Your Success Begins With Us
We Minimize Process Pain Points and Help You Maximize Results
Inefficiencies within your company do not announce themselves.
Poor processes and ineffective practices do not declare their intention to disrupt your business and cost you money,
but it happens within most companies every day.
What We Do
Inefficiencies are often invisible and intangible, which is what makes them so dangerous to your business. Slowdowns, customer complaints, delays, and errors impact your company’s reputation and ultimately its bottom line. In the case of products and services, these breakdowns cost you time, money, and sometimes client relationships. And in extreme cases, they impact life-and-death decisions.
The good news is that when you know where to look for problems, it becomes much easier to identify the slowdowns in your operation. When you recognize the warning signs and the symptoms of a broken process, you’re well on your way to fixing it.
We teach lean and continuous improvement concepts based on waste mitigation and reducing the impact of process waste. We review the elements of a waste walk; as far as, what to look for, examples, potential causes, and potential opportunities for improvement. We also take it one step further by giving you tips and tools to document and measure the findings in order to quantify not only the impact of the waste but to also quantify and show the impact of the improvements once they are made.
Our goal is to help you see the invisible and identify the hard-to-see problems that are undermining your efforts. Because as good as you are today, we can help you be better tomorrow.
How We Help You
Mission
We minimize process pain points and help you maximize results by teaching you tools to conduct business more efficiently.
Vision
Our vision is to help companies maximize efficiency, achieve operational excellence, and sustain results.
ABOUT ME
Tawana Gardner is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with a focus on improving processes, ensuring quality, and creating a productive team environment. She began her career as an Industrial Engineer at Aerospace Testing Alliance in the Operations and Maintenance Department. Shortly after earning both a Lean certification and a Six Sigma Black Belt certification, she moved on to implement many successful continuous improvement initiatives for companies such as Aerospace Testing Alliance as a Department of Defense contractor, Cargill, Bic Graphic, ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Coca Cola and many others. She has saved millions of dollars over the course of her career, in addition to publishing articles, speaking engagements, and leading numerous trainings in management and continuous improvement. She has 18 years of experience and is currently serving as Principal Consultant at AIM for Change, LLC. AIM mentors and develops continuous improvement practitioners in order to empower them to manage projects in their respective facilities by giving them the tools that they need in order to work confidently and independently using a systematic, repeatable approach. More specifically AIM focuses on reducing lean waste by teaching waste identification and mitigation techniques. Ms. Gardner was recently featured in the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Quality Progress Magazine for an article on lean and safety in the workplace. She has also worked with Project Management Institute (PMI) to teach project management practitioners how to implement lean for faster, more efficient, and more cost effective project delivery.
What Our Clients Say
No matter whether your outcomes are physical or transactional, we can improve your company’s performance by identifying the places where it isn’t functioning at its best, and then help your team to develop better processes. Working together, we’ll help your team catch problems faster, educate your workforce, and sustain your improvements. Our process is systematic, repeatable, and proven.
Our goal is to help you see the invisible and identify the hard-to-see problems that are undermining your efforts. Because as good as you are today, we can help you be better tomorrow
Project Success
Changeover Curtail
Reduced Change over time from 10 minutes to 37 seconds. The operator was working on an automated process. The company had set a goal of 5 minutes per change over. After a few time studies and working with the operator we were able to get the change over time down to 37 seconds.
No More Lost Test Time
The customer was unable to provide service in a timely manner which cost them $25,000 each time the problem occurred. After conducting some research, working with the project team, and implementing a simple $100 solution - the problem was eliminated. This produced a $4.8Million dollar cost avoidance.
Reduced Process Steps
We simplified an order prep process from 9 steps to 5, and implemented the new process. This took the process from 15 minutes per order down to 6 minutes per order.
Lead Time Reduction
At the beginning of the production day, the orders were slow to get to the machines. We reduced lead time and went from having 40 late orders each morning orders down to 5 by investigating and coordinating activities between the office and the production floor.
Raw Material Loss
We noticed raw materials being thrown away several times per day. I had a brief conversation with the operator about how much product we were losing.
1. The product could be placed back into the hopper
2. The operator showed initiative by talking to someone on the maintenance team about fixing the problem.
3. The problem was fixed completely. No more leaks on that point of the machine.
4. The outcome, $13,000 in raw material times two locations, times 4 machines. $104,000
"Two" Many Shifts
Reduced two shifts down to one shift. We decided to combine shifts after conducting a line balance, reviewing production data, and reviewing customer requirements. The outcome was a reduction of hourly employees from 51 to 24 while meeting customer demand and quality standards. This saved $372k in addition to a cost avoidance of $500,000 in overtime.
Training to Circumvent High Turnover
Training in this particular department took at least 4 weeks. We developed a training program in order to speed up the training process due to high turnover in the department. The program included the process goal, daily goals and expectations, a means to track progression, and supervisor feedback. The client wanted to supervise the trainee and the training process for two weeks; however the employee was fully trained and able to surpass the preset trainee goals in a matter of four days.
Increased Operator Efficiency
The employees in this particular area were literally walking through forklift traffic in order to get supplies. Their supplies were spread out in their area as well as on the production floor. We developed a new work station that housed much needed supplies as well as increased order producing efficiency. Increased production time by 40 minutes per person by developing a work station to house supplies/equipment.
Boost in Production
The customer's kitting process was operating at an average of 29 orders per person per shift. We conducted time studies, developed a training program, and implemented a small change to the order sheet. We set the goal at 57 orders per shift. There was some initial concern on the part of the operators however, they were able to reach 65 orders per shift in only 3 short weeks.
Scrap Reduction
Reduced scrap by 60% by setting up a single training that included working with the quality department to set a standard, use sample products as examples, and the use of visual aids.
Decreased Start Up Time
The machine operators would come in to start their shift at 7am. They would start running product between 7:30am and 7:45am. We conducted time studies, addressed a few issues that were happening on third shift, and implemented new guidelines. The were able to take the operator start up time from 34 minutes to 7 minutes Increasing production time by 30 minutes per shift which meant producing 300 more products per shift.
Raw Material Loss
The customer had an open box that stored material. Employees would use a pail and a small shovel to retrieve the material. Unfortunately, a lot of the material ended up on the floor. Once the material went on the floor, it could no longer be used. By working with staff we redesigned and built a hopper. The new hopper had a lever that opened and closed as needed, as well as a place to hang the pail. This saved $360,000 in raw material.
