Typical Approach

Finding opportunities for improvements

In different ways and with different views on the actual situation at the client one can look for opportunities for improvements.

As a typical start key figures like managers, process owners and engineers are interviewed about the environment in which they have to accomplish their daily tasks.

Dependig on customer’s questions the interviewer may use:

• Dedicated questionaires;
• Maturity models for example regarding Configuration Management or PLM;
• Available internal reports and analysis;
• Within the project executed measurements and analyses.

Ordening and priority setting

Problems and challenges are mapped on a number of concrete opportunities for improvements, like release process, portfolio management, standard platforms, etc. These opportunities for improvement are distributed over a few categories like: enterprise, organisation, configuration, standards, IT.

The opportunities for improvement are weighted against their:

• Contribution to strategic objectives;
• Feasibility;
• Required effort for implementation.

This exercise will result in a priority list for the creation of improvement plans.

IMprovement plan

Each and every improvement plan is based on a realistic project plan with clear and achievable objectives including a financial target and a measurable contribution to client’s strategic objectives. The scope is limited in a sense that the project is manageable and with a minimal risk of not achieving its objectives.

Creating and implementing improvement plans will become a continuous activity.

Implementation

AEGOR-ProductdataBank B.V. follows the rule “Processes first, tools will follow.” From this its follows that implementations of an improvement plan will always start with the training of employees in executing the new process. Usually these trainings are also used to tune the proposed new processes with the process knowledge of the employees in training. The final proposal for the new process is agreed with the employees who have to execute it.

The next step is to adjust the work environment conform the requirements of the new process.

After training and setting up the new work environment the new process will be executed.

Verification

After implementation of the improvement plan it will be verified or the agreed contribution to strategic objectives and the financial targets as described in the plan are met.