Business improvement: reducing waste and streamlining processes key to growth.

Niel Nickolaisen, an experienced operations improvement professional, has worked with Apex Logistics Group to reduce waste and streamline processes, ultimately improving the company's overall operations.

Throughout his years of experience consulting with various companies, Nickolaisen has found that many companies have wasteful processes that can be eliminated or reduced to ensure efficient operations. He worked with Apex to identify and reduce the Seven Forms of Waste:

REWORK

Anything we have to do over again because of mistakes we made the first time.

OVER-PROCESSING

Making things (products and processes) better than they have to be.

WAITING

Waiting for approvals, for inventory, for decisions, etc.

OVER-PRODUCTION

Doing or having extra steps or results in our processes.

MOTION

Not having close at hand what you need to complete a task.

EXCESS MATERIAL

Having too much on hand to complete the immediate task.

EXCESS INVENTORY

Producing too much and then hoping that someone will eventually need what was produced.

Nickolaisen worked with Apex to discover the company's primary form of waste, which was identified as the company's lack of a CRM (customer relationship management) system. CEO Ryan Petersen decided to make acquiring an effective CRM system his top priority, and the company plans to implement a new system within the next few months.

"After meeting with Niel, we've realized that where we keep ending up is our software, our technology. It's just not good enough. Technology is one of our biggest problems--it holds us back. We've realized that it's something that needs to be fixed and it's a priority." Petersen says.

Acquiring an efficient CRM system will streamline and automate many processes and is critical to the company's progression. Much of the company's improvement goals will depend on the successful implementation of this system.

Additional Problem Areas

Beyond implementing an effective CRM System, Nickolaisen helped Apex recognize other forms of waste through tried and tested foundation process and improvement tools. The tools are:

Value Stream Management (VSM)

VSM makes both the process and the waste in the process visible. VSM uses basic process mapping tools (rectangles to indicate process steps, arrows to indicate connections between process steps and diamonds to indicate decisions) and then maps the process. VSM is the starting point for all process improvements. "For all of our projects, we start by mapping the major...