Best Consultants Client / Project Experience

Health Care Organizations

Government Agencies

Defense Contractors

Manufacturing Organizations

Medical Product Design and Manufacturing

Mining

Worked with the executive and operations staff of Goodyear Corporation to redesign their planning and scheduling process for truck and aviation tires.

• First project involved the analysis of the corporate forecasting system and its impact on costs, on-time delivery, and productivity.
• Second project involved analysis of the impact of the corporate forecasting system on a model plant site and the resulting operations planning process. Project found significant waste, missed schedules, and customer dissatisfaction due to the centralization of the forecasting process and resulted in the recommendation to decentralize and redesign the forecasting and operations scheduling process.

Worked with a large international airport on the evaluation and restructuring of their Centralized Communications, Command and Control (C4) functions within the airport:

• Conducted an evaluation, with another Best Consultants consultant of the various C4 functions operating out of different groups within the airport.
• Developed an Assessment Tool and Process and taught the airports middle managers to complete the Assessment process Best Consultants had initiated.
• Developed recommendations for restructuring and improving the C4 Operations and presented these to the Director of Aviation Operations and the Director of Airport Security.

Worked with Rusal, a large Russian aluminum producer, to implement Lean Office in the Headquarters facilities in Moscow. The Project included:

• Training Sales, Marketing, Project Management and Senior Executives in Lean Office and LDMS.
• Kicking off 10 Lean Daily Management Groups in the above cited work groups.
• Developing and kicking off implementation plans for the smelting and transportation of alumina from mine to refinery.

Worked with Johnson & Johnson's Cordis Division to put new policies and procedures in place to conform to FDA requirements around the manufacture and procurement of heart catheters and stents.

• First project was to design and deliver training for Johnson & Johnson Cordis Division on new procedures that would meet FDA requirements for supplier selection and management. Training included a risk based supplier selection process, a Six Sigma based system for qualifying supplier parts, a revised audit process and new supplier performance metrics.
• Second project included analyzing the Complaint Handling and Failure Analysis systems to improve their performance and to align them with the corporate goals of improving quality and reducing time to market.

Worked with the executive and operations staff of Tyco Corporation to redesign the Planning, Scheduling and Material Handling processes associated with their Adhesives Division.

• Project involved the analysis of the impact of the corporate forecasting process on plant specific operations planning, tracing that impact from the planners and schedulers to the operations supervisors and leads.

• Identified 50 areas of improvement, reduction of widespread redundancy and a future state process that reduced the total man hours invested by 30%.

Worked with the executive team of Philips Oral Health Care to preserve and improve their retail service to dental professionals who were a small part of their direct revenue, but accounted for 80% of their total sales through recommendations to patients. (Philips' new SAP system precluded retail or credit card sales.)

• The first phase of the project involved analyzing the critical characteristics of this retail marketing channel and finding an alliance partner who could seamlessly fill orders to dental professionals, while maintaining the same level of service in a manner that was totally transparent to these customers (i.e., that there was no change and Philips continued to be the provider of the service).
• The second phase of the project required analyzing the requirements of SAP, which Philips had just implemented and determining a way to integrate Philips SAP system with the Customer Relationship Management and Warehouse Management systems of the new alliance partner.

Worked with the executive team of Providence Health Plans to design and implement a major strategic change in both their operations and customer care.

• Piloted a major organizational restructuring which included transition to a product team structure.
• Redesigned the customer service process.
• Implemented organizational performance metrics.

Worked with the executive team of Premera Blue Cross of Washington & Alaska in support of their acquisition of a Blue Shield organization in Spokane, WA.

• Assignment included an assessment of the two organizational structures and the development of a training and communications plan to help integrate the two organizations.
• Worked with the executive team to develop new organizational values, executive roles and performance metrics designed to facilitate the success of the merged organization.

Worked with the executive team of the Board of Educational Services, Binghamton, NY to evaluate their market and develop a new business strategy that would improve their position as a vendor, competing with for-profit vendors, providing IT services and special Education Services to the region’s public school districts.

• Conducted focus groups with customers and employees.

• Developed a new, competition-based, business model.

• Restructured the organization around the new business model and implemented organizational performance measures.

Worked with the executive team, physicians and nurse managers in the formation of the Cancer Care Alliance (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington Medical Center, and Children’s Hospital).

• Served as change management project manager for moving the Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplant process from Swedish Hospital to Children’s Hospital.

• Coached the executive and clinical staff on continuous improvement and change management issues associated with the move.

Managed a project to redesign a Customer Service Warehouse for Genie Corporation. Project included evaluation of number of suppliers, parts turnover, number of SKU's, picking process, automation of the receipt and tracking of parts and implementation of process improvements in all of these areas.

Managed a project to evaluate and pick a software supplier for AT&T Wireless to automate their business expense reporting system.

• Project included developing user requirements, functional requirements and technical requirements for selecting a vendor. Wrote an RFP which went out to 25 vendors. Designed a business and technical capabilities screen for evaluation of suppliers who responded to the RFP. Selected the top 5 vendors.

• Interviewed each vendor and evaluated their products. Made a recommendation to AT&T Wireless as to the best software vendor to support their needs.

Worked with Sales and Finance Executives of Philips Oral Healthcare to analyze, redefine and align their marketing objectives with their new corporate objectives after Philips had acquired Optiva to create the new Oral Health Care division.

• Re-designed their retail sales promotions process to focus on corporate goals and to include new sales channels, including the Internet and "super stores" such as Walmart and Costco.
• Re-designed their budgeting process to align with corporate goals, eliminate redundancies, provide more financial control, and to facilitate the design and implementation of performance metrics.

Worked with the management team at a major U.S. manufacturing complex to assess competitiveness of the cost structure and workforce.

• Analyzed the size and composition of the work force vs. competitive benchmark levels.
• Determined the extent to which differences were driven by the greater degree of facilities complexity compared to competition, and the extent to which the differences were driven by the site's management practices.

(Sao Paolo, Brazil)

Worked with senior management, as part of a major corporate refinancing, to create the Corporate plan to support the refinancing activity. Three comprehensive Best Practices audits were performed. The first compared Braskem with world-class companies' attributes, capabilities, and management practices. The second covered competitive analysis-- strengths, weaknesses, core competencies, technology management, and value creation. The final set covered manufacturing strategies, marketing, sales, procurement, and contracting. As a result, the following were accomplished:

• Identified margin maximization opportunities
• Refocused business, logistics, and marketing strategies
• Identified steps to ensure that manufacturing strategies aligned with the business and marketing strategies
• Accomplished refinancing objectives

Developed and guided implementation of a performance improvement program for the manufacturing complex of Yangzi Petrochemical Company.

• Performed Best Practices diagnostic of all management systems (operations and maintenence practices were handled by others)
• Developed business case for implementing changes and led two Best Practices teams (company employees) working with management systems including:
  • Performance measurement, analysis and accountability
  • Human Resources
  • Strategic Planning
  • Raw Material Selection
  • Transfer Pricing

(Beijing, China)

Following the company's IPO after years of state ownership, worked with the petrochemical division to define the market attractiveness and company competitiveness of its 28 product lines.

• Developed methodologies for assessing market attractiveness and competitiveness, including the identification of the key factors and their rating and weighting.
• Conducted the evaluation and presented the results with strategic implications
• Subsequently led the development of company strategic plan for bringing Marketing and Sales to world-class standards.
• Developed prototype manufacturing performance improvement program to be piloted at one complex