Managing cargo shipments in the Port of Felixstowe
I’ve been catching-up on my business reading. I always find something fascinating when I do….
True to form, my efforts were quickly rewarded this morning, with a case study on digital signage at the Port of Felixstowe in the August 14th issue of Business Weekly. This article caught my attention for two reasons:
- I’d been impressed, whilst sketching* on the beach during a late summer trip to Felixstowe, by the size and frequency of the cargo ships going across the horizon.
- I’m always intrigued by how organisations engage their staff in a commitment to operational excellence.
(*I’m a very recently initiated amateur! More about this for anyone interested in the July-August RiverRhee Newsletter.)
Collecting metrics is a step towards operational excellence
Most business teams collect metrics or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) on their performance. It’s a requirement from management. Variations on cost, time and quality – often expressed as frequencies, quantities, timings etc. – are dutifully collected and included in monthly reports.
We talk about these metrics during the RiverRhee training courses that I run on Lean and Six Sigma, and on Change Management. Questions that are often raised are:
- Are the right things being measured: will they give us meaningful and useful information on how we are performing in relation to our customers and our goals?
- Is anyone paying attention to the metrics and using them to make decisions, to improve performance on a continuous basis, to monitor whether anticipated benefits are being delivered?
- Have we in fact got too many metrics?
‘Stand-up’ meetings and a visual workplace can make a real difference to engagement and results
One of the things I enjoy about working with multiple customers is witnessing the diversity of their approaches and hearing about examples of operational excellence.
One company uses ‘stand-up’ meetings at the start of the day and at lunch time (to catch people working on different shifts). They update a white board in a narrow corridor with their key targets and up to the minute metrics on performance in relation to customers and operations. The local manager or supervisor runs through the figures, celebrates achievements, asks for comments and suggestions. One or two members of staff might also share an item of news or a good practice. The narrowness of the corridor and the absence of chairs help to ensure that the meeting is very brief – it lasts 15 minutes at the most. Everyone is engaged, informed, energised and committed to the organisation’s aims and their roles within it.
Other organisations have more sophisticated white boards or electronic displays in more spacious locations that can be viewed as people go by as well as in similar ‘stand up’ briefings at key points of the day or working week.
Using ‘media screens’ at the Port of Felixstowe
The case study in Business Weekly features Anders+Kern (A+K) PADS (www.anders-kern.co.uk) and the Port of Felixstowe’s decision to use their ‘media screens’ to provide ‘real-time and relevant information’ to the approximate 75 per cent of their staff involved in operational roles and delivering services to their customers. (The Port of Felixstowe A+K case study is also available online.)
The article describes how the information communicated includes ‘progress against customer service targets’ and ‘changes to operational procedures’.
This is all very good to hear about. It would be wonderful to get an inside view on the impact that this approach to the visual workplace is having on employee engagement and operational excellence.
How are you engaging your staff in operational excellence? Do you have some form of visual workplace?
About the author
Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams and their managers to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. (We using coaching, training, mentoring and consulting in our work with our clients.)
Elisabeth founded RiverRhee Consulting just over 5 years ago, and prior to that had 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry in line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.
Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in Lean Sigma, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and is an NLP (NeuroLinguistic Programming) Practitioner. She is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), APM (Association for Project Management) and is also registered as a Growth Coach and Leadership & Management trainer with the GrowthAccelerator.