Here’s why productivity is so important in such organisations:

• Increases profitability

By increasing productivity, an organisation can produce more output with the same resources, leading to higher profits.

• Enhances competitiveness

A productive organisation can respond quickly to changes in the market, and provide customers with a better experience, thus boosting its competitive advantage.

• Improves work-life balance

When employees are productive, they are able to complete tasks quickly and efficiently, freeing up time for other priorities, such as family and personal interests.

• Attracts and retains top talent

Productive organisations are attractive to top talent because they offer challenging work, growth opportunities, and a positive work environment.

• Increases innovation

By streamlining processes, an organisation can free up resources to invest in research and development, leading to new and innovative products and services.

To be productive, organisations need to focus on several key areas, including

• technology,

• training, and

• process improvement.

By investing in these areas, organisations can ensure that employees have the tools and skills they need to be productive, and that processes are streamlined and efficient.

Productivity is a crucial component of success for a world-class organisation. By maximizing efficiency and results, organisations can increase profitability, enhance competitiveness, improve work-life balance, attract and retain top talent, and drive innovation and growth.

Wanting to improve productivity in your organisation? ODI’s NQF5: Productivity comprises of 9 modules. It consists of one Management System Module, to create a common vision, and eight practical Modules, to make operations more competitive.

• Creates a common language for improvement.

• Utilises detailed checksheets, to depict the levels of improvement towards world class.

• Based on a proven methodology for sustainable business improvement.

To read more about this learnership, click here.

Author: Maryke Bergh: Senior Manager: Learning & Development

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Digistics (Pty) Ltd. offers Supply Chain Management and Value-Added Logistics Execution. They operate out of six Distribution Centres in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg and has become a significant player in leading multi-temperature distribution operations throughout South Africa.

Digistics’ journey began in 1995, when ASP Distributors (Pty) Ltd opened up in South Africa, in partnership with Spar. With a national infrastructure, ASP pioneered multi-temperature distribution within the South African Quick Service Restaurant industry.

A management buy-out in 2003 led to the establishment of Digistics (Pty) Ltd. With an aggressive growth plan, the company secured a number of new, long-standing contracts.

Due to significant growth over a short space of time, the decision was made to bring a partner on board. 51% of the shares was sold to Super Group Holdings in 2012, making the business a Super Group subsidiary company. In 2017, Super Group bought out the balance of the remaining shareholding.

It is said that people are an asset; Digistics believes that everything revolves around people. In order to do what they do, Digistics need leaders to build a best-in-class customer-focused business. They do have those leaders on their team. You will find leadership at every level, and each employee in their team of more than 795 makes decisions every day to put their customers’ businesses first.

Striving for world-class supply chain management and operations excellence, Digistics enrolled members of staff to complete ODI’s NQF3, 4 and 5 Generic Management Learnerships facilitated by Mbali Tshabalala, Michael Foxon and Maryke Bergh.

Learners were welcomed by their HR Executive – Cheryl Farley.

ODI’s Mbali Tshabalala, facilitated the NQF3 Generic Management group of learners.

Micheal Foxon facilitated the NQF4 Generic Management group of learners.

Maryke Bergh facilitated the NQF5 Generic Management group of learners.

The learnerships offered by ODI are carefully selected, to support companies on their journey of Continuous Improvement. To find out how ODI can help your Continuous Improvement initiative, contact us, by clicking here.

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Organisations in South Africa used to be quite safe, and operated in a fairly predictable environment, before the political transformation of 1994. Many industries were protected by government regulations. Since the transformation, South Africa has, however, been forced into a jungle of international competition.  Restructuring, improved business processes ,and enhanced customer service have become the order of the day. In this new environment, the scenario of “only the fittest will survive” becomes the order of the day. The problem for South Africa was and is, however, that neither management nor employees were prepared for this change. Suddenly, transformation, business processes re-engineering, increased productivity, and effectiveness became daily buzzwords.

We now find ourselves in a totally different kind of a jungle – one of isolation and social distancing. The situation that we are facing right now is described by some as the gravest kind. As business people we do (and we should), however, realise that over a period of a few decades, there will inevitably be major challenges to overcome. This surely then tells us that we should be prepared for such inevitable challenges, and we should not operate within a horizon of short-term goals.

When I first studied the impact of the 20 Keys programme almost 20 years ago, I realised then how the holistic nature of the 20 Keys programme would support companies who are willing to take a long-term view. Many single-focused initiatives, although useful in themselves, lack the lateral support necessary to achieve long-term, sustainable business success. The 20 Keys programme attempts to integrate all initiatives, in order to create a solid platform to operate from. Once you have a solid platform to operate from, your ability to adapt to a changing environment becomes far more sustainable. The ability to adapt will ultimately predict future success.

Over the last two decades of facilitating and consulting on Continuous Improvement, I would often refer to the fact that a real world-class company will have the ability to start manufacturing or producing a product or service totally different to what they did just a month before.  All of a sudden, we see it happening all around us. Examples include:

• Going from selling swimwear, to delivering fresh produce.
• From manufacturing household appliances, to suddenly producing ventilators; changes that would normally require months of preparation,

Hardly a day goes by where one does not see the innovative abilities of companies.

The 5-Level benchmarking system of the 20 Keys programme gives any company a clear insight into where they find themselves.  At any given time, it will pinpoint the strengths of a company’s foundation, and what they should strive to do going forward. The higher a company’s score is, the easier it will be for them to adapt to changes. The 5 Levels are briefly described as follows:

LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE SUCCESS

Over the years, I have heard people say that the 20 Keys programme is too big to manage. This certainly is not the case, if your view includes long-term, sustainable success. Within the 20 Keys programme, there is a time for quick wins, and a time for building a long-term foundation. The long-term view relies on a company getting all the basic things right; those things we know we should be doing, but often neglect, while also spending time on innovation and quick wins. We see again now that nothing is more important than building a strong foundation for lasting success.

When I reflect on the holistic nature of the 20 Keys programme, it reminds me of Stephen Covey’s Time Management matrix. The 20 Keys open our eyes to the important “management” quadrant, where the actions that are Important but not Urgent lie.

One only needs to look at the essence of the 20 Keys programme, to realise that it speaks to the heart of survival for any organisation. The aims and objectives are to:

• Achieve the strategic goals of the business.
• Improve the speed of learning and innovation of the business and improve the productivity and flexibility of the organisation, to adapt more readily to changing market requirements.
• Eliminate all forms of waste (non-value adding activities), to improve customer satisfaction and market share, by making products and services better, faster, and cheaper.
• Energise and motivate employees to work towards achievement of the goals of the business
• Improve competitiveness, profitability, and long-term sustainable business success

At ODI, we have taken this time of isolation to reflect again on what is important. It is easy to list the many urgent things, and to let that distract you from what is important.

We encourage all businesses to focus on the long-term; to build a foundation in your company that will stand you in good stead during the good and the bad times.

Author: Huibie Jones: MD at ODI

Over the period of its existence ODI has successfully implemented continuous business improvement principles in a wide variety of industries.  We have developed a systematic improvement framework for a number of clients, to guide their improvement drive globally, using examples relevant to their industry and company, and also using the clients’ look and feel. To read more about ODI’s Continuous Operations Improvement System, click here.

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1. Len Hansen – Consultant at Astral Operations, presented: “My Journey with Organisational Development International (ODI) since 1991.”
2. Esbe du Toit: Organisational Improvement Manager at Wispeco Aluminium, presented: “Celebrating Innovation … A snapshot of our journey towards world-class.”
3. Theo van Strijp: Managing Director at GFC, presented: “Grain Field Chickens: Road to Excellence Award.”
4. Forona Stephens: Human Resources Business Partner at GWK and her topic of discussion was: “Think Big, Start Small, Unlock Excellence.”
5. Wouter Olivier Managing Director of Sondor Performance Foams, presented: “People are the Foundation to Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement.”
6. 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:

1. Expert
2. Quality
3. 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.

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