DIRECT SUPPORT — Operational Excellence Services

Strategy deployment established within one budget cycle. Includes standardized rapid value stream mapping, value stream analysis, facilitated definition of addressable spend against the client P&L, and targets derived from it. Hoshin templates, video training and standard work are provided at commencement. Consolidation runs through Hoshined or an Excel hoshin, at the client’s election.

Addressable spend	Labor, material and scrap, supplies, variable, energy
Budgeted target	3.1–3.5% of addressable spend
Closed, routinely	4–5%
Stand-up	90 days, depending where in the budget cycle it starts

Savings are calculated on a GAAP-compliant basis. Targets are set below historical returns.

Managing for daily improvement across an analog to digital spectrum, per David Mann’s model: visual systems, the daily accountability system, and leadership standard work. Includes full-staff training and on-floor deployment support. Leadership standard work follows the Harada method for individual development and engagement.

Hour × Hour	At the station, through the shift
SQDC	Shift by shift
War room	Daily
Lean steering committee	Weekly SQDC
Monthly operations review	Budget against hoshin, S-Q-D-C diagnostics, P&L and bridge

The cadence reports into the hoshin at the monthly review. Deployment duration is governed by training, adoption and, at organized sites, negotiation. Data sufficient to scope a first changeover event is available approximately one week after the visual systems are in place: seven days across multiple shifts showing a consistent trend.

Hoshin kanri, MDI, kaizen and the supporting elements, deployed together to the 100-day plan below. The plant operates the program on completion. A basic quality management system is included.

A Shingo Prize track is available in addition, with ongoing support across the five-year assessment path. It is priced below the standard deployment.

The method is written up in full in Force Preservation: A Campaign Model for Operational Excellence — allocation of attention as the binding constraint, culmination as the control point, accountability as a contract with consideration on both sides, and scaling paid for by capacity the previous areas return.

ISO 9001 deployment, improvement and overhaul, constructed as an operational excellence system that performs what the standard specifies. A twelve-month T-card system schedules the year’s obligations, with event cards raised for corrective action as required.

Full ISO readiness, and demonstration of customer quality management requirements, are available as a separate engagement.

The T-card system and the surrounding management system are in development. Currently in service: the ISO 9001 deployment and overhaul work listed in the capabilities below.

• Value stream mapping — current state, future state, and the improvement budget that comes out of the analysis
• Kaizen events — facilitated daily and weeklong events against a defined problem
• SMED and changeover reduction — setup time split into internal and external work
• Line balancing — work content leveled against takt across stations
• Level loading and schedule analysis — heijunka, and what the schedule is actually asking the line to do
• Pull systems — kanban sizing and implementation in place of scheduled push
• Material handling and conveyance — routed delivery, waterspider routes and presentation at the station
• 2P and 3P — process preparation and production preparation for new lines and plant redesign
• Plantwide 5S — sort, set, shine, standardize and sustain as a plant program
• Standard work development — the documented method, its takt, its sequence and its standard WIP
• Supply chain mapping — the value stream extended past the plant fence

• SPC implementation and live monitoring — control charts on real characteristics, and watched
• Process capability studies — capability and performance indices with the estimator and its conditions stated
• Measurement system analysis — Gage R&R and the studies that establish whether a gage can tell two parts apart
• Design of experiments and machine centerlining — factor screening, optimization, and the settings a machine is returned to
• Calibration program review — assessment of an existing program, its intervals and its records. We review a calibration program; we do not perform calibration
• Wargaming and simulation — discrete-event models of a line or a decision before committing capital to it

• Hoshin kanri and strategy deployment — objectives cascaded and measured, with GAAP-compliant savings calculation behind the numbers, consolidated through Hoshined
• MDI deployment — managing for daily improvement, on paper or virtually through TaktiCore
• Leadership standard work — what each layer of management does daily, weekly and monthly, written down
• Operational excellence program management — the program run as a program, with a portfolio and a cadence
• Fractional operational excellence support — component-wise deployment held over time
• Management system effectiveness — a deep dive on whether the system produces decisions or paperwork
• Shingo Prize preparation — a five-year track toward assessment

• ISO 9001 quality system — deployment, improvement, evaluation and overhaul of an existing system
• HIRARC deployment — hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control as a standing system
• Safety program implementation — full program build or overhaul, evaluated against what the floor actually does
• Maintenance and reliability — TPM, autonomous and planned maintenance, and a blueprint maintenance program
• Critical spare parts — the inventory that decides how long a failure lasts
• Fleet maintenance and centerlining — one standard across an organization’s assets, with the SVEND platform holding the records

• Engineering evaluation — the engineering read on a process, a layout or a proposed change
• Energy assessment — consumption assessed and recommendations made against it. The assessment framework is still being built, so what it covers is worth asking about
• Training program implementation — the structure that makes a plant able to train its own people
• Recruiting — finding the people a deployment needs to survive after it ends

• Healthcare operational strategy — the service line read the same way a plant is read, with the improvement budget that comes out of it
• Emergency department flow — facilitated events against door-to-provider, treatment and disposition times
• Pre-operative testing standardization — one method across sites, with the standard work that holds it
• Radiology capacity management — demand against available capacity, and what the schedule is actually asking of the modality
• NICU T-card systems — the obligations of a unit carried on cards, with event cards raised as they occur
• Clinical and transactional process improvement — the same method applied away from the bedside, where most of the waiting is

Demand increased through M&A activity and organic growth. The plant maintained a schedule of procuring the newest Heidelberg presses. A shift toward smaller jobs increased changeover demand on the Polar AutoCut finishing lines.

Baseline changeover	27 min internal
After the SMED event	12 min — motion reduction and targeted tooling
Sustained over 60 days	12–14 min
Internal time after packing setup was externalized	4.8 seconds

Result

With finishing no longer the constraint, the Polar lines matched the press production rate. The Speedmaster sustained 18,000 sheets per hour. The plant absorbed over 30% demand growth with no added labor: zero temporary staff, zero new hires. The press subsequently set the world impression record.

Valuation

Time recovered per setup	26.8 minutes
Line time recovered	25–31 hours per week
Share of scheduled hours	22–28%
Direct labor at $23/hour	$29,900–$37,400 annualized

Basis: one line, four to five setups per shift, two shifts, seven days. The labor calculation excludes released throughput.

The 12 min measurement included an unrecorded downstream packing constraint.

• Full library of playbooks including Bills of Materials (BoMs)
• Pre-work and follow-up (30-60-90 days) calls included — customers own the plan and charter
• Value Stream Map → Value Stream Analysis → Annual Improvement Budget (GAAP-compliant savings) facilitation & support
• Custom API tools and virtual Hour × Hour plan-to-actual boards (varying sizes available)
• Training and leadership development programs (custom branding, tailored to partner needs)
• Multi-site executive support for OpEx huddles, Friday report-outs, Hoshin consolidation and more — consolidation runs on Hoshined

A manufacturer working to keep people employed, or to add headcount, can apply for a reduced day rate. Operational excellence is often sold as a way to need fewer people; that is not what this practice is for, and the rate reflects it.

There is no form to fill in beyond the one below. Say what you are trying to protect or build in the project intake and we will talk about the rate directly. Reductions are agreed case by case, in writing, before any work starts.