supply chain focusing on activities that add value to the end user while mitigating activities that do not.  The key to this is turning valuable tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge that can be adopted throughout the supply chain. 

​Time Studies: - Understanding the time expended in various stages of a process is paramount to identifying and adopting efficiency measures.  Each step of a process is analyzed and assigned a time value to inform opportunities for improvement.   Utilizing time studies in conjunction with process mapping can inform efficiency measures that will dramatically reduce labor expenditures. 

Process Flow Mapping: Processes are visually mapped in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how a process is carried out.  This information can be used to minimize waste and improve cycle time, clarify communications, facilitate staff training, and identify issues in projects or processes before they occur.

Cost of Good Sold (COGS) Analysis:  Many organizations operate without a complete understanding of their costs to bring a good or service to market.  Conducting periodic analysis and developing information systems to manage COGS will ensure margins and profitability expectations are achieved.
 
 
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