Kaufman Global Announces Strategic Relationship with GUTZ IMS
for Business Continuity Practice
Strikes, chemical spills, bomb threats, severe weather, medical emergencies,
power outages...Canada-based GUTZ
IMS, a global provider of Incident Management Solutions, specializes
in assisting your organization to mitigate, prepare, respond and recover
from the unexpected. Kaufman Global has teamed up with GUTZ to deliver
it's Business Continuity service offering to meet the ever-increasing
demand by corporations and public agencies for incident preparedness.
The common link between IMS and lean? The need to continuously improve (response times) while reducing distance, space and time in the process. With Kaufman Global's focus on sustainable, continuous improvement methodologies, Incident Management Systems are a complimentary fit to any operational excellence initiative. Learn more...
Manufacturing Insight Available Online
Kaufman Global's sister company, Bourton Group, recently launched the first electronic issue of its quarterly publication, Manufacturing Insight. This quarter's articles focus on the topics of Competition and Equilibrium, Build-to-Order and Mass Customization and Cellular Manufacturing. View newsletter.
Developing Lean and Operational Leaders Across Europe
A world leader in the manufacture of specialized, consumer products partnered
with Kaufman Global to implement its third wave of Lean Leadership®
flight training in the spring of 2004. This program enabled thirteen client
leaders to implement lean manufacturing across eight sites and six countries
in Europe. A mix of classroom training, shop floor application and on-site
implementation support from our organization and Lean Leaders from flights
1 and 2 resulted in a highly successful project. Benefits realized include:
$2.0M in bottom-line savings from Kaizen Events; inventory reductions
of $850,000; and over 3 million units of saved finished product. Read
More...
Productivity Improvement Event Realizes $900,000 in Operating Benefit
A leading manufacturer of window and cabinet hardware was suffering from high levels of inefficiencies and poor quality on its end products. During this event the team focused on addressing issues of cell efficiency, "bad packed rate" and die exchange times through the use of various lean tools. As a result, cell efficiency was improved by 20%, die exchange times were reduced an average of 65% and press availability was increased by 4,580 hours. More on this event...
Focus on Product Return Costs Realizes $10M in Benefits
This consumer products manufacturer was spending over $50M annually on costs related to product returns. The team wished to reduce controllable credits at superstores by 25% and to reduce the work effort of the Customer Financial Services team by at least 50% prior to year-end 2004. The team utilized Value Stream Mapping, role & responsibility charting, and 30 and 100-day action plans to create an improved future state returns process. Results from this event included...
Article: "Using Information Technology to Support New Product Development" by Andy Herdan
In the late 80’s and early 90’s many of us went through the agony of trying to convince business leaders that integrated Information Systems such as SAP were critical in supporting the automation of Supply Chain functions throughout an organization. Little focus however, was placed on the support of New Product Development (NPD). As we move into the 21st century, companies again struggle to develop integrated systems that support the Marketing and Product Development functions of manufacturing units. Convincing corporate executives that they must once again “dig deep and weep” in order to be competitive in our fast-moving global economy, and once again fund major Information Systems initiatives, is a very tough sell. Kaufman Global has placed major emphasis on understanding the challenges and rewards of integrating New Product Development, marketing systems and processes with the more traditional, transactional ERP environments using Lean tools and techniques to achieve rapid results.
The six key characteristics that determine the effectiveness of an I/T organization in support of New Product Development are:
· Common and Integrated
· Cost Effective
· Scalable and Flexible
· Accessible and Available
· Standardized
· Global
With these six critical success factors in mind, Kaufman Global in its search for excellence in implementation of Lean NPD processes, follows the premise that:
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction." ~Albert Einstein
Our findings have been consistent across a number of industries, from aerospace to office products. The future state NPD process must position an organization to achieve higher levels of automated, cross-process and cross-organizational information sharing in order to meet market demand for new products. This can be delivered by leveraging common processes and maximizing the use of common applications and tools. Continued...
IMS
Provides the Tools to Effectively Address Critical Situations
Today’s society dictates an unprecedented level of safeguards for citizens
as they go about their daily lives – emergency exits, anti-lock brakes,
safety restraints, travel security measures, to name a few. Most corporations,
however, are still behind the times when it comes to the protection of
their employees or resources that in today’s world are more vulnerable
to incident or attack, either natural or manmade.
A Case Study:
At approximately 10 a.m. on November 1, 2001, a suspicious looking envelope
was delivered to the front office of a major OEM provider in Canada. The
letter had an unfamiliar return address and resembled the letters tainted
with anthrax that terrorists had mailed to various locations throughout
the US. Over the next three hours, actions were taken at the facility
using the newly introduced Incident Management System (IMS). Testing later
determined that the envelope was not tainted, but the organization’s IMS
pre-empted what might have become a panic-driven calamity.
“The main goal of an Incident Management System is to plan ahead for incidents
– long before any might happen”, said the Director of Corporate Health
& Safety. “When incidents do occur, IMS provides a standardized means
to address those types of situations. Employee teams are trained to follow
a specific procedure regarding who to contact and how to respond.” Continued...