The Advantage of Understanding your Value Streams
We continue to be impressed with the tremendous value that organizations gain from the relatively small effort to map and analyze the workflows that create the value delivered to their customers.
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What can LEAN teach us? Rotaries, Roundabouts and Traffic Circles…
by Susan Bouwer and Roland Cavanagh LEAN Principles in the real world: Single Piece Flow and Autonomy My peeve – traffic lights. Particularly several in a row. Jan and I have been staying at our son’s place in Davidson, North Carolina. The next town up Hwy. 77 becomes a Bermuda Triangle of traffic – …
What can LEAN teach us? Rotaries, Roundabouts and Traffic Circles… Read More »
The world has irrevocably changed – Are you ready for whatever comes next?
by Susan Bouwer, Roland Cavanagh, Rowland Hayler, and edits by Greg Gibbs “In 40 years in this business, we’ve been hit with wildfires, earthquakes, floods, economic downturns and bugs that threatened to wipe out the vineyards. This feels like getting hit by all those things at the same time,” Napa Valley’s Doug Shafer of Shafer …
The world has irrevocably changed – Are you ready for whatever comes next? Read More »
Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast. Getting a grip on why your change efforts aren’t gaining traction
Our Experience Is that trying to get the organization to do things that aren’t aligned with the culture is like pushing sand uphill. Culture is broad, deep, and stable It’s the unwritten code – norms, myths, and behaviors, that affect how people feel about the organization, how decisions are made – within an organization that …
Do you have a high performing team or a collection of individuals?
“Come meet my team.” By: Roland R. Cavanagh, P.E. I frequently get invited to “meet my team.” I always seek to observe and answer, “is this the typical bunch of people pulled together by the common need for a paycheck, or is it truly team?” “Team” is an oft misused term to describe a group of individuals… we have sports …
Do you have a high performing team or a collection of individuals? Read More »
Understanding Our Customers – the Recipient of Our Value
This is one of a series of what we hope you will find to be informative articles about improving operations and the Customer experience by applying the principles of Operational Excellence.Delivering Value to the Customer, Profitably The Three Foundations: We’re all in business to make money (even non-profits have to pay the bills), and the foundations are: …
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The Processes – the Work and Tools That Deliver the Value
This is the second of a series of what we hope you will find to be informative articles about improving operations and the guest experience by applying the principles of Operational Excellence. Delivering Value To The Customer, Profitably We’re all in business to make money, and the foundations are: • our customers – the recipient …
The Processes – the Work and Tools That Deliver the Value Read More »
Visualizing the Flow of People and “Things” – the Spaghetti Diagram
Visualizing the Flow of People and “Things” – the Spaghetti Diagram We’re interrupting the article sequence to present a simple tool for increasing efficiency: Roland was teaching a one-day overview of Lean/Operational Excellence for the visitor center staff at a leading sparkling wine producer, covering the usual stuff (history, approach, 5S, Seven Wastes, a few …
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Fraud Opportunity Reduction
Another one!! – April 11, 2018: Napa bookkeeper admits to stealing $170,000 from Jefferson Car Wash March 28, 2018: Napa man sentenced for embezzlement from Sonoma nonprofit agency April 28, 2017: Prosecutor: Dry Creek General Store hit with $415,000 theft Stole from his partners: Santa Barbara Winemaker Arrested According to “How To Keep Your Winery Safe From Fraud & Embezzlement” – …
Winery OpEx
Which of these keep you up at night? Costs? Customers? Profit? Growth? Employees? Production, sales, distribution, back office – we bring years of experience and best practices from a diverse array of industries to the Wine Country Frequently more benefit is gained from removing waste from back office and customer-facing processes than from the vineyard …
