Operational improvement
Identifying and delivering optimisation across structure, processes and collaboration.
When you need this
Nothing is on fire. That is rather the point. This is work for businesses that are performing, and could perform considerably better:
- Costs are rising faster than revenue, and nobody can point to exactly where
- Teams are busy, but work stalls in the gaps between them
- The business is scaling and the processes that worked at half the size are creaking
- Acquired sites or teams each do the same thing in a different way
- A specific function, operations, service delivery, supply chain, is holding the rest of the business back
What Kernva does
The starting point is how work actually flows, which is a different thing from the org chart. Most operational cost sits in the handovers: the rework, the chasing, the decisions that wait a week for a meeting, the exception that four people touch.
The work typically covers:
- Structure. Whether the shape of the organisation matches the work it has to do, and where accountability goes missing
- Process. Mapping what really happens rather than what the procedure says, then removing the steps that add cost without adding value
- Collaboration. The interfaces between functions, where most friction lives and where almost nobody has clear ownership
- Measurement. A small number of measures that drive behaviour, replacing the dashboard nobody reads
- Embedding. Making the change stick, which means the team designing it, running it and owning it
This is where Henriette's engineering background does most of its work. Engineers are trained to look at a system and ask where the energy is being lost. It is a useful habit to bring to an operation.
How an engagement runs
Most engagements begin with a focused review of a defined area, typically four to eight weeks, producing a costed list of opportunities and a recommendation on sequencing. Some clients stop there and deliver it themselves.
Where Kernva delivers, it is usually one or two days a week over three to nine months, working alongside your team rather than in place of it. Scope can be a single workstream or a wider programme across several sites.
What changes
- Lower cost to serve, with the saving traceable to specific changes
- Shorter cycle times and less rework
- Clear ownership, so decisions stop waiting for a meeting
- Improvements that survive contact with the next busy quarter, because your team built them
16 years leading operations from front line to C-suite. P&L accountability across businesses up to £70m and 250 employees. PE-backed and public companies, UK, US and Europe, in heavily regulated environments.
Questions people ask
- How is this different from a Lean or Six Sigma programme?
- There is no methodology being sold here. Some of the tools overlap. The difference is that the work starts from what is costing you money and stops when that is fixed, rather than running a programme to its own timetable.
- Will this mean redundancies?
- Sometimes structure needs to change, and that will be said plainly rather than discovered late. Often the answer is redeploying capable people who are currently spending half their week on work that should not exist.
- How do we know it will stick?
- Because your team does the designing, and the measures and governance to hold it are part of the work rather than an afterthought.
Related services
Worth a conversation?
Thirty minutes, no charge, no pitch. If Kernva is not the right answer, we will let you know and also point you somewhere more useful if we can.