The improvement system for business manager

For a CEO or business manager it is important to face the cost pressure from the market in the right way. The first challenge often is a significant cost reduction to increase efficiency and stay in a competitive market. However, increasing efficiency nowadays is no longer solely a matter of production. "Office-Excellence" is drawing more and more attention. Especially the systematic improvement of internal processes and interfaces as well as increasing efficiency of email communication which is taking up more and more time during our daily work. The structural use of Outlook in combination with effective Outlook-Add-Ons can lead to a time saving of up to 20 % in the office.

To research and improve processes and interfaces we mainly use the "process-mapping" system which makes office work transparent in order to identify weak points and eliminate them.

Terms known from the continuous improvement process (CIP) like "value adding" and "waste" are methodically applied in the form of the standardized "7 types of waste" to evaluate process steps and to reduce or eliminate non-value-adding activities wherever possible.

When improving processes in the office the cycle time of processes and tasks is an important parameter. It is amazing that a process often consists of 10% of actual work and 90% of its time is made up of idle time and waiting time. Splitting these 90% up in small parts to make them transparent and reduce them wherever possible is an integral part of "Process-Mapping-Workshops" in the office.

 
Benchmark with the Toyota-Production-System
Many operations compare themselves with leading companies using benchmark.
Toyota´s 14 principles of success are a guideline for successful and sustained operating over a long period. Using 140 core questions (10 benchmark questions per success principle) it is possible to compare a company with the Toyota success criteria and to gain useful findings for future improvements.

The major targets of an economical production are outlined by Toyota in a symbolic message, the "North-Star". Even when managers and employees may change, the North-Star remains. It always stays at the same position, visible for everyone it unmistakeably shows the corporate governance regarding the following principles of success:
1.) We run a zero defect production, meaning 100% quality
2.) Eliminating waste with CIP
3.) All process steps in production are "100% value-adding"
4.) The products flow, there is no waiting and idle time
5.) There is no stock of finished products
6.) Parts used for production are supplied using the Kanban principle
7.) We only produce what has been ordered
8.) We produce according to the pull system, the customer pulls
9.) Goods are delivered exactly at the time the customer specifies