New Accreditations & Certifications
Congratulations to the following newly or re-accredited organisations and Level 3 certifications.
LCS Level 3 Certificate of Lean Competency: Paul Macklam, MLGS Consultancies Ltd.
Paul has worked in Continuous Improvement roles for the last 30 years. He has been a management consultant for more than half of this time, and prior to this his career was in electronics and automotive manufacturing. He is currently working as an independent consultant and is heading up a team of Operational Excellence specialists within a major insurer’s offshore back office location. Paul has used lean within many of his engagements developing methodologies to work with new areas within Financial Services, such as risk, research and analytics, and HR, which at the time were seen as “not having a process”.
British Gas
British Gas/Centrica has achieved accreditation for the first time. More news to follow.
Baringa Partners
Baringa Partners is an independent business and technology consultancy, first LCS accredited in 2015. Its focus is in helping businesses run more effectively, reach new markets and navigate industry shifts. Original thinking and a collaboration ethos characterise its approach.
Revere AB
Swedish based Revere has been LCS accredited since 2011 and focuses on training and supporting organisations and companies in order to help them ‘create flow orientation and a self-improvement system’. Revere has driven change projects in more than 15 countries in both the manufacturing/service and private/public sectors
Case Study Participants Required!
Assistance is required from inquisitive companies to help in PhD case study research on the supply chain management of Product-Service Systems (PSS).
The Proposition
PhD researcher and LCS Level 2b Master Lean Coach, Eric Li, is studying the supply chain management of Product-Service Systems (PSS) and he is conducting several case studies to verify his research. He’s looking for manufacturing businesses with growing service dimensions (and potentially moving towards PSS) that would be willing to be the subject of the case studies.
The Context
Manufacturers are increasingly shifting to the new business model of PSS that integrates product with services to enhance customer value. The emerging digital technology is also reshaping the scope and quality of services that manufacturers can provide, in an unprecedented form and rate.
Meanwhile, a new type of collaboration ‘value co-creation’ is rising in the complex and dynamic PSS supply chain. However, research has shown that it is still not clear how providers manage the PSS supply chain holistically that is thought to be different from either the product or service supply chain. Eric’s PhD research aims to address this issue through case studies.
Benefits of Participation
See recent research on the benefits of PSS >>>The Benefits of PSS
In return for the case study, the case company will receive a formal report and/or several facilitated workshops that are aligned with their strategy/need on PSS.
Participation Activity & Timing
Case study data is mainly conducted by interviews (and observations if possible), which is planned to take three months to complete. A feedback and summary workshop with those interviewees will be held once the data analysis is done – that may be half a year to one year after the interview.
There will also be onsite revisits for double checking or to gather further information as a result of the initial data analysis. The whole case study process is likely to last about one year, with the interviews taking between one and three months.
To Participate
Download these documents
Lean Sustainability Research
Respondents are required to complete a questionnaire on lean sustainability being undertaken by Cardiff University, Swansea University and the Politecnico di Milano
Research Focus
The research title is Lean Implementation and Sustainable Continuous Improvement: managing internal knowledge stock, employee engagement and employee innovative work behaviour.
It aims to investigate the role of ‘soft lean practices’ (such as employee engagement, team-work, job rotation etc.) in fostering the culture of continuous improvement and thereby enhancing the sustainability of lean improvement programmes in organisations.
Researchers
This research is jointly conducted by Dr. Maneesh Kumar (Reader in Service Operations) from Cardiff University, Prof. Alberto Portioli Staudacher, Full Professor of Operations Management at Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and Professor Nick Rich from Swansea University.
Who should participate?
Questionnaire respondents should typically have the following roles: Operations Director, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean/CI Champion, Quality Director, CI Facilitator. Respondents can be from either manufacturing and services organisations (including public sector) – there are separate questionnaires for each.
Note that multiple responses per company/organisation are acceptable and an executive summary of the findings will be available to respondents.
CONFIDENTIALITY. All information collected about you and your organization will be treated in strict confidence. Identities will be kept anonymous in any reports or other publications produced.
Timing
Data collection will continue to the end of the first week in March 2017
How to Complete
Simply click on the appropriate link below and answer the questions. You can decline to answer any given question and it will take approximately 12 minutes to complete.
Link for manufacturing companies
Link for service/public sector organisations
New Accreditations
Congratulations to the following newly or re-accredited organisations.
SA Partners
SA Partners is one of the longest accredited organisations and well established in the CI consulting and education landscape. It provides a broad range of services on a global basis, including enterprise excellence assessment, training, organisational and business improvement, and coaching. It has a collaborative partnership with the Shingo Institute. Visit website
Maruna Process Improvement
Arnhem based Maruna was first accredited in 2014 and has provided support in Lean Six Sigma process improvement with more than 400 customers. It provides training in Lean Management and Lean or Six Sigma practical skills, assists in implementing improvement projects and through secondments for those seeking additional capacity or technical expertise. Visit website.
Mind for Process
A new company in the Netherlands, headed up by Kim Brons and Daphne van Kalken that focuses on training, coaching and consulting in process and change management, with a particular expertise in Lean and Lean Six Sigma.
Level 3 Candidates Success
Congratulations to the latest successful Level 3 programme candidates who have been awarded the LCS Level 3 Certificate of Lean Competency, having completed their submission of evidence demonstrating their strategic and transformational implementation capability and in-depth appreciation of lean and related CI knowledge.
Paul Macklam, MLGS Consultancies Ltd.
Paul has worked in Continuous Improvement roles for the last 30 years. He has been a management consultant for more than half of this time, and prior to this his career was in electronics and automotive manufacturing. He is currently working as an independent consultant and is heading up a team of Operational Excellence specialists within a major insurer’s offshore back office location. Paul has used lean within many of his engagements developing methodologies to work with new areas within Financial Services, such as risk, research and analytics, and HR, which at the time were seen as “not having a process”.
Paul’s assignment concentrated on the evolution of lean from his early manufacturing career to the present day, reflecting on these experiences and how they have now shaped his current approach. The main themes of how to start lean with sustainability, keeping things simple at an implementation phase, and how to empower employees to embed the changes were investigated. How to “do Lean” within offshore locations is an area that Paul is continuing to develop and he intends sharing these experiences in a future blog on this forum. Finally, one of the key learnings Paul had was that lean is a degradable skill, and that maintaining the most up to date thinking is essential for independent consultants.
Josina Bowering, HM Revenue and Customs
Josina, Head of Continuous Improvement, joined the civil service in 1990 and has worked in a variety of roles in the Inland Revenue and HM Revenue and Customs including debt management, tax compliance, policy development and strategic leadership. In 2014 she was appointed as the head of HMRC PaceSetter to steer HMRC’s use of Lean and continuous improvement and, in 2015, to bring together a team of expert PaceSetter resources to support the transformation of HMRC’s services to customers and to share HMRC’s continuous improvement approach with other government departments.
A key theme in Josina’s submission was ‘Learning to Adapt not Adopt’ – especially in relation to HMRC’s CI journey, and the importance of continuously improving your approach to CI, which are manifested in HMRC’s ‘One Deal Principles’, namely straight talking, valuing people, organisational purpose, continuous improvement, people development and work-life balance.
James Cuthbert, KPMG
James is a Senior Manager at KPMG, leading their global Operational Excellence methodologies, specialising in lean management systems. James focuses in healthcare, but has worked across multiple sectors including nuclear decommissioning, power and utilities, telecommunications, aerospace, operations, manufacturing and defence. James has an MEng in Mechanical Engineering and previously worked at BAE Systems where he learnt lean manufacturing techniques and since then he has developed his understanding of lean management and holistic transformation methodologies.
James’ cases focused on the developing maturity of lean programmes from step change efforts to integrated change programmes, identifying that along the way there is a need to ensure a balance between the improvement targets and developing the routines to drive culture change and that discontinuous step change without buy-in, ownership and ongoing maintenance will not result in long term sustainable performance improvement.
James’ observations concluded that the ‘soft systems’ elements of a lean management system were critical to engage participants through the ability to give them purpose, autonomy and the ability to develop. James concluded that any organisation aiming for sustainable improvement needs a system that can provide clear direction, clear operational structures to work within, the right attitude and mindset to drive improvement, the abilities necessary to be able to improve and to involve people within the business to improve.
Sarah Wooledge, BBC
Sarah has been working in lean and improvement for 20 years, starting in aerospace and working her way through nuclear, automotive, banking and healthcare. Sarah enjoys working in industries new to lean thinking and she is now playing a key role in rolling out the BBC’s innovative continuous improvement initiatives.
Sarah’s diverse sectoral experience has provided her with unique insights into how lean can be successfully implemented and she has concluded that the critical factors for success are being mindful of the culture (adapt not adopt), working on the leaders, using the right language, measuring the right things, knowing when to be patient or impatient and keeping up the energy. With regard to the next stage in lean’s journey, then she sees there is a great potential for lean to be applied at an individual level.
New Corporate Governance Research Group Launched
The Cardiff Corporate Governance Research Group was officially launched on Monday 5 December 2016.
The Group is multi-disciplinary in nature and includes academics in Accounting, Finance, Law, Taxation and Organisation Studies. The members of the Group are studying a number of important issues and research questions in corporate governance. These include boards of directors, international corporate governance, executive compensation, corporate governance in new ventures, corporate governance of banks, and corporate governance in China
The launch of the group will involve several academics discussing Corporate Governance from a variety of different perspectives.
Download a PDF brochure on the group
For more information on the group’s activities and potential involvement contact CardiffCG@cardiff.ac.uk.
