WITHOUT THINKING THERE ARE NO GOOD SOLUTIONS
BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION
TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS
STRATEGY & TACTICS (S&T)
TRADITIONAL APPROACH
The Strategy is the highest level of an initiative and defines the overall direction for the organization to achieve a goal.
The Tactics are (lower) details in an initiative and define all the decisions/actions to deploy resources to implement the strategy.
But…
- Where does “Strategy” end?
- Where do “Tactics” begin?
- Is there really a “one-to-many” relationship between Strategy & Tactic(s)?
OUR APPROACH
We apply the Theory of Constraints approach where
THE STRATEGY is the answer to the question:“What for?” – i.e. the objective of a proposed change to achieve a higher goal.
THE TACTIC is the answer to the question: “How to?” – i.e. the specific decisions/actions needed to achieve the objective of this change.
A clear structure of the S&T tree is needed in order to represent all the changes we believe are necessary & sufficient and the sequence in which we believe they should be done to achieve a goal.
The implementation of the S&T tree will support the companies to remove the typical “Engines of
Disharmony” and prevent the “Local Optima” initiatives.
PROCESS & PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT
THE FIVE FOCUSING STEPS
1. IDENTIFY the system’s constraint(s)
2. Decide how to EXPLOIT the system’s constraint(s)
3. SUBORDINATE everything else to the above decision
4. ELEVATE the system’s constraint(s)
5. If in the previous steps a constraint has been broken, GO BACK TO STEP 1 but do not allow Inertia to become the system’s constraint
BE FOCUSED, FAST AND EFFECTIVE!
To boost the Constraint(s) identification and the Exploitation we use your data with the most powerful technologies like:
- Process Mining
- Dynamic Modelling
SUPPLY CHAIN RE-ENGINEERING
TRANSFORMING THE SUPPLY CHAIN
Understanding the As-Is Supply Chain (how we operate today), defining the Target State (how we should operate) and developing the action plan in order to fill the gap (the roadmap of the improvement initiatives) is a common approach that helps the organizations to improve the bottom-line performance.
YES… BUT
- Why change?
- What to change?
- What to change to?
- How to cause the change?
Companies do not have unlimited budgets, time, and resources, therefore being focused on selecting the right improvement initiatives is a must.
DECISIVE COMPETITIVE EDGE CALLS FOR SUPPLY CHAIN SUBORDINATION
Any mismatch between the company’s strategy and the Supply Chain design is limiting the full potential of the organization.
To develop a Decisive Competitive Edge, not only this gap must be filled, but a proper Strategy & Tactics must be developed and properly communicated.
OUR UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION
Knowledge, Experience, Technology, and Methodology like Theory Of Constraints, Lean, Six Sigma, and common-sense approach, plus more than 30 years of experience in different industries is the value-added we provide our customers to achieve their challenging strategic targets.
We have developed solutions for several industries, including Metal, Assembly, Automotive, Chemical, Retail, Pharmaceutical, Aerospace, Insurance, Banking, Health, and Services.
OPERATIONS EXCELLENCE
WHAT IS OPERATIONS EXCELLENCE?
Operational Excellence is a mindset toward the pursuit of perfection
Methodologies like Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory Of Constraints are pillars to be shared within the organization as critical success factors for sustainable improvement initiatives.
The skills and the mindset of the organization in combination with the capability to onboard the key people, make the difference!
BE FOCUSED, FAST, AND EFFECTIVE
Many Improvement initiatives failed, not because lack of support by the management, but because they didn’t deliver financial bottom line results.
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Very often a common cause of this failure is behind the approach: there is a tendency to improve everything that can be improved, rather than improve something that must be improved.
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Methodologies like Theory Of Constraints in combination with Lean and Six Sigma, are the game changer to be Focused, Fast, and Effective.
NEW METRICS & PARADIGMS
Traditional cost accounting is not set up to promote and control the speed at which the system generates profit – Financial Flow Efficiency
The cost accounting metrics trigger behavior that promotes Local Optima rather than Global Optima
The sum of Local improvements does not necessarily adds-up to the Global improvement bottom line
THE POWER OF FINANCIAL THROUGHPUT
Financial Throughput is the new set of metrics by which the organization measures and steers the speed to generate profit!
“Accounting & Performance Management systems are focused on promoting Resource Efficiency control while overlooking the impact of Financial Flow Efficiency”
– G. Davico
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To unleash the full potential, a paradigm shift is mandatory!
INVENTORY EXPLOITATION
IS INVENTORY ALWAYS BAD?
There is a tendency to reduce inventory because carrying it is costly
Yes, but… is the Inventory always bad?
What is bad, is the wrong inventory type, at the wrong location, in the wrong quantity, causing the well-known
“Too much or Not enough” undesirable effect
Strategic inventory management can provide a decisive competitive edge meanwhile proactively control the working capital
WHAT, WHERE & HOW MUCH TO HOLD?
The answer to the above question depends on the specific business environment.
Thanks to specific Inventory Management Solutions based on demand and availability logic we supported several multinational companies in manufacturing,
retail, and distribution, to reduce inventories between 30% and 50% while significantly increasing service levels and sales
DIGITAL ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE & DIGITAL SCOR
WHY THE DIGITAL ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE
How many times when trying to improve the system, the first barrier to break is knowing the current reality?
The Enterprise Architecture is made by many building blocks – Strategies, Tactics, Processes, Controls, KPIs, etc – and it’s difficult to keep them in control if relying just on paper-based documentation: the relationships get invisible, and coherence will soon be lost.
Proper documentation is a necessary starting point for further improvement initiatives, risk management, and normative compliance.
The Enterprise Digital Architecture will help you to align the company’s elements towards the company’s strategy and be focused on the most important improvement initiatives.
KEEP ALL THE ENTERPRISE OBJECTS UNDER CONTROL CONSISTENTLY
We establish the current reality and performance (As-is) considering all the below elements and their relationship
- Strategies, Tactics, Targets, KPIs
- Processes and Process frameworks
- Requirements, Controls, Risks, Opportunities
- Organizations, People, Roles, Tools, ICT, Stakeholders, Capabilities
- Risks management
- Normative Compliance and Auditing
- Workflow engine.
Thanks to the digital enterprise architecture, all the above elements and their relationships are visible at the mouse click.
LEARN ABOUT THE SCOR
ASCM SCOR, now in its 12th edition, is the global reference for Supply Chain Operations.
It creates a basis for improvement by establishing a global standard of excellence for measuring and understanding current supply chain conditions and performance.
GET MORE WITH THE DIGITAL-SCOR
All the SCOR elements like emerging, best and standard Practices, Performance metrics, People skills, and Processes L1-L3 hierarchy are already defined, mapped and linked in digital format (DIGITAL SCOR) and ready to be connected with your other Enterprise Architectural Elements and L4 processes.
Thinking Solutions is the exclusive global partner of ASCM to provide the DIGITAL SCOR on iGrafx Platform.
PROCESS MINING & DYNAMIC MODELING
THE CENTRAL ROLE OF PROCESSES
Any product or service is delivered by processes, therefore documenting and improving your processes are critical success factors to positively impact the
bottom-line performance.
THE POWER OF DIGITAL TWIN
Business process management (BPM) is a discipline in operations management in which various methods are used to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve, optimize, and automate business processes in order to align companies around their own targets.
With the power of Process Mining and Dynamic Process Modeling, we build rapidly a Digital Twin of your processes and simulate the impact of different design and scenario variables.
PROCESS MINING
“Process mining is a relatively young research discipline that sits between machine learning and data mining on the one hand and process modelling and analysis on the other hand.
The idea of process mining is to discover, monitor and improve real processes (i.e., not assumed processes) by extracting knowledge from event logs readily available in today’s systems”.
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– Van der Aalst, Wil M. P. Process Mining Springer Berlin, Heidelberg
WHY IS IT SO POWERFUL?
The traditional method of Business Process Analysis relies on subjective information gathered through workshops and interviews.
Process Mining delivers objective insights based on accurate data (event logs).
ANALYZE ANY PROCESS
Process Mining can be adopted to investigate any process
BENEFITS
Validate the As-Is process and process performance during the discovery, identify the focus fields of improvement actions and monitor the process performance after the improvements.
- Quote to Cash
- E-2-E Operations
- Accounts Payable / Receivable
- IT Service Management
- Customer Service
- Procure to Pay
- Application to Approval
- Fault to Resolution (Issue to Resolutions)
- Claim to Settlement
- …
DYNAMIC PROCESS MODELING
Too often organizations make changes without considering their systemic impact and ends-up tampering with the system
WHY Dynamic Process Modeling?
To understand the impact of influencing factors on the system performance by considering potential solutions in combinations with “What If…” scenarios
SIMPLE & EASY ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS
Multiple routes, multiple products, shared assets, different resource types, different process performances and variations, different assets capacities, resources dependency, etc… are only some of the factors to consider to properly analyze and improve our processes performances.
The discrete simulation engine behind dynamic process modeling is capable to:
- Consider all the above factors
- Simulate the process flow and its performance
- Identify the system’s constraints
- Validate solutions considering different “What if…” scenarios
When applying Theory of Constraints, Dynamic Modeling speeds up the identification and exploitation of constraint(s) and simulates the impact of improvement actions.-Â
INTEGRATED FINANCIAL THROUGHPUT & OPERATIONS PLANNING
THE PLANNING PARADIGM SHIFT
No single company can claim to have infinite capacity, therefore it is a must to manage it wisely.
The traditional S&OP process provides only a partial solution
Yes, but… How?
The Integrated Financial Throughput & Operations Planning is the answer to moving from focusing on a “viable plan” to an “effective plan”
INTEGRATING FINANCIAL THROUGHPUT IN SALES & OPERATIONS PLANNING
To get the Integrated Financial Throughput & Operations Planning, it’s necessary to apply different financial decision criteria and “What if…” scenario analysis capabilities
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The outcome is a more effective evaluation process to define the best option that exploits the business opportunities
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We boost the transition to the new planning paradigm, providing the right know-how and technology
DYNAMIC INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
IF INVENTORY MANAGEMENT IS THE PROBLEM...
The primary goal of an effective Supply Chain is to support the business to achieve its goal and manage the unknown phenomena to proactively manage the risks
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One of the key supply chain design issues is to identify how to manage the inventory and ordering priorities effectively
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If we consider the implication of forecast accuracy error (on the demand side) in combination with process performance variability (on the supply side) coupled with management resistance to change, the supply chain loses the ability to strategically support the business
WHAT IS THE SOLUTIONS?
The Dynamic Inventory Management allows your Supply Chain to be more effective to support the business even more in VUCA* environments
We boost the implementation of the new Inventory Management approach with specific know-how and technology
*VUCA: Variability Uncertainty Complexity Ambiguity
CONTACT US
THINKING SOLUTIONS SAGL
Vicolo Sorazzi, 6
6622 Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland