For New Operations / New Processes

Starting Up New Operations

YOUR CREDIBILITY SUFFERS when projects come in over budget or in a different year than promised to shareholders and investors. If a project could be completed within the projected time frame and under budget because "surprises" and excess spending were prevented, how many millions would be saved?

For Start-Up Processes, we strive to help you minimize contingencies because surprises are expensive! A 20% contingency for capital projects or start-ups is common and covers the unexpected and new information will cause changes in direction, excess spending and delays. For a $100,000,000 project, the contingency would be $20,000,000. For a billion dollar project, the contingency would be $200,000,000. Our process will help you improve ROI by minimizing contingency events.

NEW OPERATIONS HAVE A ONE-TIME OPPORTUNITY!
If you could take action to prevent post-start-up problems before they occur, avoiding the loss of millions of dollars in production and cost, would you do it? It is possible to "build-in" some simple common-sense improvement tools, methods and processes NOW that will minimize or prevent really big problems for years to come. This work requires a little time but not a huge budget, and it will pay back millions of dollars if given the right level of commitment.

Site management plays a key role in this work. For example, they set expectations for how they define opportunity, how they set targets, how they communicate, what will be measured, how they will solve problems between departments, who will take action when a problem arises, etc.

Creating New Processes

A new operation requires hundreds of new processes that enable people to connect with equipment and each other to maximize performance. When designing a new process, it is important to "engineer out' potential barriers that will prevent an optimum process flow and execution. These barriers (caused by beliefs and behaviors of people) must be removed in order to tap into lost production and millions of dollars in lost margin.

Most processes involve more than one department and many people, so cooperation between departments and people is a non-negotiable key to success. When working with you to create new processes, I help you identify necessary process steps, then emphasize a "big picture approach" and high-quality hand-offs and communications between departments because a lack of either one causes costly delays, rework, and production losses that may never be measured. We employ a tool called Process Orientation to capitalize on synergies between departments and promote a "seamless culture".

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OPPORTUNITY: An odorless invisible element defined as a favorable set of circumstances in business. The only element with an infinite atomic number and weight. When discovered and captured, it reacts with improvement programs and corporate cultures to produce a desirable green substance found in financial institutions.