Business Health Check 6

Sign up for our weekly newsletter for updates, articles and free giveaways of case studies, templates and training materials every issue! Simply enter your e-mail on the right

In this business health check video we're going to be covering how the work flows. So, the organization's work wherever you want to call it.

So, in this, we'll be looking at four key areas that you were looking for clues as to where some of the possible issues, and for some of the possible opportunities exist. So the first one is in that team structure. So, within that you're looking at what the spans of control. So how big is it one to 10 in terms of Team Manager to team leader to operatives. This all depends on whether this is right or wrong, will depend on the complexity of the work. So, these pure sort of knowledge workers who require a high degree of guidance and expertise from the team manager, Or, they're very transactional very, you know, in which case these spans of control can be much greater.

Everything standardized.

There is no one size fits all in terms of spans of control very much depends on the environment, the word type is a consistency of that team structure across similar types of work. So, if you've got several teams in an area. To view all have the same kind of spans of control, they're all in the same kind of work, or you have some ratio of one to 10 and so that a ratio of one to four are all things to consider.

Make it also those who does it as the admin for that team themselves is there a separate admin team is the work fragmented across teams, or is it all contained within one team is fully integrated into the process. So is it pure QA, or is it done at the end of the line. And of course control time environment also is an effective coaching model. So, to think that is appropriate in some environments.

We all have learning needs. At some point, so anyone who thinks you want to train someone that said. Then, there are always other things are coming changes happen. So it's how those changes get coached out and trained out, and then have we follow them up to ensure that they've been embedded. So is that coaching model in place.

So and making notes about, in terms of work design, where you're looking for is, does that work flow smoothly through the operation, or is it batch and queue

is the work visible, can you see what's going on.

Is it visible between team members on the systems.

What's the lead time of the work. What do we expect it to be, Is that in line with customer expectations.

Is there a predictability of the work content, or is it a case of what we don't know until we open Pandora's box, because that could impact on you solid work times. Therefore your capacity and demand planning to help not want to get surprises.

Is the sequence, logical in terms of how the work was, or does it bounce around quite a lot, is a roster Master Work, again, as we've mentioned in one of the earlier videos, capacity demand planning as your resource mature demand at the times that the demand is there excessive paperwork printing, copying key and transcribing that kind of thing, more for office environments or manufacturing environment.

Is there excessive paperwork, at the end of each sort of stage before it passes on to the next stage, are the cells or flow lines, appropriate for the type of work, or someone readily invoke the flow outset and autonomously managed cell.

Even though the type of work isn't appropriate for that. So have a look for those kinds of things, which quality checking takes place. Is it a case of qualities built into the process, or is it someone checks it and then someone checks to check and then someone checks the chapter of the checker.

Having a look at those kinds of things as well, they'll give you some key insight into how confident people are in the levels of standardization in the processes.

Is there any kind of short feedback loop when issues are found.

Is there a tap kind of quality.

Self Assessment self checking and error proofing in place.

In terms of the work area. How is that been designed. Look, separating process steps, so things having to move from one place to another, because the work area hasn't been settled, hasn't been designed correctly for looking at people walking about. As part of the process, which suggests again that if we designed the work area a little better, then that will be eliminated, we can take some of the waste out of it.

Either the filing systems or is everything online, electronic, even if it is online and electronic, or the filing systems, fit for purpose.

Or they have been set up in a logical manner, either things easy to find, does the work flow seamlessly, out of the electronic system.

In terms of the team structures, are they functional, or do they need to be sort of looked at in terms of processes.

What you're looking at as variation takes waste, so do cycle times very excessively. Is it a mix of simple and complex work tight in the other handoffs, or is it complete end to end process. Other things like shortcuts and quick and easy. Sort of hints and tips for people to use terms of getting the work done, and getting through it quickly.

When you look at the performance of the people within the area is the variation in.

This is quite key. This will tell you whether standardization is in place and

how much in terms of performance is across individuals within operation. So for all the people doing the same kind of work.

What is the productivity look like across all those people. Is there quite a large spread of performance. So for example you know is one person performing for example activity, right through to 200 people in there. If your lowest is 40%, and your highest is 80%, then, that difference between those two is your performance spread, and everyone else will fall in the middle. So you will end up with a normal distribution curve.

What you want to do is reduce the spread of that curve to give you a much tighter performance spread. So a much tighter distribution around the mean.

Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.