In
Customer and Business Performance
Poor
flexibility to the customer
Last-minute surprises regarding customer orders
Late
or missed customer deliveries
Customer
requested changes and customizations take too long and are too expensive
Poor inventory performance - excessive inventory, low turnover
Excessive
work in process inventory
Cash flow problems: too much inventory, or inventory in the wrong places in the supply chain
Excessive
manufacturing cost
Excessive
purchasing costs
Unexpected excess cost: overtime, freight, etc.
Inconsistent
quality, excess scrap and rework
In
Demand Management And Customer Service
Abnormal demands not identified soon enough
Customer “big events” not managed or forecasted.
Inaccurate
forecasts
Erratic demand
Ownership lacking for the forecast or sales plan
What to forecast is a significant issue
Overall customer service is poor
In
Lean Manufacturing
Excessive
time & cost for setup/changeovers
Some
work centers overloaded, some under loaded, causing poor utilization of people, disjointed flow and capacity
bottlenecks.
Unexpected
downtime resulting in schedule disruptions and expensive avoidable repairs
Excessive
number of non value adding steps causing inflexibility, long lead times
and waste
Complex
scheduling system resulting in slower product flow, excessive paperwork & transactions and no visual controls.
Constant
material and capacity shortages causing poor customer service, missed deliveries, and expediting
Kanbans
or Demand Pull signals that result in excess inventory or late deliveries
Quality
problems that interrupt the flow
In
Manufacturing And Purchasing Performance
Poor manufacturing on-time delivery performance
Poor supplier on-time delivery performance
Last-minute production surprises
Excessive lead times
Inflexible plant schedules
Inflexible manufacturing processes
Inflexible suppliers
Push
scheduling system causing excessive WIP and missed schedules
In
Manufacturing Management
Disjointed and dysfunctional manufacturing flows
Erratic production schedules causing intermittent, start and stop flows and missed schedules
Excessive production floor paperwork and transactions
Excessive and unexpected downtime
Frequent shortages as well as excess inventory
Capacity problems and surprise production bottlenecks
In
New Product Introductions
New product development takes too long and is too expensive
Too many last-minute surprises in the product development cycle
Time
and cost targets are unreliable
Too
many product changes (ECNs) after product launch
Engineering
deliverables (parts list, structured bills, routings, drawings, visual aids, or material specs) are always late
No defined and formal new product introduction process including phases & gates milestones exists in the company
No post audit & root cause analysis of the new product introduction problems exists
Issues associated with new product introductions are not communicated effectively outside the engineering
organization
The new product introduction process is too complex.
In
Overall Supply Chain Performance
The supply chain is not well synchronized. Individual pieces may work well, but overall things are fairly
disconnected
Supply is out of balance with demand, or demand is out of balance with supply
Too
short of a planning horizon
Vendor managed inventory program doesn't exist or is not working as anticipated
Effective distribution planning approach or system does not exist
Supplier certification program does not exist or is not working as well as expected
Bills of material have bee over structured contributing to complexity and performance problems
Lot
sizes (order quantities or campaigns) are too big
In
Management Information
Greater supply chain visibility is needed
There are no integrated business plans.
Executives lack the information to validate the business
plan
Operating
managers don't have accurate information to measure performance.
Operating managers lack ownership for supply and demand plans.
Finance doesn't use the operational supply and demand information for profit or cash flow projections
In
Working Together As A Team
Departments operate as silos
Dysfunctional communication processes
Poor teamwork
Problem/project of the month mentality
Employees
have not been trained in use of problem solving tools, so problem solving activities are informal and erratic, with
slow progress solving real problems
People don't feel empowered to act or to solve problems
Action Teams tend to spend too much time in analysis and too little in actual implementation
Action
teams lack direction and focus
Listening
and communication skills are poor or non-existent
The
climate of the organization does not allow people to be involved in solving business problems.
