Supply chain optimisation

It is important in today’s business world that all stakeholders are taken into account when considering performance improvement. We must clearly understand the purpose of our suppliers (upstream) and customers (downstream) and ensure that the role of your business (intermediary) is performing to meet all stakeholder expectations.

Each stakeholder’s value proposition must be enhanced in the supply chain and there must be an appropriate distribution of this value creation, otherwise the system becomes inefficient in the long run.

Reciprocal Management Partners has developed a unique understanding of these requirements and we help your business engage with these stakeholders to bring about unity in ways of working. We are able to release capacity in the system which enhances profit and operating efficiencies, this includes using the Just-In-Time methodology.

Continuous operations

Businesses are always striving for ways to increase their return on assets. Too often operations become discontinuous because some elements in the value system are not coordinated or sufficiently resourced. This is usually manifested in departmental friction that has been created over many years by changing working practices.

We will work on mapping the underlying issues that prevent businesses from maintaining continuous operations. This will include reviewing Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and how work is executed, with the procurement and maintenance functions of the business to ensure all teams are aligned.

We specialise in turnarounds and have a depth of expertise in creating an environment for opportunity maintenance which increases the reliability of planned output.

Productivity improvement

There is often the need to do more with the same. For this reason, working out how to release organisational capacity without additional spend on payroll is paramount. Blockages occur in business practices through a number of reasons, some of which include:

  • Existence of functional silos creating a separation of collective expertise
  • Broken information flows between departments and key contractor/ vendors
  • Lead times infringement – management decision making and authorisation process is not executed in a timely manner
  • Business process non-compliance can lead to systemic performance failures
  • Excessive fast tracking of work items causing quality risks
  • Highly valued personnel are doing time intensive administration, which can be mitigated through automation
  • Prioritisation of work is unclear and ineffective due to task overloading and a lack of connection to business objectives.

We would work on elements such as activity planning, knowledge management, workflow unification and decision-making protocols to support productivity improvements. By putting in place a culture for continuous improvement, you will be able to sustain/ create the capacity needed for the future running of the business.

Integrated planning

Operating companies need to better manage (control and direct) stakeholder behaviours in a way that is mutually beneficial and focused on delivery of business results. The challenge has largely been associated with how companies translate the detail of contracts and service level agreements into practical interactions. To do this, there must be meaningful and shared performance metrics to support more ‘win-win’ alliances.

We will start by developing partnered intellectual property by merging knowledge streams and operating platforms. This will lead to strategic alliances, as opposed to divergent priorities, between the operators, suppliers and contractors.

We help your team(s) to:

  • Establish stakeholder expectations and evaluate structural relationships for the types of collaboration required
  • Review the existing services and materials provided in the contracts and identify the gaps and opportunities for future needs
  • Alignment of performance measures
  • Create a clear understanding of the volumes of work activities and where and how the resources are to be deployed
  • Conduct cost and performance analysis and then determine the root causes for improvement
  • Clearly define the ‘implementation plan’ and deliver the training and coaching required for the integrated planning compliance.

Lean process management

Reciprocal Management Partners specialises in helping businesses to build and implement holistic improvement solutions.

The most successful Lean Sigma programmes involve the entire organisation from top to bottom. Limiting the scope and impact of Lean Sigma approaches that focus on the sub-process level issues only is a common mistake. Understanding the end-to-end value stream is a fundamental building block of Lean methodology.  In many cases, we find that Lean projects are done at lower operational levels and in isolation - thus limiting the visibility of the effort and the benefits achieved from the implementation.

Many businesses who apply Lean Six Sigma tend to place too much focus on the process centred Kaizen/ Rapid Solution aspect and often fail to perform a holistic evaluation to include the behavioural aspect of change.

We help your team(s) to:

  • Construct, analyse and understand your business value streams
  • Identify and remove all waste embedded into business activities
  • Establish clarity on organisational, inter-departmental and functional roles, responsibilities and accountabilities
  • Coach and mentor business process owners with the behavioural change required within their areas of responsibility
  • Develop business performance management methods and systems, which continually identify the business results required and further improvement opportunities.

We believe that ongoing and sustainable business change begins with defining the overall ‘destination’ for the entire business.