Enterprise Integration Consultants with a European/Global perspective of the supply chain

Welcome to our enterprise integration consultant service. My old boss once wrote,  "Whatever their discipline, most consultants are either eagles or flies". He understood that in his days when Ivy League American Business School strategists looked down disdainfully at the grass roots and the operations consultants focused on getting the detail right, enjoying getting the wrong things precisely right rather than the right things roughly correct.

In recent years the nature of the work that strategy firms do has altered. While advising organisations on strategy remains central, clients demands a broader perspective from their advisers encompassing people development, technology and  business process redesign. And they expect consultants to think more about implementation - i.e. helping to put recommendations into practice. We have been able to deliver this breadth of service because we understand and tackle European manufacturing firms from both perspectives - bottom-up and top-down. Also, our seasoned individuals have experience in wide range of industry sector or field of work.

In deciding whether our kind of consulting interests you, you may find this matrix helpful:

Who are we? 

Simon and Simon Ltd. and several associated management consultancies have formed a strategic partnership to provide the best combination to support pan-European companies' requirement. This partnership is powerful and capable for a number of reasons. Together we have considerable depth and breath of integrating enterprises with a supply chain perspective. Our capability business modelling and process re-engineering methodology is without equal and includes a well-developed skills transfer programme. We leverage this with extensive experience of process performance improvement and leading practice business processes.

Simon and Simon Ltd. was formed by Paul Simon, a well season integration consultant. It offers a wide-ranging portfolio of business support. This portfolio covers a proven track record in multi-site and complex assignments across the range of business transformation disciplines, which includes process review and improvement.

Our Associates possess a European/Global perspective of Businesses and have the ability to work and influence at senior level. They have demonstrable track record of success in business transformation and a blend of running a business and delivering innovative consulting engagements for major UK and European blue chip businesses.

In partnership Simon and Simon Ltd. provide a comprehensive solution to clients' requirement. We have:

• In-depth knowledge of European supply chain
• Ability to provide continuity with existing work,
• Unrivalled expertise business transformation
• Developed a formal suite of training to support knowledge transfer, and
• Access to an extensive community of specialists in leading practice processes and process performance improvement experience. 

What would be our approach? 

Our clients have talented people with expertise, but the overriding pressures of getting product out make it difficult to keep the resource together for the sustained effort required to develop the improvement plan. We therefore use a Joint Project Team approach which will focus on creating a solid plan for our clients as the foundation for increasing profitable performance. This approach will:

• Bring together all the key task and draw on specialist input when required
• Allow our client management and people to concentrate on running their business
• Give senior management a shared vision of the future business
• Create ownership of performance goals and measures to achieve them.

The diagram below outlines project team organisation:

Our approach will be consistent with our client's requirement and will be based on a structured business process redesign methodology. It will be a phased approach, spanning from project imitation, establishing the current state processes, and from the understanding gained developing future state process and a transition plan. Concurrent change management and process management through the programme underpins all this.

In addition, our approach to working with clients is to facilitate a gradual transfer of skills. Throughout the duration of the project we will ensure that a high level of skill and knowledge migration to our clients people takes place via an agreed and structured process. This will occur from the outset of the project and will continue throughout the project phases. To aid complete knowledge transfer we have a developed a suite of formal training programmes that support the methodology.

What are deliverables and benefits do you receive?

 On competition of the project, our clients will have:

• Show short term improvement
• Show how to achieve aggressive business performance in the medium to long term
• Show how cash savings can be used to finance restructuring
• Quantify potential cash saving and financial benefits from best in class performance. 

Usually, our clients have started to achieve improved results and creating an integrated master plan to improve performance will enable them to drive forward and achieve profitability based on best in class performance. The benefits will be substantial

Where have we done this? 

It is not where we have done this, but where we have not done this. Listed below are seven typical projects:

British Aerospace	Fundamentally changing the culture from a batch manufacturer to a build to order culture by pushing control and accountability as far down the organizational structure as possible, in order to reduce cost by 30%. Cell manufacturing was used as enabler to create the teaming approach needed to achieve the target reductions in inventory, space, lead-time and costs.
BNFL	Business process redesign of Nuclear Process Facility, prior to a SAP implementation. The objectives of the project  were to realise a substantial reduction in plant operating costs by: -                     Treating the processes in operations as an integrated Supply Chain and simplifying them through the removal of duplication and non-value adding activities. -                     Sizing the organisation to support the Supply Chain process with the correct structure, skill and culture. -                     Rationalising and integrating the system to support the Supply Chain process. -                     Installing cost controls to deliver meaningful business measures that will be used to manage the Supply Chain processes and improve managerial accountability.
Compaq	Business process redesign of a major computer manufacturer, prior to a SAP implementation. This involved analysing business processes from receipt of order through to delivery of products to distribution centres and customers around the world to improve Economic Value Added (EVA), Cashflow and productivity. As a result:             Economic Value Added tripled.              Cash balance increased by $3.4bn             Productivity increased by 51%.
Defence Logistic Organisation (DLO)	Business process redesign of DLO. We reviewed its business processes in response to CDL request. The initial findings from this review suggest that the balance of effort between the HQ and the business units is not yet right; that the organisation is developing a tendency towards centralist approach and process stove piping; and that the organisation’s major change initiatives, and business convergence, are not progressing fast enough. The key elements of the new vision that we developed ware as follows: ·        To move from the current Whole Life Costs and Lean Support Chain Directorates to a single focus for logistic strategy, to deliver pan-organisation technical support to the acquisition community within the HQ. ·        To group the support activities that are currently provided by Business Unit Directors Technical and Support Chain, into customer support centre.
LucasVarity (TRW)  Plc	Developing and implementing supply chain strategy for electrical/mechanical manufacturers in the LucasVarity Plc Group. This involved introducing: -                     A new FMS facility (SCS module) at Pontypool, involving layout, logistic operation, organisation and capital investment. -                     Team based culture, which is an umbrella concept covering most of those unique Japanese practices that     have achieve such world wide fame, combining them with the best practices of Western companies. -                     JIT-MRP system in order to complement business redesign strategies at aerospace and car component divisions. -                     A product rationalisation culture to enable a move from a complex to a simple control system. -                     A review of the company’s American facilities to recommend a business strategy which will minimise running costs while taking account of the complexities such as; capability, portfolio management, volume growth and the possibility of acquisitions.
Rolls-Royce	Feasibility study of system requirements for an aerospace engine manufacturer introducing Just In Time manufacturing techniques. The study recommended moving to a decentralized system architecture, which mirrored changes in the organisation.
TI	The introduction of Taguchi (Quality Control) experiment at a car component manufacturer in order to improve yield of the company manufacturing process. This involved review of the current process in order to identify the cost of quality.

 

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