Customer Profile: A medium scale manufacture of process equipment with integrated electronic control systems with operations spanning design, implementation, production, quality control, client acceptance, dispatch, and site implementation.
Problem: The client had a certain sequence of operations to be performed for every product that they manufactured. This sequence of operation was not documented and largely driven by the experience of the operating people. As the business grew, multiple orders to be executed in parallel would clog the production flow leading to delays and chaotic working environment because the priorities were not clear to all the team members.
Solution: We engaged with this client and studied the entire process flow which was followed for every order. We started with defining a standard operating procedure and the production sequence was documented and put on display so that everybody in the organization knew at what stage the project was in progress. Once this was done, a daily process of reviewing the production was implemented and in this review all stakeholders including the decision makers got to have clarity on the progress of each order. Once this progress was seen day to day priorities were realigned, so that the rest of the day the people knew exactly what was the higher priority for the entire organization reducing the chaos on the shop floor. A dashboard was also created by which the management got a complete picture of the progress of each project, the link to the revenues and a forecast would go to the finance team which gave them an idea of the cashflow.
Benefit: The organization started experiencing a smoother flow of work. Teams worked with each other in better coordination and were able to understand management priorities. Management was able to focus on more important aspects after the daily priorities were aligned for the execution team and also be in control of the cashflow by aligning the purchasing cycle as well as the execution cycle which helped in better cash management for the organization.
Improving Project Execution