OPERATIONS CONSULTING PROCESS

• Leads to changes in physical or information processes whose results are

measurable immediately.

• General Management calls for change in attitude and culture-takes longer to

generate measureable results

GUIDELINES FOR CONDUCTING CONSULTING PROJECTS:

• Underpromise and overdeliver is a good maxim

• Get the team mix right- choose skills and Personalities that work best fr the
project at hand

• The 80-20 rule is a management truth

• Dont boil the ocean- analyze and investigate selectively

• Use the elevator test

• Pluck the low hanging fruit

• Make a chart everyday

• Hit singles

• Dont accept “I have no idea”

• Engage the client in the process

• Get buy in throughout the organization

• Be rigorous about implementation

OPERATIONS CONSULTING KIT

• It can be categorized as tools for PROBLEM DEFINITION, DATA GATHERING,

DATA ANALYSIS AND SOLUTION DEVELOPMENT, COST IMPACT AND PAYOFF
ANALYSIS AND IMPLEMENTATION.

PROBLEM DEFINITION TOOLS

ISSUE TREE – to struture and map the key problems to be investigated and
provide a working initial hypothesis as to the likely solutions to the problem.
( Exhibit 13.5)
CUSTOMER SURVEYS – used for customer loyalty analysis. It captures the
information on how well an organization is performing based on three critical
market measure: customer retention, share of wallet and price sensitivity
relative to competitors.

GAP ANALYSIS - Used to assess client’s performance relative to the expectation

of the customer or relative to the performance of its competitors. Another form
is benchamarking.

EMPLOYEE SURVEYS- ranges from employee satisfaction survey to suggestion

survey.

FIVE FORCES MODEL - better known approch to evaluate a company’s

competitive position in light of the structure of its industry. The five forces are
buyer power, potential entrants, suppliers, substitute products and industry rival.
SWOT is a similar tool.

DATA GATHERING

PLANT TOUR AUDIT – Full manufacturing audit entails measurement of all aspect
of the productiion facility and processes.including support facilities such as
maintenance and imventory stock keeping. Plant tours are less detailed and can
be dione in a half day. This would give a general idea of the manufacturing
process before focusing on a particualr area.

WORK SAMPLING - Entails a rando sampling observation of work activites, to

give a statistically valid picture of how time is spent by a worker or the utilization
of equipment.