Interview with Rick Malik, Worldwide Director of ValuMetrix Services, about the assessment process.

Assessment

A systematic analysis of your current operation

A typical first step in Process Excellence is to conduct an on-site assessment of your operation. A ValuMetrix consultant comes on site to gather data, interview your staff and videotape each step of your workflow.

Our consulting professionals spend the next two weeks conducting a thorough analysis of your data — and what it reveals about the efficiency of your process. They then meet with you and your management to present a clear and well-organized assessment report:

• The report breaks down the steps of your process, noting how long each one takes, which steps add value and which ones are needless waste.
• It details the activity of your people, telling you how much they travel in the course of their work, how much time they spend on value-added actions versus unnecessary extra steps.
• It gives you an objective picture of your facility. Is your layout enhancing productivity – or creating time-consuming hurdles?

Recommendations for concrete actions, plus projected savings

Your assessment report gives you more than objective measures of your current efficiency. It recommends concrete changes that will generate rapid and measurable improvement.

The report outlines your post-Lean state in terms of how much staffing you would need, how much square footage you might save, and a most likely decrease in cycle time. It then translates these changes into projected financial savings.

Continue with Process Excellence, or simply use the findings for better-informed planning

Once you have your report, you are under no obligation to continue with ValuMetrix Services. You may simply keep it and use the findings in your planning and decision making. Perhaps it isn’t necessary to build that new facility or hire additional FTEs. Now you have concrete data on which to base these critical decisions.

If you choose to move forward with Process Excellence, you have already identified those changes with the greatest potential to yield a high return on your investment. You know what you need to do. And your management understands why you need to do it.

In short, you have both the data and the internal support to make your initiative a clear and measurable success.