1-day overview on Lean and Six Sigma for a technology consultancy
Need: A technology consultancy attended a one-hour taster session by RiverRhee Consulting on Lean and Six Sigma. As a result of this, they recognized an opportunity to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their work.
Solution: RiverRhee Consulting was engaged to provide a 1-day course for the client on the philosophy and tools of Lean and Six Sigma. The course followed the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control) structure for process improvement supplemented with aspects of knowledge management and change management. It combined short presentations with practical exercises to relate the concepts and tools to current challenges in the client’s work.
A pre-course questionnaire was completed by the delegates, which resulted in a workshop that was strongly tailored to meeting the client’s needs
Outcome: By the end of the day, the delegates had agreed on an action plan, which would enable them to take the next steps for:
-
Increasing client satisfaction
-
Improving the timeliness of delivery of projects
-
Improving the quality and consistency of their work e.g. on different projects
-
Defining what constitutes best practice and how it can be established
Centralising bibliographic services at University of the Arts
Need: University of the Arts London, was in the process of centralising its bibliographic services for books and journals from its previous decentralised approach across 6 Art and Design Colleges.
This approach would enable the University to use its resources more effectively and also derive economical benefits e.g. from suppliers.
The staff involved needed support to help them adjust to the changes in as positive a way as possible, shape and clarify their new responsibilities, and learn and practice thought processes, tools and methodologies that could be used, on a longer term basis, for defining, documenting and improving the way they work.
Solution: RiverRhee Consulting was engaged to provide 2 workshops.
The first, 1-day workshop, made use of Lean and Six Sigma, and Change Management techniques, to give the participants an opportunity to share best practices to adopt and pitfalls to avoid. They also explored associated requirements for effective implementation such as service level agreements and training.
The second, ½ day-workshop (with an overlapping but different membership), combined building awareness of learning styles with discussions around values and how to achieve an effective team.
Outcome: By the end of the first day, the participants had developed a positive approach towards the upcoming changes, were working well together, had begun mapping out the new processes, and were clear on the next steps for developing these further.
The second ½ day created a positive, supportive atmosphere amongst the members of the team that would be forming later in the year.
Reducing cycle times in Pharmaceutical R&D
Need: A Pharmaceutical Discovery research group wanted to find ways to significantly reduce the cycle time involved in identifying potential candidates for development
Solution: Applied Lean and Six Sigma and project management expertise to plan and run 11 project teams workshops, reviewing processes and timelines for identifying potential development candidates.
Senior and middle management, and participants in the workshop were all taken through introductory training on Lean and Six Sigma
Outcome: Recommendations from the workshops were reviewed with middle and senior management, and taken forward with an anticipated 20% resultant decrease in cycle time.
