At ODI’s recent one-day conference where we celebrated 30 years of operational excellence, several companies from various industries presented their case studies of business excellence and shared their achievements.
- Len Hansen – Consultant at Astral Operations, presented: “My Journey with Organisational Development International (ODI) since 1991.”
- Esbe du Toit: Organisational Improvement Manager at Wispeco Aluminium, presented: “Celebrating Innovation … A snapshot of our journey towards world-class.”
- Theo van Strijp: Managing Director at GFC, presented: “Grain Field Chickens: Road to Excellence Award.”
- Forona Stephens: Human Resources Business Partner at GWK and her topic of discussion was: “Think Big, Start Small, Unlock Excellence.”
- Wouter Olivier Managing Director of Sondor Performance Foams, presented: “People are the Foundation to Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement.”
- Moemedi Merafhe: Strategy & Business Improvement Manager, Debswana Diamond Company and he spoke about : “MBA Lean Implementation Journey”
Our next speaker for the day was Nikki Moodley: Operations Improvement Executive, Astral Foods and her topic of discussion was “20 Keys… The Astral Way.”
Nikki Moodley delivered a most inspiring presentation at the ODI conference. She highlighted again that Continuous Improvement is a journey, and not a destination.
Nikki started off by giving a background of the structure of the Astral group.
The 20 Keys journey of Astral started in 1998. Since that time, 29 sites have been awarded Excellence status. This is quite an achievement, and a clear indication of how good these sites are with their own operations excellence.
Very good results have been seen through Keys 1, 16, 17 and 19, in particular.
Nikki spoke about the role of ODI in assisting Astral to identify needs through the different Keys.
Keys 1, 2, 3, 10 and 15 are a further foundation for all the Astral Continuous Improvement quarterly reports.
At Astral, they have split Keys into three different categories, and Key Mascots are used for extra energy:
- Expert
- Quality
- Integrity
At the farms, the 20 Keys model consists of 12 Keys. All the MBAs display the most important information needed, ensuring that everyone is always on track.
Another very important aspect of Continuous Improvement is to drive selected projects for improvement.
20 Keys certainly is a holistic approach, and serves as the umbrella for ALL other initiatives.
The ODI-Astral partnership has been a trusted and important relationship for many years. With the assistance of ODI, many successful SGAs are run as well.
ODI is also the approved provider on Astral learnerships, which further strengthens the capability of people.
Nikki ended her presentation with the well-known saying – I didn’t get this far to come this far!
Author: Huibie Jones: MD at ODI
To read more about ODI’s Continuous Operations Improvement System, click here.