FEATURE A LIFELINE FOR FM
Can a new crisis solution for FM businesses provide a vital lifeline during the pandemic? Here, Kiran Kachela, Founder of Continuous Improvement Projects Ltd, explains what Lean Six Sigma is and how it can help organisations strategise for the future.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, now is the time for FM businesses to shift focus onto building organisational resilience and efficiency so that they are able to anticipate, prepare for and respond to incremental and sudden changes in order to survive and prosper.
A high degree of adaptability is essential for survival in today’s volatile environment. The ‘we’ve always done it this way’ mentality is simply not an option - every business has had to acclimatise to the recent impacts of the outbreak and the long-term impacts and need for ongoing change should not be underestimated.
Whilst the past few months have seen organisations quickly mobilise response plans and revisit their business continuity plans to stabilise the operations, every business now needs to veer focus onto strategising for the future.
What is Lean Six Sigma? In simple terms, Lean Six Sigma is all about doing things more efficiently and delivering more value for customers with fewer resources. It is essentially a methodology and set of guiding principles that help you deliver more for less. This is what makes the methodology so invaluable within the FM industry which has suffered in recent times from tight profit margins, cash flow challenges, strong competition, inflation, Brexit and now Coronavirus.
Despite the ongoing demand for critical service provision during the virus outbreak, FM organisations are facing a reduced level of activity and a decline in project work which is a key income generating source. The reduced consumer spend across the globe is having a knock-on effect, with both client organisations and FM companies feeling the ‘pinch’. We are facing economic and political turbulence within the UK which is heavily weighing in on business confidence and investment decisions. With many FM businesses narrowing their focus to essential items only, is this enough to keep the FM industry afloat?
Lean Six Sigma can provide a two-pronged solution: improving the efficiency and quality of what we already do and driving innovation informed by data trends and root cause analysis. Here are just some of the concepts from the methodology that can help make a difference:
Lean processes Does Lean mean ‘skinny’? Not in this case, it’s simply doing things better. Lean Process Reviews help to establish a smoother process flow by eliminating bottlenecks and delays, increasing flexibility and responsiveness, and reducing errors and rework. At the centre of Lean is the identification, removal and prevention of waste from
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processes, which is anything that doesn’t add value to the customer. When applied correctly, Lean principles create huge improvements in efficiency, process cycle time, customer experience and productivity, leading to lower costs and a competitive edge.
Voice of the customer All Lean Six Sigma projects are initiated with a focus on the ‘voice of the customer’ (VOC); as it is the customer that defines what value and quality is. Market growth and return on investment are all reliant on customers, so understanding what’s most important to your customers is paramount. Without it, there is no business. Undertaking an annual client survey is no longer an effective vehicle.
Capturing customer perspectives has to be more real- time and frequent using a variety of mediums, because customer requirements are changing by the minute. Planning and initiating a VOC program might seem daunting, from developing a creative theme and defining the right question-set through to getting people to share what they think and feel and using the results to develop a strategic plan; but it pays huge dividends as the data captured can inform a forward-looking strategy that’s truly evidence-based.
Key performance indicators In today’s world, there are no limitations to what we can measure, be it financial performance of a company, how a customer navigates around a website or how employees utilise their workspace. It’s important not to fall into the trap of measuring data for the sake of it - it wastes a lot of time and effort. Defining the right metrics can seem mind-boggling and some struggle to see the wood for the trees, but selecting the right key performance indicators can provide future insights that can help transform a business.
Operational stability Six Sigma, traditionally used in manufacturing, seeks to improve the quality of your process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of errors and minimising variability. Variation is a term rarely used in the workplace, but it impacts everything we do, which is why it’s core to the methodology. Understanding whether a process is stable or not and what variables are impacting it has implications on the way it might be controlled. The pandemic has brought with it new variables in operations such as new standards, frequency of cleaning, social distancing maximum occupancy levels etc. Understanding the variables
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