WINNING formula - WGLL - TRACC

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FLYING Colours THE CHALLENGE FOR KENYA AIRWAYS HAS BEEN TO MAKE ITS PHENOMENAL GROWTH RELEVANT AND USE LESSONS LEARNT AS A SPRING BOARD FOR FUTURE GROWTH, WRITES CCI-GROWTHCON SENIOR CONSULTANT DERIK DUVENHAGE. National carrier Kenya Airways was founded in February 1977 following the break-up of the East African Community and subsequent disbanding of the jointly owned East African Airways. Wholly owned by the Kenyan government, Kenya Airways was privatised in 1996 after which it acquired KLM as a strategic partner. Since then the airline has grown in leaps and bounds, serving more than 2.7 million passengers annually and flying to 43 destinations in 36 countries. In addition to boasting one of the most modern fleets in Africa with 23 aircraft, Kenya Airways also is a major employer with more than 4 000 employees. In the last three years, the airline has witnessed remarkable growth in its network and customer base. As such, it’s been challenged to meet rising expectations of staff, stakeholders, but most importantly an increasingly diverse customer base. Thus, the board and senior management decided to embark on a strategic plan to invest and develop people and systems, instituting various initiatives in most key departments. This thinking compelled Kenya Airways to seek ways and means to improve and enhance performance in the technical department. In 2006, CCI-GrowthCon was invited to submit a proposal to the technical department for an assessment of the mechanical and avionics workshops. In the assessment, opportunities were uncovered to reduce outsourcing of socalled BLR (beyond local repair) items and improve processes such as turnaround time and labour efficiencies. A limited best practice implementation over four months followed, with special focus on support services and processes. Lean principles such as identifying customer requirements, process mapping and waste identification also were applied. A year later, Kenya Airlines requested a similar assessment for Kenya Airways managing director Titus Naikuni (right) admires the plaque presented by CCI-GrowthCon’s Derik Duvenhage to mark the launch of World Class Operations in the technical department. Cargo Services, a division of the ground services department. The division is responsible for optimising the cargo belly capacity on passenger flights, as well as developing a dedicated freighter network. Using Jomo Kenyatta International Airport as its premier hub, KQ Cargo offers both belly and freight capacity mainly to freight forwarding agents. After completing the assessment, CCI-GrowthCon launched a pilot improvement programme in the unit load device section and the equipment maintenance workshops, with the emphasis on improved equipment availability. This soon resulted in positive client feedback and quantifiable cost savings. Based on CCI-GrowthCon’s proven methodology and encouraging results in the pilot areas, Kenya Airways signed up for a fully-fledged <strong>TRACC</strong> implementation in the technical and ground services departments towards the end of 2007. On 24 January 2008, World Class Operations (WCO) was launched officially by the airline’s managing director, Titus Naikuni. BENEFITS TO DATE At the beginning of the year, the project experienced some difficulty because of the post-election violence. Nevertheless, overall results have been good and there has been a strong endorsement from all quarters for WCO to continue. To date introductory training has been completed, steering committees and taskforces are in place and master trainers have been trained. In the Cargo Services division, a reduction of unplanned maintenance and sub-contractor costs has yielded a saving of KES14 million (USD215 000) over nine months. For the same period, the lower BLR costs in the technical division amounted to a saving of KES10.8 million (USD166 000). Other benefits realised such as reduced turnaround time and improved customer services haven’t been quantified. Combined, the savings translates to a 200% ROI for Kenya Airways – not bad for a WCO programme in its infancy. 2 www.etracc.net
The sharing Game CCI AUSTRALIA MD JOHN VAUGHAN-JONES IDENTIFIES CHARACTERISTICS NECESSARY FOR TRUE SHARING OF CORPORATE KNOW-HOW. Sophisticated software programmes have been the main enablers in structured approaches towards sharing corporate know-how. But a true understanding of what exemplifies successful sharing is still lacking. Shallow copying happens across companies and between plants within multi-site or multi-national organisations. Some of the incidents discussed below took place within global blue-chip organisations where copying was often simple, given the desire for replication and system standardisation in these environments. The risk of blind copying is given added impetus through knowledge management systems such as Microsoft’s Sharepoint ® (which also is used by CCI). REAL LIFE EXAMPLES By applying lean approaches diligently, as well as careful thought and involvement, a visual control technique had been developed for operators at a multi-national giant’s minerals processing installation in South America (Site A). This enabled operators and others in the area to visually identify the operating condition of critical equipment through standard work, plus a well designed Daily Management System. This beneficial technique has been expanded across the site. Site B is an identical operating unit of the same corporation located in another country. After seeing the technique at Site A, Site B managers introduced it at their plant. Tool/technique examples were replicated and implemented on identical equipment. However, within a short time, the flashy new tool had begun to rust through lack of use, and in one application, the colour-coded visual indicator itself had been lost. Where did it go wrong Transmission of and sharing specific templates and ideas usually isn’t the constraint. The real constraint is the failure to create an environment driving improvement from a lean perspective, which requires great focus. Once this is in place and thriving, the time is ripe for ideas or solutions seeded from outside the immediate environment. Some 15 years prior, the same thing happened across departments at a motor industry client. I had assisted in implementing a “Tools don’t make a lean environment. Lean is primarily a thinking process” Superb examples of Visual Control at Site A used diligently and to good effect, because the environment that created them also uses them. In such environments, transplanting ideas from the outside work well. visual daily management system on the engine assembly line. Results, typical of properly implemented lean approaches, were impressive (a 50% drop in defects per unit in 4 – 6 weeks). Managers from nearby processes noticed the results and requested assistance to implement this early stage of lean in their departments. Pressed for time, I asked them to wait a few months. The impatient managers then simply copied the engine assembly process. Unfortunately, what works in an assembly environment won’t necessarily ensure repeat success with a ‘copy and paste’ exercise in a machine-intensive continuous batch environment. One manager was responsible for the engine block machining line where the machine rather than the people adds product value (common in capital-intensive processes). So, if the machine runs smoothly and no machine-tool breaks occur, then no defects arise and takt is achieved. However, in an assembly environment, people need to follow detailed standard work practices diligently to achieve the desired result. After three weeks of trialling his new visual boards for daily management, the engine block machining manager asked, “Why is there no information on my board, while your engine assembly boards are filled with valuable information by mid-morning” Lesson 1: Copying a tool or technique without insight and understanding is highly likely to fail. Lesson 2: make sure that what you copy is appropriate to your process type (different lean tools are applied to different process types). Lesson 3: don’t blame the channel through which you copied when a tool or lean approach fails, blame yourself. REASONS FOR FAILURE Perfectly good systems, tools or techniques, each with a good fit in a particular lean environment, fail because of these common reasons: • They were copied by enthusiasts who had insufficient understanding about what it takes to grow a lean environment. • Tools don’t make a lean environment. Lean is primarily a thinking process. It’s critical to create a situation that searches Continued on Page 6 www.etracc.net 3
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WINNING formula - WGLL - TRACC

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