Case Study - Project Olive

The Business: A water and sewerage testing and analytical services laboratory integrated as a commercial division of a large public water utility. The lab was formerly owned by local government council.

The Brief: As Project Manager review the lab operations to determine methods to improve output and capacity constraints and causes of sub-optimal financial performance, and to implement solutions. Provide introductory training and awareness on 5S and Lean principles.

Background: A reasonably well equipped laboratory was perceived to have bottle-necks causing extended lead times and complicated by multiple testing procedure routings, and multiple jobs.

The lab was run on a per Department basis with the microbiology lab, external pick-up and sampling, and general chemistry lab running in isolation. The sampling process planning was a scheduling activity covering a wide geographical region without any consideration to the loading on the lab. The result was the lab was under-utilised in the morning and staff under pressure & working overtime in the afternoon, due to short shelf life of the samples.

The scope included:

Developing a value stream map and process flow chart.
Auditing key equipment utilisation and identifying related operational issues.
Analysing job test records and finding and identifying a large portion of repeat jobs with labour times that could be used for forecast loadings.
Auditing existing sampling planning process to find a practice of copying past runs and repeating errors.
Validating key sampling records to determine key logistics information was not documented effectively and coordinate the development in a common database.
Developing a sales and operations planning process to improve visibility of the plan and resource loading and developing a cross-functional review to further refine the plan. The schedule developed included a traffic light system highlighting loading on key equipment or test procedures. This was a key impact outcome.
Develop a financial dashboard with key operational, HR and financial metrics.
Review and correct the operational hourly rate used for costings.
The project was extended to do an audit on another lab for a potential JV bid and identified broader opportunities and operational efficiencies for both Labs.

PACE Outcome Assessment.
Using a Problem, Assessment, Corrective Action, and End Results framework, the review of the project headlines are: