​A picture is worth a thousand words ... ​Visual Management hence is one of the top techniques to improve process efficiency. 

​The purpose of Visual Management is to improve communication in an enterprise. Excellent communication is the master key to good employee collaboration leading to smooth workflows.

​An example of explicit Visual Management (also called Visual Control) is flow of people at an airport. Isn’t this view familiar?

Visual Management is routinely practiced in air transport industry. ​Almost everyone at an airport follows instructions provided by signage to reach their destinations- Boarding gate, food court, restrooms, baggage pick-up, customs, immigration, transit etc.
 
A gadget placed near the boarding pass kiosk must be tried out to judge if your cabin luggage is of the permissible size allowed in the plane’s overhead baggage locker. This check prevents over-size cabin bags from getting onto the aircraft, thus, improving boarding process efficiency.
 
An example of Visual Management in daily life is a flashing red light (and siren) of an approaching ambulance or a police car which informs everyone around to stay clear and give them priority on the road. 

Visual Management is also popular in service sectors such as hotel, retail, logistics etc. ​The picture below is an example of Visual Management from the retail industry. 

This simple Visual Management approach gives bigtime boost to a customer’s shopping experience at a mall. No path-breaking innovation is always necessary ... Good creativity and a visual can do the job. The visual is bang-on to its objective. ​

​As a shopper, would you not like to visit that store again? ​

There more than 70 Visual Management tools; for example- Signage, Andon lights, Activity Boards, Huddle Boards, Gemba Walks, Kanban, 5S, Control charts, Kamishibai Boards, X- Matrices etc.  

All Visual Management tools comprise of two parts- Visual Metrics and Visual Control. 

The choice of tools depends on the organizational size, culture, product mix and geographical locations. Best results are usually obtained when 10 to 20 tools are used in synchronicity. 
​
Visual Management tools aim to do one or more of the following:

• Share information.
• Communicate standards.
• Enforce and monitor the standards.
• Bring attention to deviations and/or irregularities.
• Augment CAPA (Corrective Action Preventive Action).

​Visual Management or Visual Control can be used in each and every process of any organization.
 
Let me take an example of traffic or stop lights. Red color for ‘stop’, Orange for ‘caution’ and Green to ‘go’ is a universal sign language. Now if you were to use this traffic-light color code in a project Gantt Chart or a RACI Matrix, it will provide instant understanding of the project status; no query calls and no back-n-forth emails …
 
This color coding in project charts is exceptionally helpful for decision-makers and project teams alike situated at different locations or working remotely via cloud or those in a multi-cultural workplace as in a multi-national company.
 
A popular example of Visual Management in manufacturing setups are Andon lights. Andon lights are useful in automated as well as automatic processes. A flashing red Andon light on a production belt means that the line is held up. It draws attention so that someone on the shop floor initiates to sort out the problem and re-start operations. 
 
Another example of Visual Management is ‘Activity Board’ that depicts task status as- Doing, Done, To Do, New Ideas, On Hold etc. ​Traditionally Activity Boards used to be hand-written. However, now there are digital ones too.

Activity Boards are especially popular in the auto sector; both in auto manufacturing as well as services. 

​Next time when you go to pick-up your car at a service center, do checkout for their Activity Board. It is usually displayed on the right side of the service representative's desk. The information displayed there tells you a whole lot about their work style, processes and how good or bad an experience you would get while dealing with them.​

Here are five signs that indicate your organization needs to go for Visual Management-​​

1. There is slow progress towards achieving strategic objectives.​
   
2. Your company deals in complex projects.
3. Stalled work-in-progress happens often at workplace.
4. There are frequent bottlenecks and/or poor capacity planning.
5. Your company has multi-locational distributed teams.

Visual Management escalates process efficiency in manufacturing as well as service set ups.

​​Make Visual Management a part of your business, improve process efficiency and watch your business grow year-on-year despite adverse market dynamics.
 
The purpose of Visual Management is to improve communication at an organization. And excellent communication is the master key to good employee collaboration leading to smoother workflows.
 
Visual Management is not just a signage, furniture, or a label. It makes your workplace alive- Because it speaks!
 
To introduce Visual Management technique in your organization, start with process mapping. Then identify areas of implementation based on communication touch points. Make sure that Visual Management at your workplace evolves as you develop a deeper appreciation of stronger teamwork, workflows, product offerings and business landscape. Also do conduct a dry run before its full-scale implementation …
 
Note that there are eighteen such awesome proven process improvement techniques; learn more here. And I will see you again with yet another topic on how to improve operational efficiency at your organization.

#visualmanagement #visualcontrol #continuousimprovement #operationalefficiency #processefficiency #kaizen #lean #businessprocessimprovement #operationalexcellence #organizationaldevelopment #processdesign #workplaceorganization ​#activityboards #businesstransformation #operatingefficiency #projectmanagement

​In this battered economy (as a result of Covid-19 pandemic) when every penny counts even the smallest increase in revenue or reduction in expenses can have an impact on cost and ultimately on your company’s profitability.

The good news is that, a large-scale company overhaul is not necessary. By and large, in most cases, it has been observed that it is short, often done, and simple improvement steps improve the bottom-line.
 
However, to calculate, manage or reduce cost, a critical understanding of all the tasks or activities that generate such costs is essential.
 
Cost, in accounting language are of various types- fixed cost, variable cost, controllable cost, uncontrollable cost etc. But in Kaizen parlance, costs are basically of 2 types-

1. Obvious cost.
2. Hidden cost.

​Obvious cost as the name suggests are ‘obvious’ and cannot be eliminated, as they are incurred to run the business. For example- wages, rent, purchasing raw materials, payment made to others in the course of running the business, etc. Although ‘obvious’ cost cannot be eliminated, it can be controlled to a significantly large extent.
 
Hidden cost on the other hand are like a leaking faucet that drains out water from a storage tank. I would say that a ‘hidden’ cost situation is grave and should be a huge area of concern in any company- be it big or small.
 
‘Hidden’ costs if not eliminated can actually toss out a company’s balance sheet out of the window. ‘Hidden’ cost therefore must be completely eliminated- just fix it! 

​There are three primary categories of ‘hidden’ cost- 

1. Cost due to ‘Variability’
2. Cost due to ‘Waste’ and
3. Cost due to ‘Inflexibility’

 
Addressing these three categories will open-up numerous areas of opportunities for cost reduction.

And Kaizen methodology can be used to identify areas of opportunity for cost reduction that would ‘control’ the obvious cost and ‘fix’ hidden cost, find favorable solutions to sort out the cost-problems and sustain results.
 
But most businesses do cost-reduction ad-hoc. What do I mean by that? Let me narrate you an incident-
 
Imagine Quarter 1 results have come-in and you notice that profit figures are not as targeted, they have dipped. The reasons for this could be many, for example- the new product scheduled launch didn’t happen on time or a critical raw material’s procurement cost had suddenly risen due to a shortage or the manufacturing over heads became higher than what was budgeted, or sales didn’t happen as planned …

The cause factor(s) may be one or many, but the first or most-likely comment by decision-makers is- "We must contain costs” and then there's a hiring freeze!

​In my view this is an ad-hoc cost-reduction decision. 

In Lean Kaizen, Lean defines various types of wastes which create costs, while Kaizen provides the mechanism to address those wastes. By Kaizen-ing, one can reduce the ‘obvious’ costs and eliminate the ‘hidden’ cost.
 
However, to apply Lean Kaizen methodology accurately, it is vital to understand its underlying principles, advantages and implementation challenges. You may read more on Lean Kaizen here.
 
Is your organization cutting costs correctly?  To know more on how you can strategically cut costs at your workplace contact us for a free preliminary online consultation.

​#CostCutting #CostReduction #KaizenForCostReduction #LeanKaizen #BusinessImprovement  #StrategicCostReduction

These PSGs provide recommendations for developing generic drugs and generating the evidence needed to support Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) approval, thereby helping to streamline generic drug product development by industry and ANDA assessment by FDA.  

The batch of 69 PSGs includes:  

• 26 new and 43 revised PSGs.
• PSGs for generic products for important treatments for diseases such as: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Leukemia, Opioid Use Disorder, Post-Partum Depression. Read details about the guidances here.

​
This requires pharmaceuticals and allied organizations to keep pace and revisit their Kaizen strategies around the products impacted (if at all) by the above regulatory changes. 

​There are eighteen top business improvement techniques- Kaizen being the most propitious. 

Kaizen has its origins in Japan and is one of the most promising business improvement tool for pharmaceutical, medical device and biotech companies. It can be implemented in innovator as well as generic pharma set ups.

Moreover, Kaizen works equally well with at-site and remote operations. 

Kaizen involves making small improvements at all levels within a product’s lifecycle. These incremental changes then bring-on exponential benefits such as-  
​

1. Good quality affordable medicines.
2. Lower operational costs.
3. Error-free processes.
4. Increased safety, productivity.
5. High speed product development and
6. First-to-file.

Kaizen is based on cooperation and commitment (vis-à-vis radical or top-down changes) where employees at all levels of a company work together proactively to achieve regular, incremental improvements. Kaizen thus combines the collective talents within a company to create a powerful engine for continuous business growth. 

To learn more on how Kaizen can help your organization successfully drive thru the rough patch posed due to Covid-19 check here. 

​Practising 'Daily Kaizen' has brought about swift turnaround of the sick contract research organization (CRO). Learn how Japanese Kaizen principle was used to speed-up Generic Pharmaceutical Product Development in a contract research company in Asia.

Watch on...

To learn more about how Shruti can help your organization achieve new heights or to book a Workshop, Contact Dr. Shruti Bhat via Form or WhatsApp

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#Manufacturing #Lean #ContinuousImprovement #Kaizen  #QualityImprovement  #ManufacturingManagement  #LeanInnovation  #Pharmaceutical  #LifeSciences  #Drugs #KaizenLeaderMasterclass  #Kanban  #ProductDevelopment #BusinessTurnaround  #BusinessTransformationofaCRO

​Have you ever been in a situation where there are open positions in your department that haven’t been filled out for one or two years?

On one hand there is mounting workload while on the other hand the response from HR office is that, they are and have been doing their best- they have personally looked out for good candidates, contacted several recruitment companies to get biodata of suitable candidates, yet they haven’t been able to find a correct fit for the open roles.

Many a times supervisors and department heads term such HR responses as ‘excuse’. 

To learn more about how Shruti can help your organization achieve new heights or to book a Workshop, Contact Dr. Shruti Bhat via Form or WhatsApp

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​#Kaizen  #HR #ProcessExcellence  #ContinuousImprovement   #BusinessProcessManagement  #ServiceIndustry    #BPM #LeanManagement  #KaizenLeaderMasterclass  #kaizenInHR

Kaizen in an ancient continual improvement methodology. Kaizen is time-tested and gives exponential results. It is also the most economical technique to implement, hence best for start-ups and small size organizations, since these companies usually have a constraint on funds. 

Folklore mentions a story around Kaizen. The story goes-

Once upon a time, a village was struck with severe drought. Everyone had to walk huge distances from their homes to the river to fetch a pail of water. Men and women, young and old, everyone had to walk miles to get just one pail of drinking water. And they had to do this chore everyday  ...

One day, the village head observed a small boy of 4- 5 years carrying a small pot of water. He was walking along with his mom, who was carrying a bigger pot of water for their home. The sight of a young kid having to suffer so much for water disturbed the village head. He got around thinking ... what can be done so we minimize the effort to get water?

He then came up with a plan. In the evening he called a meeting of all villagers and said "all of us are struggling to get water, even the kids and it pains me. So, why not all of us pool ourselves so that each one of us does only a bit, daily, and when the efforts add-up we get our reward" i.e. drinking water!

So then on, each person was placed at strategic distance and transferred pots of water from point-to-point. They rotated people so as to evenly distribute workload. This solved the problem ... small increments done over time added-up to bring big reward i.e. water. That's the history of Kaizen.

Kaizen methodology was applied to industrial setting by Dr. Deming. He first applied Kaizen in Japan's auto company Toyota motors. Since then Kaizen has spread its wings to other industry verticals. Want to know more on industrial Kaizen? Checkout this video ...

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​
#ContinuousImprovement #Kaizen  #JapaneseKaizen  #HistoryOfKaizen