A shout out to all our companies that assist with hosting some of our events. Allowing us to come on site is a benefit for so many organisations but your assistance with this is very much appreciated, so thank you!
Make sure you keep your eyes open as we have some fantastic events coming up. If you haven't already done so, make sure you grab your tickets to our SIRF event of the year - 2019 National Forum held in Melbourne, August 27th & 28th. An exceptional list of specialist presenters & keynote speakers not to be missed.
Book early to confirm your spot today!
The art of driving the actions that deliver the results
By Brian Niven
How do leaders ensure that their teams are actively engaged to rapidly respond to problems as they arise?
How do leaders also ensure their teams are focused to also complete the important but not necessarily urgent projects or longer term actions that deliver true business benefit?
How do leaders manage their resources to achieve a necessary balance between the reactive response and their proactive long term priorities?
How can organisations be set up to be great at managing to both ?
In the SIRF role, we are lucky enough to visit a number of organisations that do this really well.
A sense for this can be readily seen when looking at the how they conduct their Daily Meetings, how they communicate the key business targets and performance to targets but also importantly how they manage the follow up actions that arise from these meetings. In some it is clear that there is a separation between the quick follow ups – Issue/Action – Who, When reviews and the longer term actions.
What is also relevant is the cadence and repeated patterns of meetings that exist to review progress to meet key longer term goals.
Some organisations effectively build a routine into the standard morning meetings such that key long term activities or projects will be briefly reviewed at a weekly or fortnightly interval.
Some have separate weekly or monthly meetings to cover these projects and actions.
In my last article in February, I touched on Coaching & Improvement Kata approach that is directed at middle managers focusing teams on their next action to overcome a challenge in their area to meet their longer term objective. I really like how the cadence for these meetings is not locked time based but rather driven by the expected timing of the next experiment or action to be conducted along the path to improvement.
At its worst case, some organisations have annual reviews and set goals once per year and truly only revisit these once per year at the next annual review – luckily these are becoming fewer as leader recognise that constant communication and focus is required to keep strategic goals on track.
We have visited a number of organisations that really manage this challenge well. They clearly communicate the organisations goals and people understand their part in it and there is visibility for all on progress to target and the next steps on the journey. If you get the chance please join our planned forthcoming site tours to GSK & Nissan Castings to see this in action.
Some companies have successfully adopted the use of new technologies (tablets, screens) for effective visual management of the actions responding both to reactive needs and proactive long term goals.
We will be visiting APM (Australian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers) next month that really do this well delivering safety, quality and production results and engaging their teams in the process.
Don’t miss the chance to see this firsthand, you will be impressed by what you see:
For more details, please click here.
OERt Free Member Training | Coaching & Improvement Kata Training - Vistaprint, Derrimut
Our since thanks to Bruce, Nick, Greg, Thomas and the rest of the Vistaprint team for their generous hosting of the SIRF Vistaprint Coaching & Improvement Kata 2 day training.
We had 14 lucky attendees from 14 companies outside of SIRF and Vistaprint attend this excellent training provided free for SIRF member companies.
The companies attending included : Asaleo Care, Casella Family Brands, CSL Behring, CSR, Liberty Onesteel, NCI Packaging, Orora Fibre, Pact, Sealed Air, Textor Technologies, Thales, Viridian Glass covering diverse industries such as Packaging, Food and Wine, Hygiene Products, Metals, Blood Products, Defence Industries.
We had a good range of high calibre people attend the training with a range of job functions: 6 Lean/C.I./Op Ex managers and specialists, 6 Operations Production Managers & Supervisors, a Planning Manager & a Process Engineer. They came with the following AIMS:
It was Vistaprint’s Aims for the 2 days to give back to the community and also potentially benefit from a fresh look at their processes with a fresh set of eyes from the high calibre attendees from other SIRF member organisations.
What a tremendously successful two days this SIRF Vistaprint Coaching & Improvement Kata training was. Great learning for those involved and great ideas tested for Vistaprint for real live improvement opportunities.
If you would like to learn more about Coaching & Improvement Kata please consider attending the SIRF GSK Improvement Kata Case Study workshop on May 21st – Click here for event details and bookings!
Also, if want to again be inspired and educated by Nick Curtis, you have an opportunity at the 2 day SIRF National Forum on August 27th & 28th, where Nick is one of our Key Note speakers. Click here for more event details and bookings.
IMRT CIWG | Engineering Project Management fundamentals - Asaleo Care, Springvale, VIC
Our thanks to Asaleo Care Springvale and Site manager Matthew Arblaster for kindly hosting the SIRF Engineering Project Management Fundamentals Common Interest Work Group. Thank you to Matthew for his excellent presentation on process used particularly focussing on people engagement to manage and rapidly deliver a project successfully on site. Also thanks to Peter Mauger from Bright Engineering consultants for presenting and sharing his insights on what are the fundamentals of Engineering project management. We had 18 people from 9 companies attend, thank you to all who attended and brought along presentations and were actively involved in discussions on the day. All presentations made on the day can be found with a search of the SIRF Library using the Tag “Project Management”.
26th March
OERt Site Tour | Thales Bendigo – home of the Hawkei
Great to be able share more of the great Operational Excellence that is happening in Regional Victoria. Our thanks to the Thales Bendigo team for the excellent SIRF site visit last month. Thanks also to the 40 people from 16 organisations that travelled to see this firsthand.
Sincere thank you to the Thales Bendigo team (Matt, Murray , Evan, Jean Laurent, Taylor) for the great presentations and site tour hosting at the SIRF Thales Bendigo site tour last Tuesday. It was great that they were willing to open Thales site to allow other Australian manufacturers learn from their sharing of the really good Operational Excellence things Thales are doing. It was also really good for the SIRF visitors to gain an understanding of the Thales & Thales Bendigo business and also the complexities and design challenges that go into making a quality mobile protected defence vehicle such as the Hawkei – with its significantly different requirements from any other automobile maker that Australians would have typically seen. It was a great insight.
For those who missed this opportunity, don’t miss the SIRF IMRt. Getting the Best out of your MEX CMMS workshop also at Thales Bendigo on 5th June. For more info and booking to this event please click here
The Edge Leadership Training | Course 14 - Session 3 - Nyrstar Hobart Tasmania
Every early bird ticket purchased goes in the draw to WIN a $250 Adrenaline Australia voucher. Book Now!